Jack Johnson – In Between Dreams

Ever since I bought this album over a month ago I haven’t been able to stop raving about it! I don’t know what it is about his songs but I can’t help but smile when I listen to them, his lyrics are so imaginative and they really show his personality through them.

Jack Johnson provides the vocals and the guitar on the album alongside his friends ‘Merlo’ who plays bass, and ‘Adam’ who plays drums

Jack Johnson grew up on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii, and he started learning the guitar when he was 14. He said that the first songs he learnt to play on his guitar were “One” by Metallica and “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens. I don’t know if that says a lot about his music now but I’d definitely say he’s not trying to copy Metallica and if he is he couldn’t be further off.

“In Between Dreams” is Jack Johnson third album, however as he isn’t that popular in this country a lot of people would think that this is his only album. As well as his three albums he has also produced three films, his first film called “Thicker Than Water”, he described it as “a collection of images and memories that started with the first time we stood on the deck of a surfboard and ends with an eighteen-month journey through the North Atlantic, South Pacific and the Bay of Bengal.”

“In Between Dreams” is such a diverse album I always find it hard to try and catagorise it. All I can say is that you have to hear it for yourself to really be able to pass judgement on it. I would say in general that his music is very easy to listen too, and for me it’s perfect for walking to and from college. Although I always have to remember that I am walking to college because sometimes it’s easy to get a little carried away and start to sing along to a lyric or two.

The reason that this album has a different quality to most of the others on the market is because Jack Johnson tries to tell a story about himself through his music. I think that a lot of the tracks on the album he had written for a special occasion and then they just seemed to turn up on the album. That is what’s so appealing about this particular album, it seems like it is just a mish-mash of songs put together on a disc, but when you listen to the songs and especially the lyrics, it shows you a little insight into events that happen in his life and by the end of the album you feel like you know a little about who he is because his songs seems so honest and truthful that you it’s hard to think otherwise.

One of the best examples on the album that shows how ordinary he really is, is ‘Banana Pancakes’, this track basically is a plea to his girlfriend to take the day of work and stay with him for the day. As a bribe to his girlfriend he tells her that if she decides to stay with him and not go to work then they can stay in bed all day and he’ll make her banana pancakes. It shows how human he is and how he sees normal situations and turns them into songs.

Of course like any other album that you buy, there will always be tracks, which you’ll want to play again and again, and this album is no exception to that rule. Personally one of my most favourites has to be ‘Do You Remember’; I like this track because once again it’s a situation in his life which he has turned into a song. He’s reminding his girlfriend of all the different things that they’ve gone through and it’s the little things that he remembers that make the song so unique to him, but at the same time it is an amazing song to listen too.

I would recommend listening to this album with an open mind, I won’t lie and say that no matter what type of music you like it will appeal to you, but like I said it’s such an ‘alternative’ album that you really do have to listen to the album to make a decision on it. He released “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” and “Good People” this year so I would strongly recommend listening to these tracks first because you may have heard him and not known it!

I guess all there is to say is enjoy!