Cheap The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener/Kiss Me Goodbye (Music) (Petula Clark) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener/Kiss Me Goodbye

Petula's "Pink Album"
This is a very nice pair of records to include on a single CD. Any Petula Clark fan should own "The Pink Album," as I've always called it. I admit it is one of my sentimental favorite records by any female singer, as it's among the first couple dozen vinyl LPs I ever owned (along with Dusty Springfield's GOLDEN HITS and Bobbie Gentry's DELTA SWEETE), but beyond this personal bias, the album is one of the most cohesive efforts, in both overall sound and song selection, in Ms. Clark's long career. Many of her recordings had the feel of a bunch of singles and unrelated styles arbitrarily thrown together, as the first LP in this pair illustrates quite clearly. Not so "Petula." Beginning with the flourish of baroque strings that introduces the hit single "Don't Give Up," and ending with the beautiful and wistful "The Good Life," there is a unified sound to this collection and the songs are artfully ordered. Although the arrangements are typical Clark/Hatch collaborations; lots of strings, organ, tinkling piano and peppy percussion, I detect an attempt here to update Ms. Clark's sound to compete with the increasingly psychedelic sound of rock & roll during this period, although I doubt Petula gained much of a new audience with this effort; she was regarded even then as kind of square, despite her previously hip, "London mod" credentials. Still, though middle-of-the-road pop, we have bits of Beatlesesque electric sitar (the odd, vaguely obscene "Have Another Dream On Me") and the use of colorful instrumental combinations (brass and harpsichord on "We're Falling In Love Again" ). The songs and their instrumentation all seem to go naturally together. Where Petula shines especially on this album is when she tackles the ballads, most notably the magnificent hit "Kiss Me Goodbye," "Beautiful In The Rain," "Why Can't I Cry," and an excellent, smooth & sexy rendition of the Bacharach/David smash, "This Girl's In Love With You," which rivals the Dusty Springfield and Herb Alpert versions. Some of the songs do cross over the fine line between sweet and precious: "Your Love Is Everywhere" and "Days" have lovely melodies but trite lyrics, and "The Sun Shines Out Of Your Shoes" is cute but ridiculous. Nevertheless, I rate this as one of Petula's very best efforts. <
> The first record on this CD isn't spectacular, nor is it bad. It does include the lyrically clichéd, but musically distinct hit "The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener." I believe the unusual "Cat In The Window" also charted, as I remember hearing it several times on the radio when it was first released. The standout track is the melodramatic, but dazzlingly sung "Today, Tomorrow." "At The Crossroads" is gorgeous. Elsewhere, the song selections are an awkward mix of standards which, though covered competently by Ms. Clark, were done much better by Nat King Cole ("Smile" and "Answer Me My Love"), Sarah Vauhgan, Peggy Lee ("Black Coffee"), and Carmen McRae ("Ballad Of The Sad Young Men"). I admire Petula's taste in wanting to cover these tunes, but I don't believe she had the voice or technical prowess to do them justice. I know she started out doing standards and such when she recorded for Liberty back in the `50s, but it wasn't until "Downtown" and "I Know A Place" that she really found her voice and hit her stride. <
>But for the hit-or-miss quality of the first album in the pair, this CD would have rated higher, and yet I strongly recommend it, particularly for those who have heard and love Petula's greatest hits, but haven't dug much deeper. Others purchase with caution (listen first, if possible). <
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