Whistling While The World Turns
purchase | track
listing | sleeve notes | lyrics
| reviews
Release date: June 16, 2000
Running time: 56 minutes, 10 seconds
Package includes picture disc CD, lyric booklet & picture sleeve
Catalogue number: lenincd001
To hear official MP3 versions of Big Yellow Moon and Sunny Bungalows, visit
Bill Nelson's MP3.com page.
US and Worldwide: Amazon.com
UK: Lenin Imports, 5 High Street, London SE25 6EP, United Kingdom, Tel: (020)-8653-0926, Fax: (020)-8653-4359 - e-mail: lenin@netcomuk.co.uk
New, as of August 3, 2000 - Big Yellow Moon is now available in the form of a MP3 "single" - and you can help promote this song at your local radio station - find out how by clicking here.
New, as of June 29, 2000 - a note from Bill Nelson regarding the nature of this release
What's your favorite songs on Whistling While The World Turns? Take a Poll.
"All songs composed, performed and recorded by Bill Nelson at various intervals between 1990 and 1998.
All these tracks, which have previously been unreleased, were created entirely by hand at home. No computers were used in the making of this music.
Visual concept: Bill Nelson. Artwork: Bill Nelson, 2000. Design: Osmosis
Album mastered by John Spence at Fairview Music, Willerby, Hull, UK
Eternal gratitude to Richard Chadwick at Opium (Arts) Ltd for his continued support.
Much love to Emiko, Elle, Elliot, and Julia Nelson
Bill Nelson is represented by Opium (Arts) Ltd, Fax (44) 020-7229-4841
For information and news about Bill Nelson's work contact the Bill Nelson website, 'Permanent Flame' http://www.billnelson.com
Another sound product from the Rosebud Recording Company
Titles published by Complete Music, 2000
Copyright is owned by Bill Nelson, 2000
Released and distributed by Lenin Imports, 2000 (leninbncd1)
Dreamland Avenue
Cool kid future blows the blues,
Pays his dues, bamboozled and bedazzled...
Same old cock-a-doodle doo,
Circus drums and bally-hoo,
Ghosts and angels passing thru'...
Same old Dreamland Avenue...
Sweet suburban world of wonders
Sparks and thunders
Static electricity...
Venus hovers, bless the weather
Maybe now or maybe
Never what it seems...
Same old avenue of dreams...
Illuminated windows, glow and flicker
Human television,
Curtain calls and superstition...
Golden moments, gone forever...
Pulling punches, boxing clever,
Gone forever...
Old man future blows the blues,
Pays his dues, bamboozled and bedazzled...
Same old cock-a-doodle doo,
Circus drums and bally-hoo,
Ghosts and angels passing thru'...
Same old Dreamland Avenue...
Dreamland Avenue
*
The Boy Who Learned Everything
Somebody stole my dreams away,
Somebody turned my blue to grey,
Nothin' lasts forever, so they say,
Somebody blew my mind today, hey...
Turn the lights on, I'm feeling headstrong,
Turns the lights on, c'mon, c'mon, get it on...
Meanwhile, back on earth,
Some things never change
That old familiar devil moon,
Waxing strange
Panorama windows, open wide
Twilight roses, cut and dried
Somebody led my thoughts astray, hey...
She said, you know honey,
That's not the way we play...
I stand corrected, come what may...
Turn the lights on, I'm feeling headstrong,
Turns the lights on, c'mon, c'mon, get it on..
Somebody blew my mind today
Somebody stole my dreams away,
Meanwhile, back on earth,
Some things never change
That old familiar devil moon,
Waxing strange
Panorama windows, open wide
Twilight roses, cool and fresh, cut and dried
Somebody blew my mind today
Somebody stole my dreams,
Away
*
Big Yellow Moon
Over yonder, above the river
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Smiling down on me, lost forever under
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Twilight bells are calling me away
Starlight chimes and climbs to close the day...
Sunday evening, we were dreaming under
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Stealing kisses, making wishes on our
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Brave and bold in fields of gold we lay...
Sailing beautiful boats of dreams
Across the milky way...
We were older, and we were younger
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
The weather changed and stole our thunder
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Fields of gold soon turned to endless grey
Twilight falls and fades the years away
Over yonder, above the river, there's a
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Smiling down on me, lost here forever under
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Twilight bells are calling me away
Twilight falls and calls the close the day...
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
Big yellow moon, big yellow moon
*
Sunny Bungalows
Something cool comin' down the wire tonight...
Something strange ringing in my ear...
I hear her singing in some far farfisa wonderland,
I hear her calling but sometimes it's hard to understand,
Something blue way beyond the stars tonight,
Something clear, shining everywhere...
I dream of hovercars and old transistor radios,
She dreams of flowers in a field of sunny bungalows...
Rise and shine, time to make a miracle...
Big sky mind, comin' down the line...
Okay-dokay
Whistling While The World Turns - "A fabulous hat is on my mind but not yet on my head."
Whistling While The World Turns is a companion CD to the Noise Candy limited edition six CD boxset.
For news of further planned Bill Nelson limited edition releases by Lenin Imports, visit their website at http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~lenin/BILLNELSON.html
Or send SAE/IRC (2) to:
Lenin Imports, 5 High Street, London, SE25 6EP, United Kingdom, Tel (44) 020-8653-0926 or
Fax (44) 020-8653-4359, or email lenin@netcomuk.co.uk
From Q: February 2001 issue.
Review by Ian Gittins;
Bill Nelson: Whistling While The World Turns
Lenin LENINBNCD 1
Veteran Be Bop Deluxe guitarist beams back from cyberspace.
Bill Nelson is one of those peripheral and vaguely disenfranchised figures who was tapping his fingers and waiting for the internet to happen 20 years ago. Too marginal for
the major labels, Nelson now releases solely via the web, and Whistling While The World Turns gathers together material he's composed over the last decade. It's dated at
times - Manipulate The Phonograph conjures up Cabaret Voltaire, and The Boy Who Learned Everything suggests Japan's remote synth-pop - but Nelson's
tangential, glancing vision remains intact, and Dreamland Avenue and Ghosts Of Invisible Things in particular radiate a rare, oddly innocent beauty. Available from
www.netcomuk.co.uk/~lenin.
(3 stars out of 5. Good)
---------------------
THE WIRE
October 2000 Issue
Page: 80 in the 'IN BRIEF avant rock' section.
Reviewed by David Keenan
BILL NELSON Whistling While The World Turns
LENIN IMPORTS
LENINBN1 CD
"The cult of self-styled English guitar god Bill Nelson is a tough one to figure out. In the late 60s and 70s, he recorded such montrous platters as
Gagalactyca and Astral Navigations at Holyground studio, Wakefield, ensuring his status among collector-musicians like Keiji Haino and Nanjo Asahito. But
Nelson has long been dismissive of that period. Most people know him through Be Bop Deluxe, who married subtle flashes of Hendrix-styled flash with
lashings of synthtones, phasing and Echoplex. Yet there was something so tackily teenage and Athena-posterish about that group, their records only
ever seemed to turn up at your local library's clearance sale. Mercifully bereft of 80s nightmare imagery, Whistling While The World Turns consists of unreleased solo recordings from 1990-1998. While some of the technology sounds embarrassingly quaint and out of date, there are points where Nelson's
voice and guitar mingle so deliciously that it almost fulfils the whimiscal promise of its title."
David Keenan
----------------------
RECORD COLLECTOR
October 2000
Page 157
There is a rather poor quality black & white shot of the album cover.
BILL NELSON
Whistling While The World Turns
Lenin Imports
LENINBNCD 1 (56:10)
The hyper-prolific Nelson has a six disc box-set on the horizon, and this is its companion piece. Comprising unreleased material recorded between 1990 and
1998, it shows Bill's work in all lights, from intricately arranged pieces to
gentle ambient soundscapes and lightweight drum'n'bass. Standout track,
"Big Yellow Moon", sees a return to traditional songwriting in a dreamy slide
guitar-based tune, reminiscent of Eno's "Everything Merges With The Night". Apart from the hammy use of samples here and there, this is Bill's most
interesting and commercial release for quite a while. That box suddenly looks more tempting.
Trevor King.
back to the Start page