On the Turntable: “Go On…” by Mr. Mister (1987)
On the Turntable: “Go on…” by Mr. Mister, RCA Records, 1987. Rating 8/10
“We must go on now
Wherever people go
Who go on together”
Mr. Mister’s third (and sorta but not really) final album is an absolute beauty, not just my favorite Mr. Mister album but one of those albums that feels essential to my life’s soundtrack.
Its singles didn’t storm the airwaves the way “Broken Wings” and “Kyrie” did - I assure you the songs of Go On are not the songs Train’s “soul sister” heard on the radio, stereo. But they’re better: more unusual, more challenging, more spiritual, and, for me, more enduring.
Songs like “Stand and Deliver” (featured in the movie of the same name starring Edward James Olmos), “Healing Waters” and “Watching the World” have big themes matched with big anthemic choruses. (Though it wasn’t released as a single, “Watching the World” feels like the most surefire radio hit. “Something Real” was issued as a 45 and briefly made it into the Billboard Top 40 peaking at #29.)
But the album takes some really interesting side roads. “Dust” is an atmospheric epic about Vietnamese children fathered and left behind by American soldiers during the war. “The Tube” is a chilly bit of Abacab-style art rock about a married couple watching TV so they don’t have to pay attention to each other. “Power Over Me” is a tense confessional that feels like a sequel to “Broken Wings”.
My favorite two songs are the ones that close out the album. “Man of a Thousand Dances” has a joyous chorus (sung by Bill and Tamara Champlin, with gospel soloing by Phil Perry) and ends with a chorus of hallelujahs. “The Border” is quieter and sweeter, empathetic and emotionally vulnerable - it’s a look back, and it’s a goodbye, a benediction, a look out at an uncertain future. It turned out to be a fitting swan song for the band (they wrote and recorded a fourth album that got shelved before they broke up in 1990).
But these days, I always find myself coming back to this song at the end of a restorative justice circle.
“Every step we take gives us the strength to go on
And all the love we make gets us closer to home”