One Nation Underground by Pearls Before Swine (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: One Nation Underground

Group name: Pearls Before Swine

Year: 1967

Number of discs: one

Label: ESP-Disk

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: my father

Buy it on Amazon: $39.00

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m not specifically familiar with this Pearls Before Swine record, but it is the third that I will have reviewed from my father’s collection. The previous two were:

These Things Too (1969): 2/5

The Use of Ashes (1970): 4/5

What I expected

Psychedelic folk.

What it was actually like

This did remind me a lot of the other Pearls Before Swine records, though I’m not sure if it’s the voice or the unusual meeting of folk style and psychedelia, but Another Time was a representative example of a pretty simple melody that felt trippy and still stripped down.

A bunch of songs on this record also evoked Bob Dylan, and I was sure it was intentional, but it was subtle enough not to be obtrusive. Playmate had some very Dylan-sounding vocals and an organ, and it was pretty lively and I thought it was outstanding.

Uncle John was more of a rock song, also with an organ, and also reminded me of Dylan, and I thought it could have been an outtake from Bringing It All Back Home. Drop Out! was the closest to rock on the record.

Ballad to an Amber Lady was more wistful sounding, like many of the songs on These Things Too, and I Shall Not Care started out that way, and then turned into psychedelic rock.

Morning Song had a droning psychedelic sound, which I think was the autoharp, with banjo, which was pretty interesting, and The Surrealist Waltz was sort of dirge-like, with marching drums and the weirdest vocals.

Regions of May seemed the most like something I would listen to when trying to fall asleep, and was the only song that I did not really enjoy.

(Oh Dear) Miss Morse was an ode to Morse code, of course, and was the most self consciously weird song. Frankly, if I were going to recommend a Morse code song, I would definitely go with The Rhythm of the Code.

Grade

4/5: interesting, but not for me