Lyrics : Bryan Ferry (A Chatto & Windus Book, 2022)

ISBN: 9781784744830

The first time I heard Roxy Music in 1972, it struck me that I was listening to the past through new ‘modern’ ears and minds. I never heard anything like Roxy or the strange quality of Bryan Ferry’s voice. It was new to me, yet, Ferry had the trace of an aged crooner; it was done uniquely. Like Bowie, Ferry has a foundation from which he draws the idea of romance, which seems to be an infinity pool, and will drop off from a large cliff. I have been listening, purchasing, and thinking of Bryan Ferry for fifty years. I never tire of him because his obsessions are so thorough and cinema-like.

Lyrics is pretty much the complete works of Ferry. It goes from album to album in a chronicle manner. It’s organized, with no sense of the mess, and a result of perfection by the master. At the book's end are the index of titles and first lines. One can easily find their favorite Ferry lyric. Of course, the reader can jump around, but I read it like a novel. The theme of his work is always about romance but filtered through vocabulary and cinematic touches. There is a woman, and Ferry is transfixed on obtaining their love or attention. But there is a distance aspect like Bertolt Brecht’s work, where the reader or listener is watching all of this as a play or, of course, a film.

The mood is dark, and that is a presence felt since Roxy Music’s second album, For Your Pleasure. The first Roxy album combines classic Noel Coward sensibility with touches of camp and playful words. But on the second album, he gets serious, and for most of his work, the author/singer is in a Noir setting, which hints at the world of Bogart and Robert Mitchum. Out of the Past or even Vertigo, one feels Ferry falling in love or jaded by the ability of consistently failing in obtaining one’s quest for perfection in love. A love that, by definition, can not happen.

The world of Bryan Ferry is refined, studied, and set in a dream-like setting. When I read the lyrics, I go back to the films of Alain Resnais, especially Last Year in Marienbad, which is about romance, but more importantly, the memory of a specific romance. It may not have taken place, and often Ferry’s landscape is one full of ghosts. He’s interacting with the woman, but I feel they are not there, just the idea of a figure. When one hears Ferry’s voice singing these lyrics, they can be very seductive. Reading them off a page, there is another layer or dimension, and one notices the excellent craft of putting the words together. Bryan Ferry knows how to share his creative time with brilliant musicians, but you can visualize him in a room by himself, emptying his soul onto the page. But he has seen it in movies, and read poetry, so he knows the territory well. One book I would love for him to do is a compilation of his favorite lyrics by others. This would give a whole entrance into an aesthetic and thought that Ferry feeds himself on. I have always felt that Ferry is an underrated genius. He is one of the greats, and Lyrics show a side of brilliance that is emotionally present in listeners and readers.