Music in 1974: The Album "Crime of the Century" by Supertramp
Review
Supertramp’s therapy session Crime of the Century gets some things off the chest, but unlike a psychologist, does not have straightforward advice.
It is a negative album about the cracks in the system and the world. It pleads for the world to not go down on the final curtain. Sometimes, the tune is done with humor and tongue planted in cheek, sometimes like an epic musical statement. The album plays like a stage musical around the story and theme of what we have inherited, the cracks in the system, that breeds 'cracked' up people who are looking for soul.
Track one is thought provoking as it lays down the malaise. Our protagonist is full of doubt. What does it all mean, this thing called life? Without a center of direction? Without the guide?
On track two, get it all off your chest, but if anyone really cares. Trying to work this thing called life out, on track three. Let me know if I can help you, but I’m in need myself.
Then there is the guy who does not want to be locked up in the asylum, but not quite right himself.
I’m telling you I need some time, on track six, I’ve wasted too many hours, but I’ve left what it’s all about too late, what a sad man I am. Played it too cool.
The stage of the world’s fell apart, what have we done to the world is tragedy. But don’t let the final curtain comes down just yet, there’s got to be something worth living for.
On this album solutions are sparse, but there are various voices who claim they have the answers--but our protagonists on Crime of the Century don't know who to believe.
I found the album did not resound that much, but I gave it a chance, and it grew on me like an infection. Yet I still am not quite fully on board.
Christian Perspective
The big commercial song on the album Dreamer is a song for the visionaries who cast their dreams down for us, who have a plan for us.
The song is a tongue in cheek take on all the dreamers in the world. Because dreaming is pigs might fly, and you only have yourself to blame if the dream goes westward. There is a truth to that, in that dreams don’t always work out the way we planned.
Apply it spiritually, and there are always dreamers and visionaries, some are right, some are wrong. In the Bible, there are false prophets and God’s prophets, we can side with the right one, and that’s God’s prophet.
God’s prophets get rejected by many who listen to the false prophets and the dreamers who say everything will be all right. But it is not all right. And that is the beauty of this song: things are not all right, and dreams can often fill us with fanciful ideas that give us a false sense of hope. But the visionary who is telling us the truth is guiding us on the right path.
In the Bible, there are God’s prophets, who are not the ones who say life will be comfortable, when judgment is coming. But you should turn from your sins. Some voices are barking us up the wrong tree, but we can trust the Lord, and his sound teachings, wherever he may appear in the world.
Producer Ken Scott, Supertramp. Released October 25, 1974
© 2024 Peter Veugelaers
