Pirates (album)

Recording

Initial recording for Pirates began in January 1980, with the live recordings for "Skeletons" and "The Returns" from January 30 from these sessions kept on the final album. In the same month, Jones picked up a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood with five songs, which were recorded and arranged in a two-month spurt in early 1980 before Jones was given an extended break for further writing. Album sessions reconvened in November 1980 and concluded in April 1981, three months before the album release.

All songs were copyrighted on June 9, 1980, as well as “Hey Bub,” which was omitted from the album release, except for “Living It Up” and “Traces of the Western Slopes,” copyrighted in July 1981, at the time of the album release.

Overview

Jones relocated to New York City after her split from Tom Waits, and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey, whom she had met in Venice, California in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village. Bernardi, who had been referenced in the lyrics to "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from her debut, was to become a frequent collaborator with Jones, and they composed the epic eight-minute suite "Traces of the Western Slopes" together.

Jones started writing the first songs from the album - "Hey Bub" (unreleased until 1983), "We Belong Together" and "Pirates" - in the autumn of 1979.

Elsewhere, the music on Pirates is often cinematic, with influences ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Bruce Springsteen and Laura Nyro. The album is more musically ambitious than its predecessor, and explores elements of jazz, R&B, bebop, pop and Broadway, with multiple changes in tempo and mood within most songs.

Critical reception

Pirates was well received by most critics achieving a five-star rating in Rolling Stone, which featured Jones for a second time on the cover of the August 6, 1981, issue. The album also became a Top 5 US chart success and remained on the UK album charts for three months without the aid of a major hit single.

Stephen Holden writing in Rolling Stone concluded his review by saying "[i]t's Rickie Lee Jones' voice that carries Pirates to the stars and makes her whole crazy vision not only comprehensible but compulsive, compelling and as welcome as Christmas in July."

In recent years, Pirates' reputation has grown considerably, with British-based music magazine Word magazine proclaiming it as one of pop music's 25 Most Underrated Albums of All Time in 2005.

Songs

All songs written and composed by Rickie Lee Jones, excepted when noted:

"We Belong Together"
Here, Jones appears to lament the end of her relationship with Waits, populating her narrative with intriguing bohemian characters such as Johnny the King. The song also references movie icons Marlon Brando and Natalie Wood. Jones plays an elegant piano melody with the arrangement building around her.

"Living It Up"
One of the last songs recorded for Pirates, "Living It Up" details the lives of a succession of bohemian street characters, with Jones introducing Louie, Eddie, and the down-and-out teenage domestic violence victim Zero. Jones' jaunty piano melody is embellished by sweeps of orchestration, lavish vocal harmonies, and tempo changes.

"Skeletons"
Along with "The Returns," the first song to be recorded for the album on January 30, 1980. The song delivered solo on piano with a string arrangement, is based on the true story of a man who, in a case of mistaken identity, was killed by police in Los Angeles while taking his wife to hospital to give birth.

"Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish)
Co-written with David Kalish, this is a bebop tribute to 1950s R&B icons, with a finger-snapping guitar riff and an in-studio male vocal chorus. It is one of the album's most upbeat songs and one of the few not to feature significant tempo/rhythm changes. The rhythm of the song is driven by a funk style bass line played by Chuck Rainey and percussion boxes and thighs played by Steve Gadd.

"Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)"
Another ode to Waits, this references "rainbow sleeves" in its lyrics; Waits' song "Rainbow Sleeves" was later to be recorded by Jones on her EP album Girl at Her Volcano. The song begins jauntily with a jazz horn melody before the horns fade out, making a return for the coda.

"A Lucky Guy"
Along with "The Returns," perhaps the album's simplest song musically, here Jones appears jealous of Waits' apparent ease to get on with life at the end of the relationship ("he's a lucky guy/he doesn't worry about me when I'm gone.")

"Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones)
Co-written with then-boyfriend Sal Bernardi, this is an eight-minute epic again detailing bohemian nightlife and referencing Edgar Allan Poe.

"The Returns"
A soft, simple ending delivered solo on piano with string arrangement, much like the closer to the previous album, "After Hours." It is also the album's shortest composition.

Track listing

1. "We Belong Together" 4:59
2. "Living It Up" 6:23
3. "Skeletons" 3:37
4. "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish) 5:15
5. "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" 3:50
6. "A Lucky Guy" 4:14
7. "Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones) 8:00
8. "The Returns" 2:20

Personnel

Charts

Album

Singles - Billboard