Gene Clark, Firebyrd (1984)

The hurdles here are many: synth-clouded production, apparent songwriting exhaustion on the part of Clark, the somewhat desperate-seeming gambit of opening with a new spin on “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and the album title itself, less effective in invoking his old band than in reminding us that Roger McGuinn had already engaged in low-grade worldplay with the (admittedly even worse) Thunderbyrd several years earlier.

Once he starts singing, none of that matters: weary and sad down to the core, that melancholy Clark voice pierces through the overlay of detritus and delivers a deeply felt album, drum sound be damned. Of the nine tracks, two are reclamations—the aforementioned opener and the Byrds classic “Feel a Whole Lot Better.” The synthetic accoutrements are disorienting at first—hey, this stuff is fine for the Human League, but this is the guy who gave us White Light, cripes—but again, Clark pierces the sonic veil. When he tries to elude the “twisted reach of crazy sorrow” on the Dylan song, it’s as close to an autobiographical thesis statement as other people’s lyrics can come.

Of course, there are other more obvious theses: “Rodeo Rider” uses a pretty thin metaphor of a tired cowboy on the road to express Clark’s own predicament. Again, delivery supersedes the rather facile songwriting. Clark surrounded himself with much of his old No Other crew, overlooked talents from the 70s; if Andy Kandanes hardly revolutionizes the drum kit and seems gratuitous as a co-writer on “Rodeo Rider,” the kind of song Clark would have tossed off in his sleep a decade earlier, their co-written “Rain Song” is one of the most beautiful, aching songs in the entire Clark songbook. Thomas Jefferson Kaye is on-hand for support too, offering up the brooding, ominous “Vanessa,” another highlight.

As a solo songwriter, Clark only has two new turns, one of which, “Made for Love,” is a bit cringe-worthy in its declaration that “most of all, girls are made for boys to love.” But if Gene never took Women’s Studies 101, he can still claim the authoritative take on Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind,” and Firebyrd closes with his other solo composition, “Blue Raven,” an update of the amazing “Silver Raven,” one decade of disappointment later. It leans a bit heavily on a flute melody, which goes from lovely to intrusive by the end, but as the summation of the album’s backward-looking resignation and a cataloging of opportunities lost and destroyed, it’s again sung to perfection. Clark is on a Hank Williams level of high-lonesome here, and no keyboard or drum reverb can stand in his way. Firebyrd is probably too marred to qualify for greatness, but it carries more emotional weight than anything else done by a former Byrd since his own lost classic of a decade prior.

Also, I'm not sure when that cover shot was taken (there are multiple covers for this album, which was poorly and erratically distributed), but for a guy on the verge of drinking himself to death, Clark looks remarkably good, like a cross between an early John Rechy and a proto-emo twink.