A Beach Full of Shells | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 21 June 2005 | |||
Genre | Folk | |||
Length | 48:43 | |||
Label | Appleseed (US), EMI (UK) | |||
Producer | Laurence Juber | |||
Al Stewart chronology | ||||
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A Beach Full of Shells is the fifteenth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 2005. Like most of Stewart's later works, much of the content of the CD alludes to people or moments in history.
Stewart originally wrote the song "Class of '58" as 13 minutes long. When the record company rejected it, he rewrote it to the truncated 4-minute version on the album.[ citation needed ] The long version was subsequently released as a single. In the blurb on the single, it is suggested that the album A Beach Full of Shells was originally intended to focus around this song, which describes the life of a musician on the 1950s rock and roll scene.
All songs written by Al Stewart.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Immelman Turn" | 4:39 |
2. | "Mr. Lear" | 3:00 |
3. | "Royal Courtship" | 4:10 |
4. | "Rain Barrel" | 4:00 |
5. | "Somewhere in England, 1915" | 6:56 |
6. | "Katherine of Oregon" | 3:07 |
7. | "Mona Lisa Talking" | 4:26 |
8. | "Class of '58" | 4:10 |
9. | "Out in the Snow" | 2:51 |
10. | "My Egyptian Couch" | 2:18 |
11. | "Gina in the Kings Road" | 3:49 |
12. | "Beacon Street" | 2:20 |
13. | "Anniversary" | 2:53 |
"Lili Marleen" is a German love song which became popular during World War II throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem, the song was published in 1937 and was first recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939 as "Das Mädchen unter der Laterne".
"Gloria al Bravo Pueblo" is the national anthem of Venezuela. Its lyrics were written by physician and journalist Vicente Salias in 1810, set to music later composed by musician Juan José Landaeta. Owing to musical similarities with the French national anthem, beginning in 1840 “Gloria al Bravo Pueblo” was known as “La Marsellesa Venezolana”. It was declared Venezuela’s national anthem by decree of President Antonio Guzmán Blanco on May 25, 1881.
Anne Jennifer Dudley is an English composer, keyboardist, conductor and pop musician. She was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in the classical and pop genres, as a film composer, and was one of the core members of the synthpop band Art of Noise. In 1998, Dudley won an Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty. In addition to over twenty other film scores, in 2012 she served as music producer for the film version of Les Misérables, also acting as arranger and composing some new additional music.
Alastair Ian Stewart is a Scottish singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history.
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"California Girls" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1965 album Summer Days . Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the lyrics describe an appreciation for the qualities of girls around the world and the narrator's wish that "they all could be" in his home state of California. It was released as a single, backed with "Let Him Run Wild", and reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a top 10 hit in several other countries, becoming one of the band's most successful songs globally.
"Suicide Is Painless" is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Michael Altman (lyric). It was the theme song for both the movie and TV series M*A*S*H.
The Beach Boys Today! is the eighth studio album by the American rock band the Beach Boys, released March 8, 1965 on Capitol Records. It signaled a departure from their previous records with its orchestral sound, intimate subject matter, and abandonment of car or surf songs. Side one features an uptempo sound, while side two consists mostly of introspective ballads. Supported by this thematic approach, the record became an early example of a rock concept album and established the group as album artists rather than just a singles band. It has since become regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.
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"The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published during 1871 as part of his book Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets. Lear wrote the poem for a three-year-old girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine Symonds. The term "runcible", used for the phrase "runcible spoon", was invented for the poem.
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"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country music singer Kenny Rogers.
The religious views of William Shakespeare are the subject of an ongoing scholarly debate dating back more than 150 years. The general assumption about William Shakespeare's religious affiliation is that he was a conforming member of the established Church of England. However, many scholars have speculated about his personal religious beliefs, based on analysis of the historical record and of his published work, with claims that Shakespeare's family may have had Catholic sympathies and that he himself was a secret Catholic.
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Alfred V. De Lory was an American record producer, arranger, conductor and session musician. He was the producer and arranger of a series of worldwide hits by Glen Campbell in the 1960s, including John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind", Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston". He was also a member of the 1960s Los Angeles session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew, and inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007.
Foss, formally named Aderphos, was the pet cat of Edward Lear, the 19th-century author, illustrator, and poet. A "stumpy-tailed," "portly," and "unattractive" tabby cat, he was a favourite of Lear's and played an important role as a companion in the poet's lonely later years. Foss is mentioned frequently in Lear's correspondence and appears in his illustrations and at least one poem. Foss is said to have been the inspiration for the pussycat in Lear's illustrations for his poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". The funeral that Lear provided for Foss, which included an epigraphed headstone, is said to have been more elaborate than Lear's own.