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- Artist: Dan Zanes
- Rating:
- Release Date: September 14, 2004
- Type: Children, Lyrics are included with the album
- Genre: Rock
Review
Fans who have followed Dan Zanes since 2001's Rocket Ship Beach probably noticed that the usual hubbub didn't attend the release of his 2004 album Sea Music. That was by design -- Zanes wasn't sure a crowd accustomed to "Polly Wolly Doodle" could handle songs not aimed squarely at kids (drinking and general debauchery were among the subjects). He was wrong, of course -- Sea Music is among his mostly highly regarded discs -- and one hopes the lesson will lead to the masses discovering Parades and Panoramas, possibly his best and definitely his most ambitious CD yet. Zanes, wild-haired and wildly optimistic, refuses to strut the musical easy street: Panoramas is adapted directly from Carl Sandburg's 1927 book The American Songbag, a collection of the poet's observations of a "ragbag" America. Because of its origins, the disc can sound straight out of a Coen Brothers movie -- you can practically see the dust kicking up on "Roll the Chariot" and "The Railroad Cars Are Coming." But the effect, rather than dulling the music's colors and textures or sweeping it into a corner alongside other Americana oddities, brightens what's on offer. Credit the unsurpassed inventiveness of Zanes and his usual collaborators, including Donald Saaf, Barbara Brousal, and Cynthia Hopkins. Some of these 25 songs are silly ("The Monkey's Wedding"), some devastatingly sad ("Lonesome Road"), and some flat-out, stunningly beautiful ("When the Curtains of Night Are Pinned Back"). All, however, will stay with you and your kids, permanently pinning back the curtains on a panorama you never knew existed but are enchanted to discover. ~ Tammy La Gorce, All Music GuideTracks
| Track Title | Composers | Performers | Time |
| Wanderin' | Dan Zanes | (2:23) | |
| The Railroad Cars Are Coming | Dan Zanes | (1:34) | |
| Titanic | Dan Zanes | (3:45) | |
| Railroad Bill | Dan Zanes | (2:28) | |
| Roll the Chariot | Dan Zanes | (2:41) | |
| Waillie, Waillie! | Dan Zanes | (2:49) | |
| California | Dan Zanes | (2:31) | |
| All Night Long | Dan Zanes | (2:13) | |
| The E-RI-E | Dan Zanes | (2:06) | |
| The Shanty-Man's Life | Dan Zanes | (2:27) | |
| I Was Born Almost Ten Thousand Years Ago | Dan Zanes | (2:45) | |
| Lo Que Digo | Dan Zanes | (2:46) | |
| Cuckoo Waltz | Dan Zanes | (1:31) | |
| Across the Western Ocean | Dan Zanes | (2:24) | |
| The Monkey's Wedding | Dan Zanes | (2:35) | |
| The Midnight Train | Dan Zanes | (2:11) | |
| Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! | Dan Zanes | (3:14) | |
| Lonesome Road | Dan Zanes | (2:30) | |
| The Son of a Gambolier | Dan Zanes | (3:16) | |
| The Colorado Trail | Dan Zanes | (1:12) | |
| Willy the Weeper | Dan Zanes | (3:06) | |
| Lord Lovel | Dan Zanes | (4:16) | |
| Lincoln and Liberty | Dan Zanes | (1:48) | |
| When the Curtains of Night Are Pinned Back | Dan Zanes | (1:50) | |
| Ezekiel, You and Me | Dan Zanes | (4:48) |
