6
Page 6-Tuesday, February 19, 1980-The Michigan Daily
R E C 0 RD S

history, the hopefulness of love, the
sanctity of love, love, love, life on
Saturn, his daughter's beauty, his
gullibility in love, and melancholy.
If you think that's an impressive list
of topics for a songwriter to cocer on
one album, wait till you hear what
Wonder has broached on his
latest. . . plants. That's right, plants.
No, not those factories where they

quaintly batty lyrics:
. -- mastfelt it was mad to conceive
That plants thought, felt, and
moved quite like we
.. . What will it take for heaven
sakes
for those who find what's real too
hard to believe
it's that same old story again
Convinced? All right, try these, from
the title song:
A species smaller than the eye can
see
Or larger than most living things
And yet we take it without consent
Our shelter, food, habiliment
You see, the formerly brilliant
Wonder actually seems to imagine a
world absolutely teeming with thinking,
feeling ivy and chrysanthemums. The
four billion of us who can walk and talk
only think we run the place. Ridiculous,
aren't we?
After a brief conversation between a
Venus flytrap and a bug (I kid you not),
comes the "Ai, No, Sono," a Japanese-
style tung sung by a chorus of children
from that country. As in quite a few of
the other Plants songs, Wonder makes.
a valiant effort to produce the Eastern
sound that was chic a few years ago.
But unlike George Harrison and other
more successful practitioners of the
form, understanding of the musical
structure of Indian and Oriental music,
and they come out sounding like
nothing more than a bad imitation of
Schoenberg.
It isn't enough for Wonder to have
fouled up while he wrote and played the
ITERS! 1
ING TO SAY?
LIONS
nual Ann Arbor
s Festival
ration call 995-3195
662-8215

make bombs. Nope, not the folks whom
magicians stick in the sudience to help
them out with tricks. Plants. You know,
flora. Those green things that grow out
of the ground.
If this sounds hard to believe, I invite
you to trudge through the first three
cuts on side one-they are all
instrumentals, like five more of the 20
cuts on the album-and listen to "Same
Old Story." Along with a tune culled
from several of the better ones on Songs
in the Key of Life, you will hear there
SONGWR
HAVE SOMETH
AUDITr
For The First Anr
Songwriter
for auditions or inforn
Sponsored by Soundstage

tunes: In the recording studio he
compounded the problem by distortin
the sound beyondrecognition with th
use of sundry electronic techniques. It's
a shame; the lyrics, at least, can be
laughed at; the music breeds only pity.
My heart lifted when "Outside My
Window" began: It's a fresh,
undistorted love song in the old Wonder
tradition. But those damned words
went and ruined things again:
LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA LA
(Repeat two times)
Much has been written about
The world and all its kind of loves
But the sweetest of them all
You seldom will find stories of,
oh oh oh oh
Mr love lives outside nTv window
Begin to get the picture? Wonder's
love, it seems, od s a daffodil.
The most troubling thing abou
Plants is not its silliness-every artist
is entitled to a lapse-but that Wonder
seems so very proud of it. His name
appears, in various contexts, b)no
fewer than 53 times on the packet, and
in a note to the listener, he calls it his
"very best."
If it really is Wonder's best, we'd
better watch out for the next one. "The
Psychohistory of Kleenex and
fingernails"? "The Inner Thoughts o
Prophylactics"? God save us.
U.N. panel"
OK'd by
U.S.,Iran.
(Continued from Page 1)
Catholic, and the Sri Lankan is a Bud-
dhist.
All are lawyers with experience in in-
ternational law.
In Washington, State Department of-
ficials said the diplomatic plan for
release was "on track," but with no
firm timetable. The officials, speaking
privately, said the United State
probably will not be certain about th,
freeing of the hostages "until we see the
whites of their eyes."
U.N. SECRETARY-General Kurt
Waldheim was quoted by a Vienna
newspaper as saying the hostages
would be released "in the course of the
commission's woFk. "Otherwise one
would not have received the agreement
of the two sides."
According to today's Die Presse
edition, Waldheim said the com
mission's report would be handed oveW
to him and he would forward it to the'
U.N. Security Council for whatever ac-
tion it saw fit.
The commission to investigate
Iranian grievances has been considered
one of the steps that would lead to'
release of the approximately 50
Americans who have been held hostage
at the occupied embassy in Tehran sin
ce Nov. 4.
U.N. SPOKESMAN Rudo
Stajduhar, who announced U.S. accep-
tance of the members on Friday, said a
Tehran official has given Waldheim
Iran's acceptance by telephone from
Tehran. He said Waldheim was
awaiting telexed confirmation before
officially announcing the panel mem
bers' names.


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