Songs for a Blue Guitar

This album really is a Mark Kozelek solo album and because of legal complications the album can be quite hard to get hold of. Hence why the album is only available from third part sellers. It is worth worth getting not just because it is a great album but it must be one of the best mastered albums I have heard.

Okay.

It's a great album- but the pressing was warped!

Being a fairly new convert to the RHP, my first RHP album was Ocean Beach, and it remains my favourite - perhaps for that reason. Songs for a Blue Guitar was a more recent acquisition – I’ve only had it about two years... and it’s still growing on me.I love the haunting nature of much of Mark Kozeleks work, the way he can make you pine for something elusive or unknown. Many of his songs are simultaneously sad and yet uplifting. It’s the quality and tone of his voice I guess – and he does a great job of getting this across on this album. For me, the key tracks are Have You Forgotten, Songs for a Blue Guitar, All Mixed Up, Revelation Big Sur, Silly Love Songs, and Another Song for a Blue Guitar. Make Like Paper is obviously a favourite for many also (based on how the crowd reacted at the Islington gig in June 2005).Overall, I guess I rate this album nearly as highly as Ocean Beach - and it's up there next to the Sun Kil Moon (Ghosts of the Great Highway).

the red house painters don't embrace joy very well. these collection of tracks seem to inspire melancholy and pain but they are deeply affecting non the less. an eclectic mixture of blues, complaint rock and mark kozelek's sour voice, songs for a blue guitar is most succesful in its cover version - have you forgotten and all mixed up. both songs leave me drained and elated and oddly moved... much like the album itself and the emotions it evokes.