Pirates, the movie, which is what this record is, has not lost much potency as years have gone by. In fact, though the sounds and ideas introduced here have long been taken up and overused, listening now reveals how weird it all was, how we are swept up in the most visual recording I have ever encountered. We learn all of the characters hopes and dreams, we know them instantly - the first sign of a great author. Her credibility as narrator is unquestionable, we know she feels everything and more, and yet we are safe watching our window, and somehow the story is told to us through osmosis as much as anything. Her voice here is like one of the horns, in fact the horn arrangements are hers. Michael Brecker, Steve Gadd, Donald Fagen, many great contributions. Very complex, and sad, yet satisfing, like any great movie, one is left with the feeling that ones own life has a part, you know, in the big picture. this record somehow reminds me of the much later, and much different Ghostyhead. I suppose those same characters, now seperated and less corporal, are still somehow calling from Ms. Jones ethereal world. This record was a five star rated in rolling stone at the time. It is a classic, overlooked by the new media. and though perhaps the production, careful and lovely, has been tendered too many times, if one views it as the film it is, and the creation of language that it was, this should not incumber the experience of getting to know *unt-finger louie and Zero and all the rest of the fluent speakers of blonde. and make no mistake - this is not your mothers car. Quietly obscene language has slipped by the censors in the hands of the sweet-voiced Rickie many times. She is wild, sly, sophisticated, and extremely tender. this is one side of the many-headed beast.