The Transformed Man

There's something quite amazing about this record. In hip-hop we often use the term 'hidden gem' referring to tracks/albums that for some reason or another, never got the attention they deserved. This album is one such 'hidden gem'. Hip-Hop it isn't, but lyrical it is. Shatner got skills.

From the very first track, and my personal favourite- the second, 'Elegy for the brave' it becomes apparent why this record is a success. It's the same reason that William Shatner is still revered as one of the most interesting (if seriously underrated actors) of his generation. Yes, he is a good actor. He has charisma that you couldn't even fathom. As a serious Star-Trek fan, I used to watch those brilliant old episodes full of admiration as he bared his emotional soul every week in some of the most hypnotic and intense performances I've ever seen (particularly in his younger days, which thankfully include this album). So he proves that being a great actor is just as much about the voice as anything else. I belive every word he says on this album. On that second song, 'Elegy for the brave' he does something he doesn't often do as an actor, he plays the calm, serene storyteller. Backed by some of the most peaceful strings and choir 'oohs and aahs' you're likely to hear, as well as the very dated but still intriguing 1960's Star Trek style background music, he speaks with the kindest tenderness and pride that would leave only robots unaffected. Yes it requires you to open up, yes you must look past the fact that this is 'Captain Kirk', so just grow up a little! Stop smirking and get involved with this, once you do, you won't regret it. After all, he was mad enough to make this album, the least you should do in return is be as daring and brave (or mad) as he was as a listener, THROW AWAY YOUR PRECONCEPTIONS! Whilst the spoken-word pieces on this album were not written by Shatner, it's hard to imagine anyone, including even the authors, giving them such brilliant life.

Most entertaining perhaps is 'Theme from Cyrano', a translation, which Shatner so wonderfully breathes life into. The most intriguing thing about this bouncing chirpy song, which changes musically just as the text changes and evolves, (as all the pieces do) is the way Shatner speaks as if he's gone through it, as if he's lived the life that in this case I, and every single other artistic person in history has had to live. Maybe he has, there's no other way I could imagine such feeling being breathed into every word. I'll let some of those words talk instead:

"What would you have me do? Immitate what others do and dedicate my works to the rich, in the hope of arousing a smile of recognition from some sterile face? No thank you. Breakfast every day on insults? Wear out my knees and warp my spine with endless bowing and grovelling in the dust? No thank you. Become a master of hypocrisy and opportunism, never letting my right hand know what my left is doing? Pull all the proper strings?? No thank you. Shall I become the captain of some literary cult, by writing stupid love-songs for wealthy widows, and navigate to success with their sighs filling out my sails, paying some publisher to print my poems and bribe some critic to review them? NO thank you! Should I scheme to get my name mentioned in the columns of some newspaper and smack my lips over the little phrases written about me.........? No thank you. Shall I calculate and scheme, live in fear, make 'visits' instead of rhymes, meet all the right people, seek introductions and favours? No thank you. NO I THANK YOU! AND AGAIN, IIII THANK YOU!"

It goes on for a while, but more on that later. We then come to the more psychadelic aspects of the album. His cover version of 'Mr. Tambourine Man' immediately appealed to me when I first heard it almost 5 years ago now. His genius-ridiculous spoken word rendering of the well known Bob Dylan song is something every single human being should listen to. And I'd like to see the faces of every single person who listens to it too. Somehow, somehow, he injects passion into it, a strange passion, and you have to actually hear the song to fully understand, to completely feel the conviction in his voice when he says "I'm ready to go anywhere! Cast your dancing spell my way, I PROMISE to go under it!" Towards the end of the song he truly does go insane, and begin screaming "MR. TAMBOURINE MAAAAN!" at the top of his lungs, followed immediately by the same words again, this time whispered. It's incredibly therapeutic, it expresses something I can't quite put words to, although for me, it will always remind me of the year 2000, when a girl I loved turned her back on me. As sad as I was, as heartbroken and depressed as I was in those first moments of shock, rejection, I kept playing this insane song over and over again, laughing the tears in an emotional insanity. More psychadelic fun and madness is to be had on his rendition of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', once again, it's how he says things, in his overly dramatic way and with the wild ecstasy of a man whose just drank poison, and doesn't care, running naked in the cirty of people and into a field of dogs and birds only to laugh his life away into the clouds, that's what makes this so addictive. Most musicians thesedays don't have half the passion this man displays on this LP.

More delicious poetry and truly meaningful magic is to be found on the closing title track. It's a call to all sleep-walkers, city-slickers, to all people doing what they're meant to be doing, a call to stop! To fly away on the wings of instinct, to deny the clock that so foolishly insists that 'time is money!' And to return to nature, to seek a spiritual union, and thus to find the Truth. And you may wonder why I haven't critisised this album like everyone else seems to do? Well that's because I'm not a snob, I'm not a musical snob, and I'm alive. Half of the people who condemn this album as absurd, embarrasing and awful nonsense are probably half-heartedly repeating what a few critics with closed hearts once said a while ago. And those few critics were not alive. What they don't understand, perhaps what they could never understand is that which is so clearly demonstrated by William Shatners passion and perfect emotional-pronunciation of every single word on this album. What they forgot, and what stares you in the face as you hear this, is that Shatner had internalised each of these songs in his own way, he had a purpose in doing each of them, and that must be respected before anyone tries to critisize it based on some shallow and childish initial reaction. I suppose you could call it a remix album of the highest, most personal and emotional order, although he's not just remixing the Beatles and Bob Dylan, he's also remixing Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet and Cyrano. I'll leave all aspiring artists out there with the second half of 'Theme from Cyrano' from which I quoted the first half earlier. If this doesn't speak to you, then maybe I'm the one who's insane. And if I am, I'm glad I am.

"...No my friends, I prefer to sing, laugh, to breathe to travel light in my own way, to see things as they are and speak out without fear....I prefer to work alone without any thought of reward, to scorn fame for a journey to the moon, to never write a line that does not ring with sincerity. I shall be content with the fruits and flowers that grow in my garden, no matter HOW small, because they belong to ME! THEN, if success should come my way, no tribute ever need be payed to Caesar, whatever fortune or misfortune that happens shall be MINE and ONLY MINE. And though I may never reach the stature of a great Oak tree, I shall never become a parasitic vine. I will climb, perhaps, to no great height, but I will climb! Alone!"