I realize this website is mostly dedicated to albums but I see a few users posting diaries about songs so I thought I would start my own journal. I will post songs that pique my interest whether from shuffling through my music library, hearing songs out on the street or in movies/TV shows/ads, or if an artist recently passed away. It doesn't matter what genre, it could be an old song or something fairly new, it could be popular song or a deep cut. This won't be daily thing but hopefully I can post a few songs every week. So here goes....
Star power with this song from Massive Attack. Not only does Hope Sandoval make her third collaboration with the Bristol trip hop group but the video features Cate Blanchett. I know that Massive Attack have used various collaborators over the years, but wouldn't it be cool if Sandoval did a whole album with them. This is remarkably beautiful.
Released as a single in 2016, not available on any album (yet).
Mama, do you see what I see
On your knees and pray for me
Mathilde's come back to me
Charley, don't want another beer
Tonight I'm gonna drink my tears
Not exactly a love song.
The first track on Scott Walker's debut is an English baroque pop cover of Jacques Brel's chanson song Mathilde. Walker covered Brel a lot turning his songs into grandiose orchestrations. This song is similar sounding to Walker's first single (another Brel cover) "Jackie".
Okay...this song came out of left field. Arab Strap known for their downbeat, brooding, slowcore songs full of bitterness and melancholy, had one of the best and most upbeat pop songs of 2006. Arab Strap seemed to distance themselves from the pop of their Scottish indie peers like Belle & Sebastian and The Pastels, but this song would be right at home on one of those band's albums. "There Is No Ending" is taken from their album The Last Romance which was their final record before their breakup.
Arab Strap must have realized during the pandemic that there really is no ending, as the song's title may have foretold their own story when the band made a comeback in 2021 with the brilliant As Days Get Dark.
What a wonderful and beautiful night I enjoyed when I went to see The War on Drugs in concert a week ago. Best concert I have seen in a while and by far the best since emerging from the pandemic. They played an outdoor venue on a warm summer night that was backlit by the neon lights of the Canadian National Exhibition midway perfectly fitting for the band's brand of chill psychedelic heartland rock. "Pain", a favourite from the A Deeper Understanding album, is a standout track live that they played early on setting the mood for the rest of the concert.
I had to chuckle when this song came up in my shuffle this morning. The first part of the song is Clarence Carter telling the story of the birds and the bees including a line about mosquitoes making love. If you can get past the silliness of the sex lesson the song has a very soulful ending with some good sex advice.
The late, great Girls made one of the best debut albums of the 21st Century, a record of quirky indie pop jams and heartbreaking ballads with lyrics mostly about..uh..girls. However, in what I think is a genius move, about three quarters through the album the tone takes a 180 degree turn with the song "Morning Light", a straight ahead shoegaze song and an obvious homage (rip off?) of Sonic Youth's "Mote". If you've listened to Girls two albums and their Broken Dreams Club EP you would never figure them for a shoegaze band, yet "Morning Light" might be one of the best songs of the so-called "nu-gaze" era.
The band would make one more excellent album of more rock oriented songs with Father, Son, Holy Ghost before breaking up in 2012. Sadly, guitarist Chad White passed away in 2020. Singer Christoper Owens seems to have disappeared from the music industry after releasing three subpar solo albums between 2011 and 2015.
I have never listened to a Blue Nile album. I love similar bands from the 80's like Prefab Sprout and Scritti Politti but somehow this band passed me by. After hearing this song I think I need to make listening to A Walk Across The Rooftops a necessity.
… Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
And as I climb into an empty bed
Oh well. Enough said.
I know it's over - still I cling
I don't know where else I can go
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