The front cover is a photo of an actual snow-covered piano and bench with a scenic mountain peak backdrop-an actual, but gutted, grand piano was brought to the Eldora Mountain Resort (a ski area near Caribou Ranch Studios)-which was left overnight and photographed after a fresh snow. Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso rated it as Supertramp's 7th best song." Artwork There is also a reading of the first verse of William Blake's poem " And did those feet in ancient time" (more commonly known as "Jerusalem"), ended by a short sample of the band's song " Dreamer". The flageolet-sounding instrument plays an excerpt from Gustav Holst's "Venus", from his orchestral suite The Planets. First are excerpts of Winston Churchill's famous 4 June 1940 House of Commons speech regarding Britain's involvement in World War II ( "Never Surrender"), followed by sounds of police cars and bells from London's Big Ben clock tower. "Fool's Overture" had the working title of "The String Machine Epic", and according to John Helliwell: "It came primarily from a few melodies Roger worked out on the string machine thing we use on stage." Hodgson stated the song's lyrics are essentially meaningless, explaining: "I like being vague and yet saying enough to set people's imaginations running riot." Written and sung by guitarist/keyboardist Roger Hodgson - who took five years to compose it - the song is a collage of progressive instrumentation and sound samples. Graff rated "From Now On" as Supertramp's 8th best song, highlighting John Helliwell’s saxophone soloand the call-and-response singalong at the end. Siebenberg has described the song as his favourite on the album "because it's so personal and so pure." "Downstream" is performed solely by Davies on vocal and piano, which were recorded together in one take. It's a thing where there's hundreds of sounds coming in and going out, a whole collage thing." Hodgson said of the lyrics: "It's kind of a dual love song – it could be to a girl or it could be to God." Gary Graff of Billboard rated "Even in the Quietest Moments" as Supertramp's 4th best song.
Davies commented on the music: "It starts off in a very standard melody thing and then it notches onto a sort of one chord progression or perhaps we should call it a digression. Davies and Hodgson worked out the various parts of the song with Hodgson using an Oberheim and a Solina string synthesiser and Davies at the drum kit. Most of "Even in the Quietest Moments" was written during the sound check for a show at the Tivoli Gardens (in Copenhagen). I just heard that as a really slow, really solid sort of beat, just to give the song dynamics underneath it all, because the song itself is really powerful and it needed something really solid underneath it." If you haven't slept with at least five women in two weeks, you can get your money back." Bob Siebenberg recounted that "Rick had been working on 'Lover Boy' for quite a while and finally came up with the long middle section. You know, you send away for it and it's guaranteed not to fail.
ĭavies said of "Lover Boy" that "I was inspired by advertisements in men's magazines telling you how to pick up women. Though all the songs are credited as being written jointly by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, Davies wrote "Lover Boy", "Downstream", and "From Now On" by himself, and Hodgson in turn wrote " Give a Little Bit", "Even in the Quietest Moments", " Babaji", and "Fool's Overture" unaided. In 1978, Even in the Quietest Moments… was ranked 63rd in The World Critic Lists, which recognised the 200 greatest albums of all time as voted for by notable rock critics and DJs. While "Give a Little Bit" was the big hit, both "Fool's Overture" and the title track also got a fair amount of FM album-rock play. In addition, " Give a Little Bit" became a US Top 20 single and reached number 29 on the UK Singles Chart. This was Supertramp's first album to use engineer Peter Henderson, who would work with the band for their next three albums as well.Įven in the Quietest Moments… reached number 16 on the Billboard Pop Albums Chart in 1977 and within a few months of release became Supertramp's first Gold (500,000 copies or more) selling album in the US. It was recorded mainly at Caribou Ranch Studios in Colorado with overdubs, vocals, and mixing completed at The Record Plant in Los Angeles.
is the fifth album by the English rock band Supertramp, released in April 1977.