"If you'll be my flotsam, I could be half the man I used to/They said you were hot stuff, and that's what baby's been reduced to..."
Here Come the Warm Jets is the debut solo album by British art rock musician Brian Eno, released in 1974 through Island Records. Eno previously provided synth parts and tape effects on Roxy Music's first two albums and recorded the experimental (No Pussyfooting) with King Crimson founder Robert Fripp. Fripp plays on the album, as do Eno's former Roxy bandmates Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, and Paul Thompson. It's probably his glammiest album, but also very eclectic.
Tracklist:
Side One- "Needles in the Camel's Eye" (3:11)
- "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" (3:04)
- "Baby's on Fire" (5:19)
- "Cindy Tells Me" (3:25)
- "Driving Me Backwards" (5:12)
Side Two
- "On Some Faraway Beach" (4:36)
- "Blank Frank" (3:37)
- "Dead Finks Don't Talk" (4:19)
- "Some of Them Are Old" (5:11)
- "Here Come the Warm Jets" (4:04)
Here Come the Warm Tropes:
- As the Good Book Says...: "Needles in the Camel's Eye" is a malapropism of the Gospels saying that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
- Bo Diddley Beat: "Blank Frank". Eno deliberately recorded this in the opposite of the usual order: he got Robert Fripp to lay down the guitar part first, then overdubbed the other instruments.
- Bystander Syndrome: "Baby's on Fire" about a photography session involving a burning infant and unthinking, laughing onlookers.Photographers snip-snap
Take your time, she's only burning
This kind of experience
Is necessary for her learning - Comedic Sociopathy: "Baby's on Fire" is about people reacting with indifference and amusement to... well...
- Drone of Dread: The relentlessly throbbing bassline and constant background haze of guitar feedback in "Baby's On Fire" have this effect.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Eno on the album cover and liner art. He'd cultivated the androgynous showgirl look (makeup, feather boas) since joining Roxy Music, but he toned it down by the time of his next album, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy) and drop it afterwards.
- Face on the Cover: Eno's face is shown twice, but from a distance and hidden in the background.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: "Some of Them Are Old" tells the story about someone who observes that people come and go, which doesn't bother him that much, but he does ask his girlfriend not to forget about him.
- Freakier Than Fiction: "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" is inspired by A. W. Underwood, a Real Life black man from Paw Paw, Michigan, who was supposedly pyrokinetic, setting things on fire with his breath; modern analysts suspect a magic trick involving bits of phosphorus held in the mouth and then heated up in the hands.
- Indecipherable Lyrics: The title track.
- Man on Fire: "Baby's on Fire"
- Riddle for the Ages: The lyrics of the title track were intended to be this. Eno recorded them, then mixed them so low that you can't make them out, then threw away the lyrics and forgot them, so even he doesn't know what they are. In spite of this, various attempts have been made to decipher them. note
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "The Paw-Paw Negro Blowtorch":He's breathing like a furnace
So I'll see you later alligator - Slimeball: The smarmy, craven narrator of "Dead Finks Don't Talk".
- Stop and Go: "Needles in the Camel's Eye" does this three times, during the instrumental break.
- Straw Feminist: The "rich girls" of "Cindy Tells Me". Of course Eno goes out of his way to sound like a Straw Misogynist.
- Sublime Rhyme: "Blank Frank".
- Take That!: "Dead Finks Don't Talk" is a quasi-accidental one aimed at Bryan Ferry, Eno's former boss in Roxy Music.
- Title Track: "Here Come the Warm Jets".
- Ur-Example: The title track is commonly considered one for shoegaze; with its Indecipherable Lyrics and distorted, heavily processed guitar that barely sounds like a guitar, it's a dead ringer for many key aspects of the genre. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" also has some elements of the style. It's small wonder that Eno later mentioned that he was a fan of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.
- Verbal Tic: The horrified shriek of "Oh no!" in "Dead Finks Don't Talk", which after about a dozen repetitions becomes hilarious.
