Category Archive: Modern Music
Lament
One of Giotto's angels laments
Songs in Our Heart # 54 Lament (Ultravox) (written by Warren Cann, Chris Cross, Billy Currie and Midge Ure; released June 1984) [This ululation to lost love is wonderfully evocative and atmospheric: it recalls the line from Pierre-Jean de Béranger: “His heart is a hanging lute; As soon as touched, it reverberates.”] “And just as my eyes start seeing After all the pain The twist in my life starts healing Just to twist again In stillness, in sorrow Returns that softly sighing lament…”
Continue Reading →Life on Mars?
Songs in Our Heart # 53 Life on Mars? (David Bowie) (written by David Bowie; released June 1973) [Lush, sweeping and sad, watching them beating up the wrong guy…]
Continue Reading →My Dark Life
COSTELLO.25
Songs in Our Heart # 52 My Dark Life (Elvis Costello) (written by Elvis Costello and Brian Eno; released March 1996) [Like a musical version of a Ray Bradbury Story – e.g. While Earthmen Sleep. In other words, quite uncanny, vaguely dissonant, and lethal in intent. “She smiles so very sweetly when – she – wants to kill him…”]
Continue Reading →Roll Away the Stone
Leon Russell (2 April 1942 to 13 November, 2016) Leon features among our selection Funerary Songs, and now it’s his turn. Rock and or Roll is one of the few areas where a guy from Comanche country, Oklahoma, can become a star. He was a superb session musician who also crafted great songs, and eventually, his work with Joe Cocker on the “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour and his increasingly popular brand of heartfelt, nasal gospel with a slice of piano honky-tonk-boogie added, elevated him to legendary status. At a Bluesfest a few years ago, he smoked the big tent with a wonderful…
Continue Reading →Hey, St. Peter
Songs in Our Heart # 51 Hey, St. Peter (Flash and the Pan) (written by Harry Vanda and George Young; released 1976) [Weird and wonderful. ‘Done my time in hell…’](Trivia note: the B side to the single was Walking in the Rain, later made famous by Grace Jones.)
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