Like a clarion call for the broken-hearted, Sam Phillips’ 1989 album The Indescribable Wow wraps you up in a warm blanket of reassurance and lets you know that you’re not alone.
Sam Phillips’s The Indescribable Wow isn’t just an album; it’s a jailbreak. After shedding the Leslie Phillips moniker that she used for her four Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) albums (which netted her one Grammy Nomination), she adapted the name Sam. It turns out she had also grown tired of the derisive “Christian Cyndi Lauper” label that was attached to her.
Sam Phillips walked out of the CCM world and strode right into the arms of pop’s weird jangly salvation with equal parts sugar and ax.
Signing with Virgin Records, she again partnered with T-Bone Burnett, who had produced her last CCM album, The Turning.
Oh, sure, now Burnett is a legend, but in the late ‘80s, he was still hustling like a man possessed, both as a musician and a budding producer. It would be in his vintage-pop workshop that he helped Phillips transition to the secular world. A world that would allow her to trade hymns for hooks and sermons for sighs.
Phillips’ secular debut, The Indescribable Wow, produced by Burnett, is part Beatles and part Brill Building. The songs with the orchestrations of Van Dyke Parks help give the record a dash of Burt Bacharach, for good measure.
There is an attention to detail on this album that adds a layer of texture to the songs themselves. They’re subtle but present. This texturing would soon become something Burnett would be known for: his ability to capture the essence of the artist.
The resulting album is a smart, self-conscious record that wears its Beatlesque ambition like a new coat. The Indescribable Wow sonically fits the mold of ‘80s CCM, but what it really does is introduce and shine with flashes of the restless artist Sam Phillips would become.
The album opens with Phillips sharing two strong statements, “I Don’t Want To Fall In Love” and “I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye To You.” Don’t be fooled by the playful vocal stylings of Phillips; these songs, like most of the album, are hand grenades designed as little pop ditties. Her voice could make it easy to overlook the depth and power in the lyrics, which are often both beautiful and potent.
Phillips eschews typical song structure in favor of something more closely resembling poetry.
The key ingredient to any good pop song is relatability, and “I Don’t Know How to Say Good-Bye to You” has that tenfold. If you’ve ever been on either side of a break-up, then you know the sentiment of not wanting to, but having to say good-bye.
Sometimes you don’t want to say goodbye, but they do.
Sometimes you want to say goodbye, but they don’t.
Sometimes you have to say goodbye to save each other.
The song “Holding On to the Earth” recasts faith as secular yearning, and “I Can’t Stop Crying” almost convinces you that it’s fun to hurt so much.
“Remorse” is one of the more powerful songs, and while it’s open to several interpretations, I read it as a California noir tragedy.
The setting is the late ’50s, somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. A small house, and in the kitchen sits a young couple. The kitchen is loaded with Formica and bright, happy colors. The man sits leaning on his elbows as the woman stands, leaning against the counter, looking down at her husband. The heaviness in the air is palpable as the young couple comes to terms with the man's indiscretion.
The sleight of hand that Burnett, Phillips, and their cast of minstrels pull off is that this record never feels like effort.
They made something poignant and profound while making it sound so bright and simple. The songs shine, grin, and then sucker punch you with lines that stick like glass in the skin.
Critic Jason Ankeny called her “a pop marvel”. He said that the songs on the album “conjure the spirit of prime girl-group-era pop, but her mature, pointed lyrics — largely devoted to sophisticated dissections of modern relationships — shrug off such easy comparisons.”
The Indescribable Wow doesn’t shimmer because it tries to transcend; it resonates because of its craft. Sam Phillips stepped out of CCM and into herself, and in doing so, she gave us a debut that still feels startling, confident, and alive.
