The first song on Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets which I mentioned yesterday. This record could have been Roxy Music's third album. If Eno had been the boss, I mean. Mackay, Thompson & Manzanera are all there. Only Bryan Ferry, Roxy's leader & its voice is missing.

On Needles in the Camel's Eye we can hear Eno singing for the first time on a record, I guess. And he has a splendid voice, an intense voice you'll never forget after having listened to it for the first time. It is piercing like a sun ray. There is a certain irresistibility to it. Almost like the voices of the sirens which drove Odysseus crazy.

In this first song on his first album Eno shows what a strong pop sensibility he already has. The tune is absolutely infectious, bright and reckless. Perfect to wake up to. A melody which then won't leave your inner ear all day long.

The song is grounded by the two electric guitars played by Phil Manzanera and Chris Spedding. They are the noise bed from which Eno's high-pitch voice can rise to the sky. Those two abrasive guitars sound very much like Lou Reed's and Sterling Morrison's a couple of years before and like those by the brothers Reid more than ten years later.

From listening I don't get the lyrics but they are not important anyways as Eno always writes them after the tune. So that they sound good to the music. Meaning is not intended. At least not on a conscious level. The last line which uses the title is interesting though:

This is a funny twist on the bible's story of the camel which rather goes through the eye of a needle than a rich to heaven. That is a rare and mysterious path for a camel. Needles in a camel's eye on the other hand are not unimaginable at all. If all mysteries are those needles then there are no mysteries at all. This is not necessarily nonsense though it could be.

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