Category Archives: music

Derek Webb- Stockholm Syndrome…

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Emily and I have been enjoying this album over the past few days- turned up loud in the car, driving around in the sun like spotty kids in lowered hatchbacks. I suspect it is not a good look in a people carrier, but the music is great-

It is not my usual sort of listening- but I really like this blokes thinking- there is an edgy, restless, even angry edge to it that I have loved since I first heard Mockingbird.  It is thoughtful protest singing by a man with intelligence and individuality…

Here is a track from Stockholm Syndrome-

He seems to have done some stuff with Sandra McCracken too- which looks promising…

 

In which I adopt for myself, an anthem…

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I first came across Over the Rhine a few years ago at Greenbelt festival- I was on my way somewhere and stopped for a few mins to have a listen, and found myself rooted right to the end of the set. I bought a couple of albums, which were OK, but more recently on the back of some rave reviews, I got hold of their new album ‘The Long Surrender’.

It is brilliant- soulful, bluesy, with tinges of Jazz and Country.

And it passed that test of all good music-of-meaning (which is all I am interested in these days)- it made me cry.

There is this one song, for instance, near the end, which I have decided to adopt as an anthem for a while. With apologies to my friends, it speaks of the best of us being broken- and in this broken vulnerability, we find each other and the beauty that life is all about…

There is also a wonderful sax solo that fades into brokenness and is tender and lovely.

Here it is- go buy the album!

Ron Sexsmith- This is how I know…

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I think this man is a genius.

From the darkness to a seed of light
From a garden to a sheet of ice
I feel you move in every sunrise
In the trembling of the leaves
This is how I know you’re near me

From the ashes of a broken home
I sent a message to the great unknown
And through the music on the radio
You came to set me free
This is how I know you’re near me

This is how I know our trials are not in vain
This is how I know we’ll rise and love again
This is how I know

From a moment to a sea of days
From an ocean to a single wave
Out of nothing came the miracle
That loved us into being
This is how I know it will be

Rise…

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It is there in me again- that pull towards Spring.

This morning the mountains are suffocated in another heavy fall of snow, and it is cold. Cold.

It will not last- the rain is already starting to mottle it into the hillside, but it sits there at the moment like repressed hope- and as the proverb says, hope deferred makes the heart sick.

So, by way of antidote, here is a song from the soundtrack of one of my favourite films…

Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow
.
Gonna rise up
Burning black holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold
.
Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
Suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold
.
Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my ace in the hole

Eddie Vedder- ‘Rise’ from the soundtrack of ‘Into the Wild’.

RIP Gerry Rafferty…

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Gerry Rafferty, Paisley born singer songwriter, has died aged 63.

He was never cool- apart from a brief moment when his song ‘Stuck in the middle with you’ was featured incongruously on the hand picked sound track of Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarrantino.

He hated fame and celebrity- and it turned him into a nomad.

But he made some great music. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard ‘City to City’- with its rich smooth laid back sound, and fine songs. I think it is his best album- things went a bit downhill from there, although I have not heard the recent one.

This Christmas, Michaela bought me a picture frame onto which she has written a list of places and events from our past and into which perfectly fitted this album sleeve-

We have a family tradition of singing in the car- particularly on the way to holiday- and often we sing along to Gerry Rafferty.

And the next time we do this, we will have a little pause, in order to be grateful for the legacy he left.

His most famous song, ‘Baker Street’ (the one with the ear-worm sax solo) was ironically the one in which he wrote about his struggles with fame. Here it is-

Christmas turns all musical…

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What a lovely day.

I have just sat down after being on the go all day- firstly to a local church where William was part of a Nativity play, and playing his Trombone-

Then home to shovel snow for a couple of hours so we could get the car down to the road.

Then around some local residential care homes for older people with some of the Aoradh crowd to sing Christmas carols- a few brass instruments, guitar, violin and piano. And all in all, it sounded lovely, considering our almost total lack of practice.

And finally to our friend’s Paul and Pauline (no they do not have a child called Paulette) for soup, and more music.

I eventually managed to persuade Emily to play some fiddle tunes, then Paul and I started singing through some old songs.

Including this one-

We had to be kicked out in the end. Ah well- good practice for New Year- if you are in the area, bring an instrument round to our house…

Songs of Praise: carols in a pub…

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I know I know, it’s a bit early for all this carol singing, but it is the second Sunday in Advent…

Sorry folks, but I think this video clip will only work in the UK, as it uses the BBC i-player, but I loved this episode tonight. The long running BBC songs of praise programme is a bit of a joke over here- often ultra traditional and a miss-match of the vaguely religious with secular awfulness.

But it often make me cry.

Because in the middle of all the mush, there will often be a story full of grace, or a hymn that takes me back to childhood, or a moment of delicate beauty.

Tonight features Kate Rusby, one of my favourite singers- who could sing the words of a phone book and still be worth listening to. She describes a tradition of singing carols in pubs from the end of November up to Christmas, in the South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire area of the UK- not far from where I grew up.

It is where Michaela learnt music by playing cornet in brass bands that grew out of the mining communities now long gone.

So if you are not moved by choirs and organs, skip this clip forward to around 22 mins into the show (but the hymn before is lovely too…)

It is worth it.

Vodpod videos no longer available.