Nolan & Wakeman – Jabberwocky

Usually, when you’ve just bought a new CD, when you play it the first time you only listen to the music. The second time, you take a look at the lyrics in the booklet. With Jabberwocky, both music and lyrics are special at first sight and they reinforce each other. That’s why this review looks at both aspects of this special album.

Jabberwocky is a project by Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman, son of ex-Yes keyboardplayer Rick Wakeman, who’s also featured on the album. Rick Wakeman provides the narration of the poem before and in between the songs.
Besides Nolan and the Wakemans many other well-known names feature on the album. Peter Banks (also ex-Yes) is present on guitar, as well as Ian Salmon (Shadowland), Tony Fernandez (Rick Wakeman-band) plays drums and Peter Gee (Pendragon) and John Jeary (Threshold) handle the basses. The Boy is played by Bob Catley (Magnum) and The Girl is played by Tracy Hitchings (Landmarq). Former Arena tourmanager and Shakespeare-actor James Plumridge plays The Jabberwock. The beautiful cover has been designed by Rodney Matthews, who also took care of many of the Magnum artwork.

What can you expect from this CD? Well, we won’t spoil everything, but it’s a wonderful combination of the ‘fairy-tale’ atmosphere of the Strangers On A Train-albums and the ‘psychedelics’ of the Wakeman-tradition. Both Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman are great keyboard-players. Add to that the brilliant vocals of both Bob Catley and Tracy Hitchings and you have the recipe for one hour of adventurous music. Jabberwocky combines the typical Wakeman-sound with the fine melodies from the famous Nolan-brand! Wakeman meets Strangers On A Train....

Clive’s obviously very fond of the books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and he’s also obviously influenced by them when he’s writing his lyrics. This already became evident with the Shadowland albums Through The Looking Glass (in the credits Clive thanks The White Rabbit, The Mad Hatter, The White Knight and The Jabberwocky) and Mad As A Hatter, but now with the release of Jabberwocky it’s really obvious. 
Jabberwocky’s also inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel Through The Looking Glass. In this novel, Alice is looking for the meaning of a certain poem, called Jabberwocky. It’s about a fierce creature in the woods, that threatens every being that trespasses its territory. When Alice has just stepped into the Looking Glass World, she finds a book in which she reads the poem Jabberwocky. Her first impression is that it’s pretty, but that she doesn’t quite understand it. ‘Somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate’ is her conclusion. 

Fortunately later on she meets Humpty Dumpty, who’s good at explaining words. Alice asks him to explain Jabberwocky to her. The first verse is full of words that you won’t find in an English dictionary. But Humpty Dumpty knows them; for example, ‘brillig’ means four ‘o clock in the afternoon (‘the time when you start broiling things for dinner’), ‘toves’ are animals which are a combination of badgers, lizards and corkscrews and the ‘wabe’ is a grass-plot around a sundial. ‘Borogoves’ and ‘raths’ are also strange creatures. So a number of strange animals are muddling on a grass-plot at four ‘o clock. The first verse is obviously a sketch of the scenery in which the actual events will take place. Unfortunately, Humpty Dumpty doesn’t explain the rest of Jabberwocky, so that’s up to us.

The first remark is that Jabberwocky can be interpreted at several levels (we’ve heard that before!). At first sight it’s a fairytale about a boy who slays the monster and gets the girl. But if we take a closer look it’s also an allegory for growing up and becoming an adult (along the same lines, the novel Alice In Wonderland has been interpreted as an allegory for a girl experiencing the process of puberty). That’s the story line we’ll try to follow here.

The wind blows through the trees when Rick Wakeman reads the first syllable of the Jabberwocky poem. The bombastic Overture with layers of keyboards presents the main themes of the album. Bob Catley’s raw voice contrasts in a great way with the mystical music. There’s a clear resemblance in music to some of ‘dad’ Wakeman’s stuff, like Journey... or King Arthur. You immediately recognise the typical way of playing keyboards. Towards the end of the Overture, classical instruments (oboe) accompany the second syllable of the poem. A very ‘Wakemanian’ solo follows, and the story begins with the boy who lies awake and dreams about a distant future with his ladylove (‘Far from here/On a radiant shore/Safe in your arms/The place where I’d rather be’). 

A choir sing to him in Latin: ‘Quam mox vir meus redit domum’, in other words: when will my beloved one finally return home? Considering the fact that vir is masculine, the question is posed when the boy is coming home, so this seems to be written from the perspective of the girl. Maybe the boy isn’t literally away from home, but at any rate he’s confused and insecure, and a heavy burden is on his shoulders (‘Try to hide from what I must do/Too many fears/Chaining and dragging me down’). Growing up is accompanied with fears and uncertainties, so this explains his state of mind.

Then the monster Jabberwock is introduced with the words ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!’ and we’re moving into Coming To Town. Maybe the Jabberwock is some sort of incarnation of the fears and uncertainties the boy’s coping with. The monster’s threatening his hometown (‘This town was once a haven from the rigours of war/And now their lives have all been changed as never before’). The jazzy Coming To Town is probably the best song of the album. Bob Catley (The Boy) sings the faster parts and Tracy Hitchings (The Girl) is dreaming of him in the more romantic parts. 

The Jabberwock finally enters the stage in Dangerous World. The harpsichord sets the right medieval atmosphere for this dark creature. It challenges the boy to fight with him (‘Here my boy! Come here my boy!’). The girl at the same time still sings of her love for him. She believes in him and feels safe with him (‘You made me feel invulnerable’). Tracy really has a great voice for this kind of songs. This one could easily have been on a Strangers On A Train-album. At the end of the song, the Jabberwock returns again, threatening to kill the boy, but he’s aware of that. The boy accepts the challenge, picks up his sword and goes into the forest to look for the Jabberwock (‘He took his vorpal sword in hand/Long time the manxome foe he sought’).

He enters the woods in The Forest, a song with a marching rhythm. Military drums and trumpets make clear that the battle is going to start. The choir encourages the boy. Despite the threatening sound of this track, the girl is still positive about the outcome. The forest is a beautiful symbol for the unknown, the mysterious and it can also be a symbol for fears (Freud had some interesting ideas about that), so it illustrates the process of growing up again. ‘Festina lente/Nil desperandum’ the choir sing to the boy; hasten slowly, there’s no reason to despair. Or in other words: take the time to discover yourself, then you will get through? 

But then the choir sing: ‘Non omnis moriar’, which means that not all, but only he may die. Maybe the choir represent the people of village, who try to give him advise? It gets really confusing with the sentence in Italian that follows ‘Lasciate ogni speranza’; abandon all hope. This would seem to be spoken by the Jabberwock, in order to discourage the boy. It seems to work because the boy pauses by a tree to think (‘So he rested by the Tumtum tree/And stood a while in thought’).

In A Glimmer Of Light follows another part from the girl’s point of view. Again she says that she believes in him and that she sees a spark of hope, a pure core inside of him (‘You know I believe in you (...) I was the first to see a glimmer of light’). A Glimmer of Light is again one of those dreamy Strangers-like tracks, with the sparkling voice of Tracy. 

We return to the forest, where the boy’s thoughts are disturbed by the noisy arrival of the Jabberwock (‘And as in uffish thought he stood/The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame/Came whiffling through the tulgey wood/And burbled as it came!’). This is illustrated beautifully with the bombastic instrumental piece Shadows. A fast piano parts tells us that the battle is going to be fierce, the composition develops into an orchestral instrumental, with a very lively atmosphere. You can easily imagine the Jabberwock walking through the woods with his heavy body, chasing the boy.

From Shadows we move into Enlightenment. The enlightenment comes from the tree by which the boy’s resting. The Tree (Paul Allison) is the witness of this all. In Enlightenment he also encourages the boy. The tree with its lined appearance seems to represent old age and wisdom. He gives a wise piece of advice: believe in yourself, otherwise you let the Jabberwock win (‘And if your mind refuses to be open/Then the Jabberwock has already won’). In other words: if you don’t believe in yourself, your life will be ruled by your own fears. The boy’s slowly becoming aware of his abilities and of the fact that as an individual he can make a difference (‘I would never have believed/That my life could change our time’). 

The first part of this song is very melodic in the vein of one of the great A.L. Webber musicals. It changes at the point where the boy realises that his life will never be the same after his encounter with the Jabberwock. The second part of Enlightenment is much faster and has a typical Nolan-like beat, comparable to some Shadowland-songs.

In Dancing Water all characters gather. In this song it becomes clear that the boy’s still not quite sure of himself and that the journey to adultness has not been completed yet (‘Hope to find that dancing water/And drink to make myself whole’). But the magic water turns out to be an illusion, he really must do this with his own strength (‘So I reach out/But the water isn’t there/Just a handful of dirt/And the cold night air’). In the meanwhile the Jabberwock keeps challenging him (‘Come into my web…’) and the girl warns him not to be reckless and to be careful, otherwise things will turn out badly (‘Don’t fly towards the sun/Don’t let it melt your wings’). This is a reference to the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun with his waxwings and was smashed to death (pride before the fall). The finale of the song brings us all singers singing their own part, which gives a great climax. 

The boy settles down in The Burgundy Rose, a beautiful ballad with great backing vocals and a lovely synth-solo. In this song winter sets in (‘It began the snow’). This makes clear that the story takes place over a longer period of time. The boy has become a lot more self-conscious and thus has made an important step towards adultness (‘But I don’t feel small and insignificant anymore’). The rest of the lyric of this song is a bit harder to explain. If anybody has an idea about what the Burgundy Rose stands for: please, let us know!

Then The Mission follows. The Mission again has that typical Nolan-drive. You can feel, by the guitar and keyboard-solos, that the story is getting near the end. We get the feeling that the boy has become very self-confident now. What that mission is, is rather clear: the Jabberwock still has to be defeated. It’s becoming clear to the boy that he’s not the first to encounter this problem and that others have had trouble with it too; everybody gets to deal with growing up and has his or her own ‘jabberwock’ - his or her own fears and uncertainties (‘Many have tried/Whipped and beaten, pride and pain’). The boy knows that he also has to make that final step and that he can’t go back anymore, his youth is over (‘Too close! Too close to run away now!’).

Orchestral sounds, tubular bells and screaming people set the atmosphere for Call To Arms. To arms! And indeed, as it follows from the lyrics: ‘One, two! One, two! And through and through/The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!/He left it dead, and with his head/He went galumphing back’. The boy grabs his sword and slays the Jabberwock, the last definitive step towards adultness. The sentences in Italian sung by the choir in this song seem to be a last cynical remark of the Jabberwock; it means something like: for as far as I’m concerned people live in sadness forever. It could also be a complaint from the parents among the people of the village. Growing up often means arguments with your parents. The parents have also lived under the terror of the Jabberwock, the puberty of their youngsters. Now that they’re growing up, they will leave their parents’ house, so their parents might lose them. 

While the choir sing about the possible losses of war, Clive and Oliver ‘fight’ a great duel on keyboards. Because the Jabberwock is beaten and the boy and the girl now have a happy future together ahead of them, they sing: ‘You’re mine! You never need to run now’. The boy leaves the forest and is welcomed home enthusiastically (‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?/Come to my arms, my beamish boy!’).

In the Finale we return to the first verse and the circle is completed:

‘‘T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.’

After Rick Wakeman has read this last verse of the poem the record ends with the same theme as it started. Orchestra and trumpets join forces for a bombastic Finale. And that... is where the story ends.

The outline of the story has been sketched now. Note that it has several parallels with The Visitor. Both albums can be interpreted at several levels. In both stories there’s a protagonist who’s having personal problems and who goes through an inner process during the album and thus learns to cope with these problems or conquers them. A counsellor supports the protagonist in this. In one case the counsellor is The Visitor, in the other case they are the girl, the tree and the choir.

Thus, enough new food for thought. In Through The Looking Glass Humpty Dumpty says: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.’ Considering all the symbolism and double meanings, Clive must have this in mind while he’s writing lyrics. Jabberwocky is a very theatrical and mystical album, with several great singers and a large collection of skilled musicians. Symphonic music it is indeed.

By: Jan-Jaap de Haan (music) & Erik Beers (lyrics)