The Residents - God in Three Persons (1988, CD)

You're walking down the street one day when you chance to bump into an old acquaintance. Not someone who you ever thought of as a friend, but not an enemy either. There's a diner on the corner nearby, so you both take a booth there to have a cup of coffee and catch up. He proceeds to tell you his life story, from the last time you saw him up to the beginning of this cup of coffee. He tells you a strange and disturbing tale of how he met a set of conjoined twins--one male and one female. They have an amazing power: the power to heal, both emotionally and physically. They heal him of his grief from the recent passing of his wife, but then, he realizes, they are ripe for exploitation. There was money to be made. They traveled the country, charging people for their healing powers. Your old acquaintance eventually fell in love with the female twin, but of course couldn't be near her without the male twin being there as well.

From there, the story starts getting weird.

God in Three Persons is an hour-long epic tale that begins as I have roughly outlined above. The vocalist never sings throughout this album, but speaks conversationally, and sometimes in a rough meter that makes more sense heard than read. The music, as is usual for The Residents, relies heavily on synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines, but don't let that throw you, this isn't "synth-pop."

As is customary with The Residents' music, there is quite often more than one thing going on, and there are several motifs which surface and submerge throughout the album.

To give an example of what I mean about the lyrics making more sense heard than read, here is the opening paragraph from the first track, "Hard & Tenderly."

They called me "Mr. X, Indeed," the special ones that saw so deep inside the souls of those who were so lonely. I was down beneath the bottom, when my vacant staring caught them gaily parading up and down the street - followed by some stinking masses, freeing fumes and giving gasses to the brown and nearly worn out air. But they had that certain presence like the ether or the essence of the cleansing upper atmosphere. Laughing, loving, and without a doubt, they simply strode about the streets that other creatures left alone. I ran across, myself compulsive, with the feeling of a pulsing drum that pounded underneath my skin. A tingling in my tangled brain was screaming that this was insane, but it also told me, "touch it," too.

It doesn't seem very lyrical as seen above, and which is how it is printed in the CD booklet. But here it is "versified." See if it doesn't make better sense.

They called me "Mr. X, Indeed,"
the special ones that saw so deep
inside the souls of those who were so lonely.
I was down beneath the bottom,
when my vacant staring caught them
gaily parading up and down the street -
followed by some stinking masses,
freeing fumes and giving gasses
to the brown and nearly worn out air.
But they had that certain presence
like the ether or the essence
of the cleansing upper atmosphere.
Laughing, loving, and without a doubt,
they simply strode about
the streets that other creatures left alone.
I ran across, myself compulsive,
with the feeling of a pulsing
drum that pounded underneath my skin.
A tingling in my tangled brain
was screaming that this was insane,
but it also told me, "touch it," too.

This is basically the rhythm and the loose rhyming scheme of the entire album, until near the end when the climax of the story gets kind of, uh...strange. The meter gets more insistent but not any less coherent, and there's a really impressive display of over-dubbed call and response that the vocalist does with himself in the penultimate track, "Kiss of Flesh."

NOTE: This album has lyrics which could be objectionable to some listeners. So don't say you weren't warned. I'm not talking four-letter words, although there are a few, but they are used in specific context to describe what is actually happening, and I would not consider them gratuitous. I'm talking more about his descriptions of what went on, regardless of the language used.

There aren't any pieces on this album that you can sing along with, although you may find yourself humming some of the recurring motifs when they appear. For example, the gospel hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy" makes at least three appearances that I noted on my last listen. Now that I think about it, the number 3 seems to be another recurring motif. I'll have to listen to it a few more times and see if I can pick out more of this.

I have the original CD release which has slightly different cover art from the re-release that is currently being sold at Amazon. If you click through the Amazon link, they have sound samples of the entire track list.

This is probably a better starting point for a new listener than some of the earlier albums like Meet The Residents, but if you were to ask me if this is a typical example of their music, I would have to say no, because there is no really typical example of their music. Every album pretty much stands on its own as a new creation. Every one of them is different in some way. This one stands up very well to repeated listening, in fact it gets better with time in my opinion.

This one has also become somewhat collectible. Used CDs start at about $25, new ones at about $75.

Your old acquaintance has finished his story, which somehow seemed to dredge a happy ending (more or less) from what you were sure was going to end with tragedy. You realize you still have half a cup of forgotten coffee, now gone tepid and you motion for the waitress to freshen your cup. You take a gulp of warm coffee, wishing it were something stronger as he sips his cup, makes a gesture as if miming a toast, and grins at you over the rim of his mug. You are left with the question: was it really true, or did he make the whole thing up? In either case, the world is always going to seem a little stranger than it was before.

Amazon link: God in Three Persons