Ward describes a man who has a “big boat” and he isn’t using that as sexual innuendo, he’s talking about arrogance and people exaggerating their accomplishments. Every time I hear the song, I think about Sam from Casablanca, smiling as h[e croons a beautiful song on his piano in Rick’s Café Américain. Big Boat is simply a party, with a piano melody that throws down a feel that no one has used for years. It is an album of the pure love of music, stories, and anything resembling honesty and humility. “The concept was simply to try to recreate a feeling that I had when I was younger and first discovering radio - it was magical and beyond comprehension.” The chord progression is so obviously Bach, but Ward manages to complete change the song to make a different atmosphere, mainly because he plays the melody on guitar. Ward achieves this with the use of one guitar and some background organ laying out the chords for him. But as far as blurring the lines goes, the album closer Well-Tempered Clavier shows Ward’s ability to make anything his own. He starts hallucinating and going insane, a true story song, an art that has been lost through time. It envisions a night in Washington where Ward cannot sleep. Lyrically, the song draws many references to Shel Silverstein’s 25 Minutes to Go, which Johnny Cash made famous on the At Folsom Prison album. Tribal percussion and Ward’s chant like vocals add more to the chaotic concoction that Four Hours in Washington creates. Four Hours in Washington pulls in an upbeat-centric guitar line with a dark bassline that does nothing to accentuate the guitar line. Ward lives up to his words, as he blurs many lines of genres with Transistor Radio. "I think it's the artist's job to blur the lines." Hi-Fi is fun and immediately accessible, as well as one of the best on the album. The song is midtempo with a simple but great chord progression and plenty of clean guitar licks to make things interesting, played as though the band is sitting in paradise. The lyrics are slurred but catchy as Ward singing into his falsetto when he sings the title. Still, the album doesn’t really get going until Hi-Fi, which brings in a full backing band. One Life Away is almost like a second introduction, envisioning what Ward would sound like played through a transistor radio. Still, it is sweet and simple, setting a mood and atmosphere that pulls the listener into the album immediately. It surely does not draw images of California. It’s hard to imagine this as originally a Beach Boys song the melodies are almost classical sounding. With that final line, what better way to kick off the album than a guitar instrumental cover of The Beach Boys’ You Still Believe in Me. We all have a love for simplicity in writing.” “Conor invited Jim and me to play this Free Tibet show at Carnegie Hall and it went really well. Ward describes his technique and the style of this album best when he explains chemistry between him and his good friend Conor Oberst. Louis Armstrong’s commercial era, The Beach Boys, and Billie Holliday all put their influence into the album. The whole concept of the album was to look back to when radio was real, when there were real DJs playing the music they loved, inherently giving more variety to the songs played. But that’s not the only influence that reaches Transistor Radio. Ward is just like them, bringing his guitar and sometimes a small backing band and singing into the microphone. The list continues, including Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, and so many other country singers. Like listening to the Grand Ole Opry that featured upcoming country artists in its prime, bringing Johnny Cash to prominence as well as helping him meet his future wife, June Carter. I think he may be obsessed with the looking into the past, as Transistor Radio is just as vintage and nostalgic. Ward, with him looking at 40s and 50s music for inspiration. I thought that maybe Post-War was just an experiment for M. It just so happens that Ward is heavily influenced by artists of a generation before us. Ward not taking a look at a general time period, but a tribute to everyone and everything that influenced him.
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