Tropical Campfires

Tropical Campfires
Studio album by Michael Nesmith
Released	1992
Recorded	July 1992
Genre	Rock
Length	58:02
Label	Pacific Arts
Producer	Michael Nesmith
Michael Nesmith chronology
The Older Stuff (1991) Tropical Campfires (1992) Complete First National Band Recordings (1993)

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Allmusic

Tropical Campfires, originally known as Tropical Campfire's, is an album by Michael Nesmith released in 1992 after Nesmith's 13-year hiatus from making studio albums. It is the 9th and final Nesmith album to feature guitarist Red Rhodes, who died in 1995.

Allmusic writes that "Along with Lindsey Buckingham's Out of the Cradle, this album may be one of the finest and most underrated albums of the 1990s."

The seemingly incorrect original spelling of the album's title comes from an excerpt printed inside the CD booklet: "Now she must navigate by the southwestern tropical campfire's mambo raga songs, their sounds rising from the desert floor ..." There is an additional dimension to this seeming misspelling--that of Nesmith's subtextual "commentary" on the naivetè and provincialty of the so-called American "middle class", whose inattention to correct English grammar freely adds or subtracts apostrophes to or from words ending in "s". (See mailbox spellings on your next trip through rural America, especially in Southern states,) The original 1992 CD on Pacific Arts reads "campfire's" but the 2001 and 2008 reissues have the apostrophe missing from the cover artwork.

As an additional subtextual commentary, the lyrics to Ary Barroso's classic samba "Acquarella do Brasil", on this album, which Nesmith retitles "Brazil" here, are sung in Spanish, a not-so-subtle dig at the American tendency to discount other cultures. (The original lyrics are in Portuguese, Brazil's national language.)

All versions of this album were released encoded in the Dolby Digital Pro-Logic surround sound format.

Track listing

All songs written by Michael Nesmith except where otherwise noted.

1. "Yellow Butterfly" – 5:22
2. "Laugh Kills Lonesome" – 4:12
3. "Moon Over the Rio Grande" – 5:58
4. "One... " – 5:19
5. "Juliana" – 6:09
6. "Brazil" (Bob Russell, Ary Barroso, Russell Sidney) – 5:35
7. "In the Still of the Night" (Cole Porter) – 3:09
8. "Rising in Love" – 4:42
9. "Begin the Beguine" (Cole Porter) – 5:18
10. "I Am Not That" – 2:45
11. "...for the Island" – 5:18
12. "Twilight on the Trail" – 4:28

Personnel

• Michael Nesmith – guitar, vocals, liner notes
• Joe Chemay – bass, background vocals
• John Jorgenson – guitar, mandolin, background vocals
• John Hobbs – keyboards, background vocals
• Red Rhodes – guitar, pedal steel guitar
• Luis Conte – percussion
• Nelson Stump - cowbell
• Robbie Sneddon - percussion, harp

Production notes

• Michael Nesmith – producer
• Mike McDonald – engineer
• Peter Rynston – mastering
• Jeff Adamoff – art direction
• Henry Diltz – photography
• Val Jennings – project coordinator
• Jeff Lancaster – design
• Stan Watts – illustrations