This is an old favourite. Classic 80’s. I like lots of the Waterboys stuff so it was a challenge to choose only one song. However, this was the first of their’s that I knew and it remains my favourite.
I wandered out in the world for years, while you just stayed in your room. I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon…
Prefab Sprout – Cars and girls
This is classic 80’s and one that I have wanted to post for a while. It is a bit cheesy but I find it irresistible. Hiding beneath that cheesy, breezy chorus are actually some very clever lyrics.
Some things hurt more, much more than cars and girls…
Joni Mitchell – The last time I saw Richard
There is something relentlessly gray about London in the rain.
This is taken from Blue, an album that I found to be captivating the first time I heard it and is typical of the album – full of clever and poignant lyrics delivered with a startling purity. It is a tale of heartbreak and love lost. Seldom have I heard those raw emotions captured in such a real and vivid way.
America – Horse with no name
America seemed like the right band to post on July 4th. Happy Independence Day to my American friends.
It’s also a pretty good song in it’s own right. It has a quintessentially 70’s sound, and I love it’s mellow sound and eccentric lyrics. It’s another track I know well from my father’s mixes which we listened to during long (and hot) car journeys to and from France and Spain on family holidays in my youth.
The Flaming Lips – Race for the prize
This feels apt today. It is 4 minutes of pure sunshine. I have just spent the afternoon enjoying some spectacular London weather and am about to head out and RIP IT UP (East London watch out). This is the perfect thing to speed me on my way.
It is also post number 183 which marks the exact mid point of my year in youtune. Thanks for sticking with me. It’s been so much fun thus far. I hope you might have discovered some good music, I know I have found more than I imagined possible in January.
Donald Fagen – I.G.Y. (What a beautiful world)
I thought I would post a bit of further nostalgia today. Being at home always puts me in wistful form. It is nice to remember times gone by once in a while though.
This is another favourite from the mythical mix tape which is a distillation of several long car journeys taken to the continent and back on childhood holidays.
Donald Fagen was half of Steely Dan and this is the high point of his excellent 1982 debut solo offering The Nightfly.
Scott Walker – Jackie
The sad news today about John Walker of The Walker Brothers made me think of this.
It is another song from the mythical paternal mix tape that is the distillation of many long car journeys in my youth to and from the Continent on family holidays. It is perhaps the song I most vividly recall – full of such eclectic and colourful lyrics and full of such flamboyance. This maybe a product of it being a translation of a song orignally sung in French by Jacques Brel.
Both Scott Walker and The Walker Brothers made some great music and are well worth some investigation.
If I could be for only an hour, if i could be for an hour every day.
I revisited Rhythm of the saints over the weekend and have been unable to stop listening to it subsequently. I was remiss to neglect it and Graceland when considering my favourite back to back albums recently.
What was odd was that I was able to recite the songs word for word despite the fact I can’t ever remember consciously listening to the album. It must have been a big hit with my dad and while I can’t remember when or where I listened to it (repeatedly, it would seem) I clearly heard it. Is it strange that some of my most vivid memories from my early childhood are musical?
I really struggled to settle on one song (in the end this just shaded it over Born at the right time). It is soft and dreamlike – full of rich images and eclectic sounds from around the globe.
And all of these spirit voices
Sing rainwater, sea water
River water, holy water
Wrap this child in mercy – heal her
Heaven’s only daughter
Elton John – Benny and The Jets
Tom Robinson – War Baby
This reminds me of being young and taking family holidays that involved a lot a driving. My father would make some mix cassettes to listen to and most years this would feature somewhere. It’s funny how now and again I will hear a song and be 11 years old again.
I still like this a lot, even though I am no longer 11 anymore, with it’s elegant and poetic lyrics. The opening line “Only the very young and very beautiful can be so aloof” is one of my very favourites. The version of this song I like best is a stripped-down acoustic one which captures the sense of longing better. However I couldn’t find it on youtube.