Your favorite songs on WFY

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

1. Welcome To Try
2. Only Love Would Know
3. Drink Yer Glasses Empty
4. Restless
5. Ring Them Bells
6. Waiting For You
7. I'd Rather Press On
8. I'll Prove My Love
9. Wild Strawberries
10.Fading Away

[TC]

Currently, I think "Ring them Bells" is my number 1 choice. I know it's not Gord's but I'm a big Dylan fan too so it kind of kills two birds with one stone.

TC

[brink-]

1. Restless
2. Drink Yer Glasses Empty
3. Ring them Bells
4. Waiting for You
5. I'd Rather Press On
6. Fading Away
7. I'll Prove My Love
8-10 tie for last or 8th.

[Jesse Joe]

My favorite song on, "Waiting For You" has always been, "Restless." I always like to see him do it live...~Jesse~

[Kelly Davis]

1. I'll Prove My Love (just beautiful!!!)
2. Waiting For You (I love to 'crank it'!)
3. Restless

This has actually become one of my favorite albums, so I really have a hard time choosing favorites, but these always stand out.

[joveski]

only love would know
waiting for you
i'd rather press on

[seafarer62]

For about six years between 1986-1992, we weren't even sure Gord was going to do another album, so "Waiting For You" was highly anticipated. Very consistent album. The only real complaint I have about the album is with the mix. Whenever I play it, I have to crank the volume to appreciate the vocals, particularly with Restless and Ring Them Bells.

My favorites are: Ring Them Bells and the title track. However, I always have felt that "Drink Yer Glasses Empty" has been a vastly underrated song. I saw Gord perform that song solo a couple of times as the first song of the second set and it was outstanding. He said in concert that the song was written in the middle of the night after watching CNN during the first Gulf War.

To me, the weaker songs on the album are:

Fading Away (Sorry member: Fading Away)
Welcome To Try
Wild Strawberries

No torching allowed !!

John/ MN

[Yuri]

I too found the mix on WFY to be lacking. I found the production more "tinny" or thin but over time I found myself not noticing this as much. Love it as I love all of Gord's works!
Favorite song has to be 'Restless'!

Yuri

[Cathy]

My favorite is Drink Yer Glasses Empty. I would love to see him perform it solo in concert!

[RM]

Originally posted by seafarer62:
The only real complaint I have about the album is with the mix. Whenever I play it, I have to crank the volume to appreciate the vocals, particularly with Restless and Ring Them Bells.

To me, the weaker songs on the album are:

Fading Away (Sorry member: Fading Away)
Welcome To Try
Wild Strawberries

No torching allowed !!

John/ MN

Okay....I'll put my unlit torch down. I do agree with your assessment of the mix. I really like Fading Away, but it definitely suffers from the mix quality. If not for the included lyrics, I probably wouldn't understand half the words.

[Don Quixote]

1. Restless
1.a. Drink Yer Glasses Empty
3. Only Love Would Know
4. Wild Strawberries
5. Waiting for You
6. Ring them Bells
7. I'd Rather Press On
8. Welcome to Try
9. Fading Away
10. I'll Prove My Love

1. Great song; combines GL's common themes of nature and love. Shows him at a maturing time of life, still restless and wanting to be the roaming minstrel (perhaps with the roaming eye as well), but more settled and always pulled back by the tug of home and family ("I can feel the restless yearning of those geese as off they roam/Then trade that for a warm bed in a place I can call home.") I seem to recall, vaguely, a Phil Ochs song that also used a flock of geese as the inspiration for musings on this kind of theme; was it called something like "The Final Song of My Returning?
1.a. Fabulous song, would be #1, with one glaring problem--the refrain, "There's one less cause in the world to be leaving for"--it's kind of a clunky verse, ends in a preposition, and what exactly does it mean? The rest of the song is marvelous.
3. Only Love Would Know--although his voice is strained at times, I love the Push-Pull of the music and the words, the tension and uncertainty, and some of the lyrics are top-flight ("My imagination/Tells me I'm a pent-up fool/In the deep end of the pool").
4. Wild Strawberries. How could you not like a song that has "polka-dot underwear" in it? As I've mentioned in another post, I like the duality of the song--daily grind, everyday worries, "world on the slide", "when does the fun begin?", juxtaposed with the fantasies of escaping to a world of freedom--out in nature, picking strawberries and crabapples, escaping on any form of transportation--boat, plane, all the way to a "rainbow ride".
5. The title track has a lot to offer; it's a big song, big vision, wide-open-spaces Canada. There's not much closure to it, however ("Waiting for you to say 'Let us begin'"). Good, rather than great song.
6. Good Dylan song, nicely done. Since it's not a GL original, I'll put it at the beginning of the second tier.
7. I'd Rather Press On--I like the melody, and it starts out well. There is some clunky and forced phrasing, however (too many syllables on "Have it any way you will", for example).
8. Welcome to Try--Quite autobiographical, but not very melodic, and the end is downright jarring and a bit screechy ("If they want to preach..."). OK song, but not one I'd play more than once in a row.
9. Fading Away--I don't mind the more "rocking sound", actually love the electric guitar riffs. Could be 7, 8, or 9 interchangeably with the two above it.
10. I never really connected to this song (I'm sure B'stone is ready to strangle me); it seems kind of generic and syrupy, a variation on "ain't no mountain high enough" or even "I will follow him /he is my destiny" from the early '60s ("there isn't an ocean so deep/A mountain so high it keep me away"). It's too generic and vague in its expression. ("I will prove my love to you/In everything I say and in all I do"--like what, for instance? Compare it to a song with a similar theme, such as "Whisper my Name", and I think you'll see that the latter is a much better song. "I'll Prove My Love" is the one song I sometimes skip on a CD I otherwise truly enjoy.

Those are my takes; feel free to disagree.
DQ

[ September 20, 2006, 12:49: Message edited by: Don Quixote ]

[Sydney Steve]

A feature of the responses to these types of questions is how typical it is that people skirt around the obvious.
Ask a Corfider the best song on "Summertime Dream" and very few will come up with the Wreck.

Sort of what is your favourite number?
Response: 347 :D :D

How is this relevant? Well Waiting For you is the track that rocks on this album. 2nd for me would be Drink Your Glasses Empty and 3rd I'll Prove my Love -(which by the way is the real mans answer to that sycophantically nauseating/ do nothing track otherwise known as "Beautiful"**
(Not words - "I'm telling you your beautiful" but actions" I'll Prove my Love to You "

** Hopes Char does not read this post or he will be excommunicated :D

Oh 2 afterthoughts: 1 Restless is a close 4th and more importantly to support my view on Waiting For You: I reckon it is no coincidence that Waiting For You is used as the next song in the DVD at Reno after the Wreck. I would argue Gord would want what he felt to be a strong song to follow the Wreck otherwise it would not flow properly and would be a low spot. There is no bigger recommendation of a song than to be played after the Wreck IMO.

[ September 22, 2006, 15:25: Message edited by: Sydney Steve ]