CDR release

USA         Arena Rock Recording Company ARE 059 (2008)

                Song listing

                I Love You

                I've Got To Learn To Live Without You

                I Am The Six O'Clock News

                The Great American Novel

                Stop This Flight

                Moses: A Blues Recital And Meditation Of 40 Years On The Road

                Peacepollutionrevolution

                Pardon Me

                Reader's Digest

                Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?

                Baroquen Spirits

                Nightmare #71

                Watch What You're Doing

                Without Love, You Ain't Nothing (Righteous Rocker)

                The Outlaw

                Ha Ha World

                U.F.O.

                I've Searched All Around The World

                I Wish We'd All Been Ready

                Rosemary's Baby (The Omen - 666)

                U.F.O.

                The Sun Began To Rain

                Notes

♫                    "This ultra deluxe remastered CD includes a 24 page full-color booklet featuring exclusive photos, printed lyrics, and a song-by-song description of how and why the songs were written. "To best understand Larry Norman, you should realize that the man is a dichotomy, in the grandest sense of the world. While other rock stars existed to follow the prepackaged template to a tee even if that meant punishing another seemingly innocent hotel room, Norman existed on an entirely different plain. He was the church boy holding his own in a decadent world of rock music, an insubordinate jester with a rebellious streak that stretched out long before the birth of punk, and a performer whose raw energy, spiritual force, and playful wit made him the endearing rock icon he is today. In Norman you have it all. A man unfairly saddled with the hefty burden of the "father of Christian rock," yet he is a singer whose defiant lyrics and actions were shunned by the church-going status quo. Norman is a saint in a world of sinners, and at the same time, to some, he is a sinner amongst the saints. While other rockers spent their lifetimes trying to emulate Norman, they just couldn't catch the man. - J. Bacca (excerpt from Larry Norman biography included in the Anthology)." (The Official Larry Norman website)

♫                    "Most people who have heard of Larry Norman at all know him primarily as a sixties Jesus Freak who pioneered today's multi-billion dollar Contemporary Christian Music industry. But Norman, who died in February at age sixty, was anything but a middle-of-the-road musical sheep who followed a prescribed formula of simplistic shout-outs to Jesus. He was an eccentric, psychedelic music-loving, politically left-leaning hippie folksinger who also loved the lord and wanted everybody else to love him, too. If his music opened sanctuary doors to subsequent Christian acts from Petra to P.O.D., Norman's idiosyncratic voice, melodies and arrangements also inspired secular artists like Black Francis, who named the Pixies' 1987 EP Come On Pilgrim after a line in Norman's bluesy "Watch What You're Doin'," in which he sings, "Come on pilgrim, you know he loves you."

Seven of the twenty songs on this anthology come from Norman's George Martin-produced masterpiece of 1972, Only Visiting This Planet, including the raw, psychedelic garage-rock of "I Am The Six O'Clock News," about media coverage of the Vietnam War; the Dylan-like ballad "Great American Novel," which takes on racism and Christian hypocrisy; and the lush chamber-pop of "Pardon Me," in which Norman rejects a young girl's offer of free love. While Norman's faith fuels even the most tangentially Christian-related tracks here, his visionary music should not be limited to Christian audiences."  - Mark Kemp." (Rolling Stone website)