the great songs (v) - sign your name

I think I remember Terence Trent D'Arby arriving on the chart scene back in the late 80's (purely for the record: I was working in British Coal's Purchasing Branch 1 at the time, on the Heavy Electrical sub-section). Was If You Let Me Stay his first hit? It didn't register very deeply with me; he seemed to be trying too hard. But Sign Your Name is something else altogether.

This song is intense and intensely cool. A perfect combination of musical style and lyrical exploration, all wrapped in a delivery that is almost too assured but not quite. Soul!

We started out as friends
but the thought of you
just caves me in...
Sign your name across my heart...

the great songs (iv) - o superman

After referencing Johnny Cash's American Recordings (previous post), we're moving on to another slice of Americana in the form of Laurie Anderson's O Superman, from the Big Science album of 1981, itself a distillation from her stage presentation United States I-IV.

The track is subtitled For Massanet - the track recalling an aria from his work, Le Cid. Common consensus sees her work as dealing with isolation, alienation and fear ("Well you don't know me but I know you...here come the planes"). And yet this piece is warm and accessible; the eight and a half minutes it takes to listen to are never begrudged. Maybe there are places, still, within a broken world that people who are disconnected from each other can yet speak and listen and know?

A striking contrast to Cash and yet also, perhaps, a fitting counterpoint. They sing of the same America and the same human condition.

the great songs (iii) - the first time ever i saw your face

Of course, this could be sung by any of a whole host of people but I'm plumping for the version by Johnny Cash on his American IV: The Man Comes Around album.

What you have here is a truly rare combination - a song written with genuine poetic gift (Ewan MacColl), sung with an honesty & power that are beyond doubt and produced (by Rick Rubin) with a deft & sympathetic touch that illuminates. It genuinely sounds as though a heart has been opened and its emotional caverns chiselled-out.

As an aside, on the album this track is followed by Cash's version of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Now that's how to put an album together....

ps. For the Badger's sake - and to allow others to compare & enjoy another stunning reading of this great song, here is the Roberta Flack version (live).

the great songs (ii) - heart of glass

Blondie's Heart of Glass is one of those songs that makes you so thankful that radio was invented - you may not have it in your collection (I do, as it happens) but when you hear it played over the air you remember that part of the reason you have legs is to dance with delight at such melodies.

Truthfully, I just don't know how anyone could not like this song. It grabs you from the start with the terrific intro and then the always elusive, thrill-is-in-the-chase singing of Ms Harry. And it keeps going, wave after wave of perfect pop. You just don't want this song to end, which it nearly doesn't (the link is to the full-length album version).

We coulda made it cruising, yeah.....riding high on love's true blueish light.

Now there's a helpful suggestion....

Make a rule that you will read X number of books you currently own before buying another one. Set a "read-to-purchase ratio". This solution works well because it lets you control your book purchasing habits without requiring that you wait several years until you've read the entire existing selection. It also encourages you to read more, knowing that you can reward yourself with a new book soon enough, and not feel guilty about it. Choosing a ratio that’ll work for you involves finding that sweet spot between how much time you have to read, how quickly you read, and how many shelves you’ve still got to get through. (Lifehacker)

I think I'll go for a 1 in 3 ratio....once the books I've currently got on order have arrived. Ahem.

taking a new turn

For the past 11 years nearly I have worked with a PC on (actually, under) my desk. It has been an enormous boon in so many ways - initially, for Word Processing but it's the internet that has been the star of the show, along with various other programs.

From today, however, I hope to migrate to using only an eee pc (the 904 variety). I'm trying to 'downsize' in terms of technology - only using that which is sufficient for my needs and (crucially) that which limits, by its ergonomics, my ability to become unhelpfully distracted from the task at hand (is it possible to be helpfully distracted? Maybe so....).

The next weeks will hopefully see my desk become more of a study area than a workstation. I hope to be able to read more books and follow less trails on the internet.

Going public (if having two readers counts as going public......) may well lead to egg-on-the-face syndrome somewhere down the line: 'I thought you'd gone over entirely to the eee? What's with the Mac?' Or I might just be wrong: the issue lies less with the technology than its user (actually, I know that's true - this step is being taken in the teeth of that truth).

If you have any interest in following some of the migratory shenanigans, I'll try to post about it over at tech - no savvy.

the great songs (i) - automobile noise

This is the first of a series of posts, in conjunction with a similar list by The Badger. But I promise I won't mention any Yes tracks.....

Automobile Noise is the closing track on A Walk Across The Rooftops, the first album by The Blue Nile, released back in '84. The album, interestingly, was released on the Linn label - the makers of the celebrated record decks. In many ways, the album is best suited to being listened to on headphones and this track is no exception.

In some ways, Automobile Noise is the least obvious track to choose from the album. It lacks the stark emotional pleading that Rags To Riches and Stay contain; it is interesting for its sounds effects but lacks some of the clearer melodies of other pieces. And yet it serves to highlight and to conclude the album's emotional weight and its thematic freight.

Lyrically, it takes us to ground that, even by that early stage, was familiar TBN territory: headlights; cars; traffic lights; night. It tells us that "black cars and blue cars go by". Mundane? Of course. And of course not. It all depends on your vantage point.

Automobile noise
Out in the traffic
Black cars and blue cars go by
Backwards and forward
The names and places I know
Alright I cross the same old ground, yeah

Automobile noise
Exit signs and subway trains
Twenty-four hours, statues in the rain
Walk in the headlights, walk in the daylight
Automobile noise

Climbing a ladder to all the money in the world
Watching it blow across the wire
Automobile noise
Exit signs and subway trains
Twenty-four hours, statues in the rain
Walk in the headlights, walk in the daylight
Automobile noise

I am weary of this fighting
I'm weary of surrender
Heat of the moment
Then the unwinding of it all
Saddle the horses and we'll go

Automobile noise
Exit signs and subway trains
Twenty-four hours, statues in the rain

Walk in the headlights, walk into daylight
Automobile noise