Charles Bradley 62 years old, and No Time For Dreaming, out Tuesday on Daptone, is his debutalbum. Unbelievable that it's taken this long, because Bradley is an incredible singer, with a voice as warm, fragile, and brittle as fallen leaves. He belts his vocals, but firmly within their limitations, which prevent him from delving into the sonorous theatrics that blemish some contemporary R&B singers. On "The World (Is Going Up In Flames)," the music, provided by the Menahan Street Band, is pure Daptone vintage, chalky guitars scraping against asphalt drums and a swinging, melancholic piano riff underpinning boiling horns. As can be extracted from the title, the subject matter is apocalyptic, but it's not preachy or didactic. Instead, it's an aged man sweetly disconcerted by a chaotic world, with beautifully funky music lifting otherwise dour spirits.
v
This world
is going up in flames
and nobody
wanna take the blame
don’t tell me
how to live my life
when you
never felt the pain
ooo ooo ooo
come on babe
they don’t hear me cry
they don’t hear me
they don’t hear me cry
but what I gotta do
I can’t turn my head away
Seeing all these things
The world
is burning up in flames
and nobody
wanna take the blame
you oh you
you oh you
me oh me
they don’t hear me cry
they don’t hear me
it’s killing me
oh babe
come on babe
gotta be
a better world
gotta make it babe
gotta make it right
