The evidence is in. My "mixed from the radio" cassettes reveal the truth: my electronic lovin' phase started as soon as I got my hands on a boombox in 1992. I was raised on Oldies, but couldn't resist the lure of early 90s dance music. I was obsessed with Haddaway's "What is Love?" (before Night at the Roxbury!!), Pet Shop Boy's "Go West," Real McCoy, "Rhythm is a Dancer," La Bouche, Ace of Base, Culture Beat, etc. At the time, I had no idea what those songs were actually called, or who they were by; written in sloppy kid-cursive on the tapes' white paper inserts are names for them that made sense to me at the time.
I LOVE Google images! My boombox looked almost exactly like this one.
Most of these songs aren't as embarrassing to listen to as I thought they might be. However, the videos are generally horrible; if you need a good laugh, a serious dose of weird, and a refresher on early 90s fashion, check out the video for "What is Love?" I refuse to provide a link to it, but I admit that I just watched it.
While I loved many dance-electro-rock songs, there are two in particular that I loved with the passion only a 13-year-old girl can muster.
"The Promise" by When in Rome
I'm not sure why I heard this on the radio so much when I was a kid because it came out in the late 80s. In any case, it had a featured position on one of my radio cassettes, and I'm sure the tape runs thin in that spot.
This song has a great melody, a killer chorus, a lovely, plunkety piano. The electronic bass line threatens to date the song, but the energy of the vocal keeps it fresh. The lyrics are romantic, and as an adult I find them realistically sweet:
If you need a friend,
don't look to a stranger,
You know in the end,
I'll always be there.
I still think "The Promise" is awesome.
"Always" by Erasure
This one came out in 1994, and remains my favorite Erasure song.
I find the idea of not being understood terrifying, and there is a longing for connection and understanding in "Always" that really resonated with teenage Colleen. Through no fault of their own, adolescents wear a lot of masks; I wanted so badly to be who I felt I was, but was aware of the incredible pressure to conform. Andy's croon was irresistible...he knew what it was like.
Wear no disguise for me
Come into the open
There's also an underlying sexual tension, and a bit of desperation, that I find appealing.
Vince Clark backs up Andy by filling "Always" with lush synths, touches of string sounds (I first saw the video yesterday, and the Eastern influence on the music is overt), and warm beats. Irresistible.
A song to celebrate Passover and Easter, the end of enslavement. Somehow this video manages to be as joyous and moving as the song itself.
The shackles are undone
The bullet's quit the gun
The heat that's in the sun
Will keep us when there's none
The rule has been disproved
The stone it has been moved
The grain is now a groove
All debts are removed
"Window in the Skies" from the single, by U2
...And now if we have been freed by Love,
does our love free others?...
P.S.
These songs are also totally awesome. Check out the live TV performance by Al Green. (I'm sorry Prince refuses to let his stuff be on Youtube, because there are some awesome videos out there of Prince singing "The Cross".)
I have a journal dedicated to mixes I make...it gets misplaced periodically then pops up again somewhere like a lost sock. I am rededicating myself to efforts to keep its location consistent by posting a mix from 3/21/02 entitled "Night Music"
While I fail miserably at keeping a journal with any regularity, I have done a good job of keeping my mixes. Music lovers know what this means; hit the play button on a mix and emotions, places, people, and events come rushing.
I'm gonna try something new (for me) and embed a playlist of these songs below. You can play it in the background of your activities if you feel so inclined. Brief descriptions/song details included further down the page. Some of these songs are ubiquitous to the music community, but some deserve special attention.
1. "Mojo Pin" from Grace, by Jeff Buckley. This is one of my "big four" albums. I wrote about it here.
2. "Time After Time (Annelise)" from Reckoning, by R.E.M.
This jangly number reminds me of songs from the 60s...maybe it's the bongos.
3. "Damage" from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, by Yo La Tengo.
As simple bass lines go, there are not many as bewitching as this one.
4. "30" from the single Good Fortune, by PJ Harvey.
PJ has some of the best b-sides ever...a mysterious song full of hazard. Her guitar playing bespeaks her blues background.
5. "Blue Dress" from Violator, by Depeche Mode.
I think DM is probably one of the few testosterone-filled, male-gaze oriented bands I passionately love. Nice Martin Gore vocal. Sense of ownership over woman...weird.
6. "Ava Adore" from Adore, by The Smashing Pumpkins.
Me encanta la canción y es un video fabuloso.
7. "Sometimes" from Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine.
This is the album I listened to after my childhood dog passed away, and I found it very comforting. I'm a lyric fan from the word go, but I almost don't care what the lyrics are to MBV songs because the music is SO GREAT! Cool line from "Sometimes" that sort of sums up this album for me:
Turn my head
Into sound
Thanks, Kevin and MBV. It totally worked.
8. "Exit Music" from OK Computer, by Radiohead.
Another well known gem...I remember seeing grinning-Radiohead-bear patches on people's backpacks in high school and wondering who they were. Is it good or bad that I found out about them during Kid A? I think loving Kid A has prepared me well for King of Limbs. More about that later?
PS Enjoy the crescendo...I know I do.
9. "Mysterons" from Dummy, by Portishead.
I am shocked to realize that this album came out in 1994...
10. "It's Not Up to You" from Vespertine, by Bjork.
A song about being in love...a song about living in the present moment with joy:
I can decide
What I give
But it's not up to me
What I get given
Unthinkable surprises
About to happen
But what they are
It's not up to you
Well it never really was
11. "Bethlehem Steel" from Copperopolis, by Grant Lee Buffalo.
Imagine the drum/bass of this song as the rhythm of a steel factory. This is American history mingled with the religion of industrial revolution...the lyrics are heady stuff. LYRICS
12. "Grateful" from Gung Ho, by Patti Smith.
A gentle song about death from a wise woman who's experienced the deaths of many loved ones. This is a song that cuts through pretense and straight to the heart; a close listening often results in heartache, tears, and joy:
Die little sparrow
And awake
Singing
13. "Beside You" from Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison
Enthralling.
14. "We Never Change" from Parachutes, by Coldplay
One of the sweetest albums around. Gimme heart over facade-of-cool any day.
I wanna live life and never be cruel.
I wanna live life and be good to you.
15. "Keep Your Dreams" from XTRMNTR, by Primal Scream
This song helped me move past some bad relationships:
I believe in forgiveness
Hate will eat you whole
Bad blood, a lifelong curse,
You've got to let it go
It kept me going towards the end of college...and helped me develop some soul-attitude.
Keep your dreams, don't sell your soul
Be careful
And still, nothing is gonna stop me from having heart, cause
I'm going down to the underground
As deep as I can go
16. "Here Comes a Regular" from Tim, by The Replacments
Oh man, that piano...this song's a killer from the start to finish...a classic.The vocal is an everyman's, raw, on the verge.
These lines are a bumper sticker I'd like to own (they might be two different stickers):
All I know is I'm sick of everything that my money can buy
The fool who wastes his life, God rest his guts
In honor of Record Store Day, a post about two of the first record stores I frequented as a newbie record buyer. In memoriam...
The first record store I wandered into in P-Town.
I had the coolest RA in college. Besides being kind, silly, and oozing Big Island cool in his year-round flip-flops, Michael was the kind of guy who made sure that all us bright-eyed frosh were ready to get around on our own in Portland. One weekend early on, Michael gathered up the freshman crew in Stewart, showed us how to hop the bus downtown (including how to get transfer passes!), and took us on a walking tour of major sites. We were backpack-wearing ducklings following our mama.
The first place we stopped was this store with lots of windows and red trim on the corner of Stark and 11th. D-Jangos? I think it took me a while to figure out how to say the name properly...and learn its history. We all walked inside and gawked at the merchandise. The gears in my mind were turning like a lamborghini's odometer on the Autobahn. I knew I was coming back to this place.
When I think of Django's, the vinyl fairy sprinkles love dust into my heart. I found so many cool things there: Jeff Buckley's singles, lps like Mystery White Boy, Low, Astral Weeks, Technique, Music for the Masses, Beach Boys 7" singles from Pet Sounds (mono!), a Mahalia Jackson postcard, and lots of cds, too. The prices were always reasonable. Best of all, every time I was there, I was with friends and fellow music junkies.
I miss Djangos.
I dyed my hair "Pimpin' Purple" with a bottle of Special Effects bought at Ozone.
Right across the street, on Burnside and 11th, was Ozone (now a Buffalo Exchange). While Django's was a welcoming, open store, Ozone felt like the traditional cool record store gauntlet. You had to walk through a long entry to get to the goods, past employees with many-a-piercing and/or tattoo and awesome, high-maintenance hair. They were cool. At the end of the entry there was a counter dedicated to patches, stickers, hair dye, chains, and studded everything. After having a dream about purpling my hair, I purchased my first bottle of hair dye at that counter. Rock on Pimpin' Purple, rock on.
Benicio del Toro was rumored to have been seen at Ozone that year, and I can't deny that my prolonged gazing at the poster covered ceiling may have devolved into daydreaming about the man.
My vinyl-pickin' fingers found some gems at Ozone as well, most notably Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and Passengers.
I'm glad that I live in a city that has several fantastic, independent record stores still around. I am one lucky vinyl junky. Let's keep our record stores open...and celebrate a great day, the big R-S-D!
Each of PJ Harvey's albums is nothing short of brilliant.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool loyalist to Artists I connect with on a deep level; if I don't get an album immediately, it is my job to sit with it and learn to hear what it has to say. Unlike some Harvey albums, it's obvious from the start that Let England Shake is something special, and it's exhilarating that every listen continues to astound and deepen my appreciation for this masterpiece.
This a complicated album. Among it's themes are life and death, distance and proximity, the destructive forces of man and nature, loyalty and self-preservation, and the nature of time. Joy and tragedy are present on an album that is both immediate and universal, and features the most concrete images Harvey has ever written.
Sticking to the sonic realm, one of the first things that hits the ear with this album is the dissonance, the slightly off-kilter quality of many of the tracks. Sometimes it's the high vocal against warm guitar chords, sometimes an underlying track (trumpet on "The Glorious Land," a woman's vocal on "England") juxtaposed with the main track, or just the collective din of chimy, scratchy, jangly, and fuzzy instruments ("Let England Shake" is a great example). This makes the moments of pure melody, a bass line, a harmony, all the more moving (the bass line on "The Last Living Rose," a simple piano line in "On Battleship Hill," just kill me).
In this bed of occasional cacophony, pinpoints of dazzling beauty, and sporadic, irresistible sing-a-longs, are tucked lyrics of deceptive complexity. The simply worded and emotionally evocative song, "The Colour of the Earth," captures a heartache, a powerlessness, that the music itself doesn't allow to resolve.
Louis was my dearest friend
fighting in the ANZAC trench.
Louis ran forward from the line,
I never saw him again.
Later in the dark
I thought I heard Louis' voice
calling for his Mother, then me,
but I couldn't get to him.
He's still up on that hill.
20 years on that hill.
Nothing more than a pile of bones,
But I think of him still.
If I was asked I'd tell
the colour of the earth that day;
it was dull and browny-red
"the colour of blood" I'd say.
It's no secret that PJ Harvey grew up in the country, amidst animals, and there's not one song on this album that doesn't mention nature or death. While many city dwellers (myself included) can spend years pretending that death and decay aren't all around (as well as in bellies and guts), it just can't be done on a farm. It's not surprising then-- in addition to the psychological and spiritual aspects-- that Harvey is comfortable exploring the physical landscape of death and war.
The scent of Thyme carried on the wind.
Jagged mountains, jutting out,
cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.
-"On Battleship Hill"
Bitter branches spreading out.
There is none more bitter than the wood.
Into the white world it grows,
twisting its roots, a swarm of bees,
twisting under soldier's feet.
-"Bitter Branches"
I have seen and done things I want to forget;
soldiers fell like lumps of meat,
blown and shot out beyond belief.
Arms and legs were in the trees.
-"The Words that Maketh Murder"
What Harvey so powerfully conveys is the absolute matter-of-factness of violence, the shock of it, and that it somehow means everything and nothing at the same time. Life continues as it has always done, and this violence is a part of it.
Harvey's lyrics steer the minds' eye like a film director. The pointedness of her gaze, the imagery she uses, would be auteur-like if Harvey hadn't done such a fabulous job of finding the voice of the characters. (Her mastery will come as a surprise to those who've assumed that she is exactly like all the characters she's sung before.)
Another intriguing aspect of Let England Shake is the use of birds as the central visual theme. Not only does the cover of the album feature a flock of birds (they look like seagulls) flying haphazardly, her outfits for this album incorporate feathers.
From what I can tell, seagulls (as they are used in the British Isles) are meant to represent freedom (as opposed to the raven or blackbird which represents death). On this album, birds are described as being silenced.
...the birds are silent in the branches
-"Let England Shake"
There are no birds singing
the 'White Cliffs of Dover'
-"Hanging in the Wire"
Freedom, or innocence has been put to death. (Psst- is possible that the germ of this idea started as "Untitled (Seagulls)" from Uh Huh Her?) This isn't surprising in the landscape of war, that England finds itself without innocence, right down to the children:
And what is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is deformed children.
And what is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is orphaned children.
-"The Glorious Land"
One of the most amazing things about Let England Shake is that amidst the vivid images of death, decay, and brutal reality, there is a real desire for joy, a sense of tenderness in the lyrics and music.
Let me watch the night fall on the river,
the moon rise up and turn to silver,
the sky move,
the ocean shimmer,
the hedge shake,
the last living rose quiver.
-"The Last Living Rose"
In the immediacy of grief there is warmth, in helplessness connection. These songs of Harvey's homeland could be the songs of my homeland. There can be no sorrow without love. It takes an artist of the highest order to fully realize these tensions.
An exhausted King being held up by his friends during a March in Memphis
.
On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis. Most folks know the basics about King, that he believed in non-violent protest, he was a preacher, a man willing to go to prison, a father. We forgive him for his infidelity, because no man is perfect.
I would like to introduce you to the man who knew he was going to die, without a doubt, for the cause of Civil Rights. He's a man who spoke these words the night before his death, after recounting all the accomplishments he had thus far lived to see:
"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"
King's audience was familiar with the Bible; they knew King was referencing Moses as he looks into the promised land of Jerusalem and realizeshe will never place a foot on that soil, even after decades of service to the Lord and the people (Numbers 27:12). King was murdered the next day.
Here is a Mahalia Jackson singing "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."
Lyrics here.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a radical in the tradition of Jesus. His belief in the power of love might be considered insanity and foolishness, but his legacy says different.
"...Then the Greek language has another word for love, and that is the word "agape." Agape is more than romantic love, it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Love your enemies." And I'm happy that he didn't say, "Like your enemies," because there are some people that I find it pretty difficult to like. Liking is an affectionate emotion, and I can't like anybody who would bomb my home. I can't like anybody who would exploit me. I can't like anybody who would trample over me with injustices. I can't like them. I can't like anybody who threatens to kill me day in and day out. But Jesus reminds us that love is greater than liking. Love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. And I think this is where we are, as a people, in our struggle for racial justice. We can't ever give up. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship. We must never let up in our determination to remove every vestige of segregation and discrimination from our nation, but we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege to love.
I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens' councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."
-From "A Christmas Sermon on Peace"
A benediction, "MLK" by U2
MLK
Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, rain down on he
So let it be
So let it be
Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he
