Happy 30th Anniversary to Cocteau Twins’ seventh studio album Four-Calendar Café, originally released October 18, 1993.
The first time I heard Cocteau Twins, it was “Carolyn’s Fingers” on a mix tape sometime in the late ’80s. I can’t remember who gave me the tape, only that I was blown away by Elizabeth Fraser’s voice, the strange otherworldly “glossolalia” in which she sang (rumored to be comprised of extinct British Isles languages like Auregnais, Cumbric, and Norn), and the way the music felt like it was pulling me into a floating, shimmering, cerulean alternate universe. It was as if Carolyn’s long, graceful fingers—whoever she was—were tickling some corner of my soul I didn’t know existed until that moment.
Cocteau Twins’ music seemed to grace you with its own specialness, making your ordinary life—at least for those few minutes of any given song—exceptional and dignified. It was easy to understand why Fraser would be nicknamed “The Voice of God” or, more recently, have an asteroid named after her.
In fact, there’s an entire book called The First Time I Heard Cocteau Twins, in which folks—both famous and laypeople—marvel at this phenomenon. “When you listened to the Cocteau Twins, everything became slow motion. People and cars moved in time to their music, and the sunlight shone through the branches of trees at just the right moments,” writes Pete Fijalowski, former frontman for the band Adorable, in his essay. It’s almost like tales of paranormal activity, near-death experiences, or UFO sightings, the way people talk about the alchemy of Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, and Simon Raymonde. Every single first memory of hearing Cocteau Twins is infused with wonder, magic, and speechlessness.
I wouldn’t buy my first Cocteau Twins album until 1993, though, when I was a sophomore in high school. Up until high school, most of my music had come from a group of older kids my brother and I hung out with via mix tapes or albums copied to tape. But as a young teenager, I’d finally gained the independence and disposable income to buy records with (reckless) abandon. My friend Nikki and I took the Strassenbahn downtown one cool autumn day after a wild night out (the drinking age in Germany was 16, and that was a new experience, too) so that I could buy Four-Calendar Café, which I’d seen advertised in SPIN.
Nikki and I had become best friends, totally inseparable, and I was practically living at her house on the weekends because it was so close to downtown. Formerly host to an American army base (which is what my family was doing there), Heidelberg is a breathtakingly beautiful southwestern German city—lush green mountains, cobblestone streets, and a majestic castle overlooking everything—but it becomes even more of a fairytale in late fall and early winter during its outdoor Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market). Then, the entire city smells of roasting chestnuts, Glühwein (mulled wine), Lebkuchen, and cotton candy.
The Weihnachtsmarkt was the place to be (like the American mall for teens), and Nikki and I and our little crew would spend hours getting tipsy on Glühwein, stuffing our faces with Lebkuchen, and buying scented candles and tchotchkes from the artisans in their wooden booths. You’d get so cold your cheeks and nose would freeze, so whenever I got home, I’d run a hot bath, light the candles I’d just bought, and put Four-Calendar Café in the little boombox perched at the edge of the sink. (If no one else was home, I’d crack the window and light a cigarette.) Eventually, it got to the point where I was taking more baths than showers, probably due to 1) the ’90s bath bead craze, 2) the timeless obsession of teenage girls to always smell good, and 3) my desire to luxuriate in bubbles to the Cocteau Twins.
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Four-Calendar Café was the perfect companion to my little ritual—the silky warm water and the ice-cold air, the flickering glow of handmade candles, the Weihnachtsmarkt aromas still in my hair; it’s all preserved exactly as it was whenever I listen to that album. I often wonder if I hadn’t bought that CD, if that ordinary winter would have even stayed in my memory. (Probably with nowhere near the same level of vividness.) The album was more pop-oriented than previous Cocteau Twins offerings, it was their first release on Capitol (rather than longtime label 4AD), and I remember feeling a bit disappointed that Fraser wasn’t singing in her odd “language” on the album (it’s one of the criticisms lobbed by diehard fans). But at the same time, Four-Calendar Café wasn’t music borrowed from some ’80s teen—it was all mine, and possibly the beginning of a new Cocteau Twins era.
To promote the album, guitarist Robin Guthrie appeared on MTV’s 120 Minutes—the first American television appearance by anyone in the Scottish band—and told veejay Lewis Largent that its title was borrowed from a snippet in the 1982 travel guide Blue Highways. “It’s just a little phrase out of a book by William Least Heat-Moon,” he said. “ It’s a sort of travelogue around the states and he used this little phrase to describe the eating establishments, how good they were—and if they had four calendars [hanging on the wall], they were pretty good.”
“Feeling pretty good right now?” Largent asked, checking in with his visibly anxious guest. Guthrie shook his head and admitted, “No.”
“Feeling a little nervous?” Largent asked. Guthrie nodded. “Yeah.”
Eventually, Largent asked in his signature disarming way, “Robin, you can’t understand—at least you couldn’t for a long time—what Liz was sayin.’ Were they actual lyrics or did she just make it up?”
“Yeah, I saw them all written down, and it made sense. It’s the way she sings it, you know,” Guthrie said, chuckling. “At least I think so.”
“Because her vocals are getting more understandable,” Largent said. “I mean, I can understand complete choruses in ‘Evangeline.’ It’s a fabulous first.”
Four-Calendar Café starts off with the rhythmic, jangly-gauzy “Know Who You Are At Every Age” about finding oneself through grief—“Cry, cry, cry ‘til you know why / I lost myself, identify.” I was at the age where I had begun to feel a certain solace in sadness; when you’re a kid, you just want to get past the tears, but as a teen you begin to savor your darker moods, gliding your fingers through the murk and even splashing around with a certain mirth. So I can see now why this album opening, in my sublime sullenness, would have instantly compelled me.
Next, “Evangeline” begins with coiled suspense and then leads you by the hand into a serene, shimmering, waltzing utopia. You want to close your eyes and get lost forever in its world of coming-of-age, which can happen at any age you allow yourself to feel fully: “There is no going back / I can't stop feeling now / I am not the same, I'm growing up again.” The song is in many ways autobiographical: in between Heaven or Las Vegas and Four-Calendar Café, Guthrie sought treatment for his cocaine addiction and Fraser, who was Guthrie’s romantic partner, had entered psychotherapy. “I mean we didn’t have any communication skills before his cocaine problem got out of hand,” Fraser told The List. Meanwhile, Fraser realized she was addicted to Guthrie. “I got told I was a big-time codependent,” she said.
“Bluebeard” stands out for its Americana twang—possibly in tribute to its Blue Highways inspiration—and features a trippy video with swirling paisley, kaleidoscope snow, and Fraser emerging from a violet seashell. “Are you the right man for me? Or are you toxic for me?” Fraser inquires. “To me, ‘Bluebeard’ sounds nothing like country music. It just sounds like us playing a twangy guitar,” said Guthrie. “So it was really a guitar that created that song. A big guitar. It’s just that if we do country it comes out sounding like Cocteau Twins. If we do anything it comes out sounding like Cocteau Twins.”
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“Theft, And Wandering Around Lost” is moody and operatic, full of mournful, wailing guitar flourishes, and fully reflecting the searching quality of its title. It appears to be about an assault—“And I give back his shame / And I take back my power / My body is mine alone.” (One of the things that came up in therapy for Fraser was childhood sexual abuse). Next, “Oil Of Angels,” with its prettily stuttering vocals, bell-like guitar, and slow dirge quality is maximum chillout, a mid-album cooldown infused with a shamanic, religious quality.
“Squeeze-Wax” is my favorite song on the album: a swaying sashay, a rainy day, and a fluttering love letter to Guthrie and Fraser’s daughter Lucy Belle—“You amaze me, you amaze me, you amaze me.” Meanwhile, “My Truth” ticks with misty suspense, a candlelit backdrop to some film noir. And “Essence” is slow, introspective, and searching with minimal guitar and layered, ethereal vocal harmonies.
Four-Calendar Café takes a pop-rock turn with the gently bopping “Summerhead,” which ironically speaks of dashed dreams and collapsed goals in its skipping, kicking lyrics. The album ends on “Pur,” a song that begins like slowly snaking lava and then claps like distant thunder, turning into a wistful , singsong, celebratory ’80s prom song—“I’m glad you are a girl / I’m pleased to know you / I like you for you / I’m happy you’re growing up.”
After Guthrie’s nervous solo MTV appearance, Cocteau Twins went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where they performed “Bluebeard” in all of Fraser’s full-on, strange-language glossolalia glory, while Guthrie looked much more at ease.
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