Track Listing

1. Look To The Rainbow
2. Battle Of New Orleans
3. When I Was A Cowboy
4. Sentimental Journey
5. Las Mananitas
6. Bye Bye Bye/Vine Street
7. Me Japanese Boy
8. I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise
9. Green Apple Tree
10. Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat
11. I Love You Mama
12. Funny How Love Can Be
13. Mad
14. Look To The Rainbow
15. Drifter
16. Reprise
17. Both Sides Now
18. Small Talk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182576 in Music
• Released on: 2001-10-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
Show tunes ("Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"), novelty tunes ("Me, Japanese Boy"), songs from cutting-edge tunesmiths (Randy Newman's "Vine Street"), and complex arrangements abound on this 1968 set from the California harmony group that bridged the gap between easy listening and West Coast cool. Including a magical rendition of Yip Harburg's "Look to the Rainbow", a version of Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" complete with sound effects, and an uptempo version of the Ivy League's "Funny How Love Can Be", SECRET LIFE weavesa richly imagined sound tapestry, subverting easy listeningconventions with a fine Sixties disregard for musical propriety.

Customer Reviews

Not bizarre......just great.
Ignore the other miserable review for this. There is plenty on this CD to be fascinated by and to enjoy. Great arrangements and wonderful vocals. Sometimes painfully twee and other times incredibly moving. Harpers Bizarre 4 is also worth purchasing.

Nothing bizarre here!
Don't be fooled by the psychedelic colours on the sleeve - this is in no way psychedelic. It is more a gentle, mellow journey into an almost saccharine, sickly-sweet side to the flower power era, with a quaint country feel at times. There are many short pieces here connecting the tracks, though they are nothing more than brief interludes, signifying nothing important beyond that, yet pleasant all the same. If you like a Van Dyke Parks type of conformity, then you'll probably adore this. Not as beautiful or strange (not by a long shot) as Incredible String Band, it is a very lean, clean, soft-beyond-belief type of sound, with very little in the way of musical effects, and no chemically-induced lyrics whatsoever. There is practically nothing disagreeable about this music, and you could even play it to your grandma, though be sure she isn't diabetic (due to the teeth-rotting high sugary content)!
Pure psychedelic, and flower power -fans may prefer to try the following: Country Joe & The Fish (1st two albums), Twink (Think Pink album - the BEST psychedelia), HP Lovecraft (HP1 & HP2), Steve Morgen, Kaleidoscope (UK & Us bands - all TOP stuff!), Silver Apples (some gr8 eerie, atmospheric, xperimentl montages), Pink Floyd (early stuff especially - Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Ummagumma, & almost any of Syd Barret's solo stuff), Beatles (you know - Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, Sgt. Peppers, White Album), The United States Of America (for a score of top psychedelic tracks), Small Faces (especially Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, with Stanley Unwin vocals - mad!), Cyrus Faryar/Cosmic Sounds (Zodiac - trippy lyrics/vocals galore), Traffic (Mr Fantasy, & Traffic - for fun), Sweetwater (esp. for My Crystal Spider!), Beach Boys (Smiley Smile - beauty & fun), The End (Introspection), some Gong (Angel's Egg, perhaps?), The Tremeloes (much of What A State I'm In is good), Can (unsettling Cannibalism album - mushroom-induced, mind-blowing mayhem!), The Misunderstood (Top music, though not sure about the vocals myself) or Donovan, Clear Light, Moody Blues (esp. On The Threshold Of A Dream), The Incredible String Band (The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, etc. - damn hippies!), Parchment (most beautiful songs for a long long time, alongside Ballroom/Millennium) Dr. Timothy Leary (L.S.D. - you Can Be Anyone This Time Around etc.), Hawkwind, Sallies Fforth (Rainbow Ffolly - for far-out fun!), .. etc. etc. etc.
...and so the list grows. Try also (up to date) The Beta Band's - The Three E.P.'s (dreamy, hallucinogenic, & triptastic), Hollydrift, Ros Bobos - Sonambulations album (weird and wonderful throughout - CD baby though, if not here), and Sir Isaac Neutron ('Sir Isaac Neutron's Ambient Dalliance' album, also hard to find).