By Berlinda Recacho
A "time-slip" is said to be a temporal dislocation from the present, in which subjects unknowingly and unintentionally step into the past or move into the future for a short period, before finding the way back to their own time. What is this madness? Science fiction, fantasy? In truth, it's an accurate description of the music of Margo Guryan. For more than 56 years, Guryan has been the best new artist you've been waiting to hear.
Take a Picture, Guryan's only album, came out in 1968, a year of societal, cultural, and musical upheaval. Even the title evokes the fleeting quality of time. The phrase "Take a picture; It'll last longer" can be interpreted as a cheeky request to stop staring, or as a philosophical memento mori: ever-changing life compared to the eternal photographic image. Guryan takes listeners to that fractious time, but without references to place the songs amid the events. Her work stands on its own as an example of the shift between generations. Take a Picture has become a favorite record of savvy audiophiles, and I wondered why more people didn't know about her (myself included). I learned that Guryan was a pianist trained in classical music and jazz. She was a songwriter when it was a vocation to write hit tunes for other people to perform. However, by also becoming the performer of her own compositions, she presaged the singer-songwriter revolution.
In fact, Guryan's steely resolve effectively stilled her nascent career, as she opted not to promote her record as the studio dictated. Rejecting a grueling schedule of tour dates and a succession of performances on musical shows, lip synching to her own tracks, Guryan stepped out of the spotlight and into a career as a music teacher. When Take a Picture became available on streaming services in the mid-aughts, it was appreciated by a wider, broader audience. 27 Demos was released in 2014, proving time and again that a talented writer's masterful sketches can outshine the unwieldy finished compositions of others. In a 2023 episode of Amoeba Records' YouTube series "What's in My Bag?" Alec O'Hanley of Alvvays affirmed, "Her demos sound way better than most people's real songs." There's poetic justice in the fact that digital technologies became a catalyst for an overlooked artist to finally find her audience and get her due. Guryan died in 2021, but not before she had a chance to revel in her discovery, making it clear that she felt this so-called second coming was her true debut.
Now, Words And Music, the complete box set of the artist's work celebrates her genius in full, tracking Guryan's history through three records or two compact discs. In addition to Take a Picture and 27 Demos, there is an unexpected treasure trove of previously uncollected early pieces. Young Guryan performs with the confidence and verve of the great singers from the heyday of jazz. She transported me to a time and place that was both new and familiar. Gauzy imagery like "Where are the moonbeams that woke up my daydreams/And where is the man I adore?" share the bill with startlingly fresh perspectives. Guryan's songs seethe, despair, and delight in equal order, the singer-songwriter unapologetic for feeling what she feels. A syncopated waltz picking a path through a prickly field, Margo sings that being "Half-Way in Love" "is the best way of being in love." Guryan advocates for offsetting potential heartache by setting the bar just low enough; Get the other person to meet you in the middle, so you don't have to work so hard and you only have so far to fall. Guryan advises us to mitigate loss by existing in the happy medium: "Happy if you never think of me/Overjoyed if you do/I'm half-way/to the whole way/in love with you." Or as the Other Woman in a relationship emboldened by logical fervor in "Kiss and Tell", backed by a stripped-down arrangement of a repeated motif, Guryan gives secondhand instructions to a rival, delivered through their shared object of affection. "It's a sad fact of youth," she laments (though she's not sorry). In Guryan's voice, this sort of advice seems more matter of fact than self-serving: "Kiss and tell her it's over/Kiss and hope she comprehends/It's better to tell her you're my man/Than let her hear it from her friends." "More Understanding than a Man" disguises an ode to solitude with a bold and mildly exasperated declaration: "They say that love is something that is simply grand/Who needs it/When you know he doesn't understand?" She realizes that it is far better to put your faith in something more trustworthy and constant: "And I know that the river/comprehends what she sees/For she's more understanding/than a man."
When Guryan eventually steps over the line from jazz to pop, she bridges genres and generations of music in one fell swoop. Guryan takes dictation from the world outside and sharpens her inward gaze. Simple and striking, "Four Letter Words" acknowledges the negative connotations of "Wars kill guns/hate hurt harm dead/Bomb fire burn" then neutralizes them with the antidotes: "Love give fair/just fill help true/Hope save care." "Hurry On Home" channels the British Invasion's obsession with the blues, taking cues from an inspired metronomic beat to inform an ode to a just-missed rendezvous. "I Ought to Stay Away From You" sets the wispy double-tracked vocal standard for female singers and could even stand as Guryan's own credo:
"But I can't do what I can'tMargo Guryan herself is probably less well known than her often-covered funky, swinging "Sunday Morning". Words And Music will help right that wrong. Guryan left an indelible impression on musicians that came after her. I hear echoes of her voice in the strange cadences and rhythms phrased by the late Trish Keenan of Broadcast, in the delicate yet powerful voice of Sarah Martin of Belle & Sebastian, and the 2002 self-titled solo album of Velocity Girl's Sarah Shannon to name a few. Even Debbie Harry's "Rapture" rap was preceded by Guryan's delightfully loopy "Moon Ride". Fittingly, the last song listed on the box set, "Goodbye, July", is a reimagining of an earlier tune from her jazz era.
I don't do what I don't
I must do what I will
But I will not do what I won't"
"Next time I love
I'll love in April or March or maybe
Winter is the best time after all
Away from Summer's sun
Away from girls who kiss and run
And take your true love just for fun
Oh well farewell love
and goodbye July"
First performed with a jazzy melancholy reverie, it matures into a heady folk-inspired valediction bookending a career that might have been and still is, for a once-and-future star for the ages.
Words and Music by Margo Guryan is out now via Numero Group.