Graham Parker - Burning Questions (1992)

After Struck By Lightning, Graham Parker was dropped by RCA Records. He moved to Capitol in 1992, releasing another installment in his musical diaries called “Burning Questions”. A more open and polished affair than the previous record.
She walks past but you can't form a whistle," Graham Parker sings on "Platinum Blonde," one of thirteen tracks on “Burning Questions”. "Even her lips look artificial/You wanna follow her but you can't swallow her act." Only a handful of contemporary artists Elvis Costello, for one could write a lyric so briskly cynical and yet so pierced by implicit yearning.
Like Costello, Parker is one of the singer-songwriters who, drawing on the legacies of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, carried the rock troubadour into the punk era. That era is long gone, of course, and Parker takes care to embellish Burning Questions with signs of the times. Topical references range from the humorous  "I've seen the future of rock, and it sucks," from "Love Is a Burning Question" to the sobering: "Here It Comes Again" takes aim at mandatory drug testing, fundamentalist preachers and politicians who seek to censor art "unless it falls to the right of the fence." Musically, however, Questions finds Parker unabashed about letting his late-Seventies roots show. Tracks like "Too Many Knots to Untangle" and "Just Like Joe Meek's Blues" recall the lean, graceful production that distinguished some of that period's most memorable pop singles; "Yesterday's Cloud" and the catchy "Platinum Blonde" are equally lithe but more driving, evoking the breathless energy that helped put Parker on the map.
Elsewhere, Parker indulges in more gentle reflection. "Mr. Tender is something I'm not," he insists on "Mr. Tender," but he protests too much. Questions offers further proof of the singer's softer side, from the bittersweet "Long Stem Rose," with its elegiac strings, to "Oasis," a rhapsodic meditation on the healing power of love.
One of the most poignant moments on “Burning Questions”, though, comes in its final song, "Worthy of Your Love." "If I could make up all the rules," Parker sings, "I would not carry out the work of fools/ Or use deception and fear as tools/And I'd be worthy of your love." The object of Mr. Tender's affections should be so worthy herself.

Track listing

01. "Release Me"  (Graham Parker)  - 3:55 
02. "Too Many Knots To Untangle"  (Graham Parker)  - 3:10 
03. "Just Like Joe Meek's Blues"  (Graham Parker)  - 4:08 
04. "Love Is A Burning Question"  (Graham Parker)  - 4:53 
05. "Platinum Blonde"  (Graham Parker)  - 4:20 
06. "Long Stem Rose"  (Graham Parker)  - 2:49 
07. "Short Memories"  (Graham Parker)  - 3:02 
08. "Here It Comes Again"  (Graham Parker)  - 3:11 
09. "Mr. Tender"  (Graham Parker)  - 2:30 
10. "Just Like Herman Hesse"  (Graham Parker)  - 2:50 
11. "Yesterday's Cloud"  (Graham Parker)  - 3:23 
12. "Oasis"  (Graham Parker)  - 4:08 
13. "Worthy Of Your Love"  (Graham Parker)  - 2:55 

Credits
Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica – Graham Parker
Backing Vocals – P.P. Arnold
Bass – Andrew Bodnar
Cello – Caroline LaVelle
Drums, Percussion – Pete Thomas
Keyboards – Mick Talbot
Saxophone – Eddie Manion
Viola – Jocelyn Pook
Violin – Caroline Barnes, Sonia Slany
Design – Laurence Stevens
Written-By – Graham Parker
Written-By [Strings], Arranged By [Strings] – Baird Hersey
Mastered By – Steve Rooke
Engineer – Jon Jacobs
Engineer [Assistant] – Chris Bandy, Giles Cowley, John Yates 
Producer, Mixed By – Graham Parker, Jon Jacobs

Notes
Recorded At – Townhouse 3
Mixed At – Dreamland Recording Studios
Mastered At – Abbey Road Studios
Genre: Pop
Length: 45:14

© 1992 Capitol/Demon Records