''Welcome to the Cruel World'' is

Ben Harper Benjamin Chase Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live perfo ...

's debut album from

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. Released in 1994, the album established Harper as a popular

folk musician Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...

in the

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

area. After this release, Harper went on to add a permanent backing band, the Innocent Criminals, although they remained unnamed until the '' Burn to Shine'' album. The song "I'll Rise" is based on a 1978

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

poem "And Still I Rise".

Track listing

All songs written by Ben Harper except as noted. #"The Three of Us" – 2:35 #"Whipping Boy" (

Chris Darrow Christopher Lloyd Darrow (July 30, 1944 – January 15, 2020) was an American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. He was considered to be a pioneer of country rock music in the late-1960s and performed and recorded with numerous groups, ...

) – 5:31 #"Breakin' Down" (Harper, music: Jean-Pierre Plunier) – 4:00 #"Don't Take That Attitude to Your Grave" – 4:25 #"Waiting on an Angel" – 3:53 #"Mama's Got a Girlfriend Now" – 2:29 #"Forever" – 3:23 #"Like a King" – 4:18 #"Pleasure and Pain" – 3:44 #"Walk Away" – 3:49 #"How Many Miles Must We March" – 3:07 #"Welcome to the Cruel World" – 5:36 #"I'll Rise" (lyrics:

; music: Harper) – 3:35 #* Contains the

hidden track In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes called a ghost track, secret track or unlisted track) is a song or a piece of audio that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record, or other recorded medium, in such a way as t ...

" ...By and By I'm Going to See the King" (

Blind Willie Johnson Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "ch ...

) – 0:30 #* "Remember - unreleased version (bonus track) - 2:49

Personnel

;Music credits *Ben Harper -

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

, acoustic guitar, Weissenborn guitar, dobro *Richard Cook -

Uillean pipes The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their ...

on "Pleasure and Pain" *Rock Deadrick -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, backing vocals *Tom Freund *Suzie Katayama -

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

on "Pleasure and Pain" *John McKnight -

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

on "Mama's Got a Girlfriend Now" *Tommy D. Daugherty - drum programming *Gail Deadrick - piano on "I'll Rise" *Clabe Hangan, Clarence Butler, John Taylor, Kenneth McDaniel, Clyde Allen, Jelanie Jones, Kevin Williams - backing vocals ;Production credits *Producers: Ben Harper, J.P. Plunier *Associate producer: Jeff Gottlieb, Mikal Reid *Engineer: Mikal Reid *Assistant engineer: Bradley Cook *Mixing: Mikal Reid *Mastering: Eddy Schreyer *Advisor: Ben Elder *Art direction: Tom Dolan, J.P. Plunier *Research: Ben Elder *Photography: Jeff Gottlieb

Charts

Certifications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Welcome to the Cruel World Ben Harper albums 1994 debut albums Virgin Records albums