Book Review – Wayfaring Stranger : A Musical Journey in the American South by Emma John

After reading two books by Emma John, I told myself – “She has written just one more book. Let me read that too.” 😊

In ‘Wayfaring Stranger : A Musical Journey in the American South‘, Emma John describes the time when she took a year off and spent time in the American South researching on bluegrass music and trying to learn it and become a bluegrass musician herself. The book features a wonderful cast of characters who are fascinating and nearly always likeable, musicians who are barbers and carpenters and waiters and teachers in their day jobs, but who play bluegrass music in the evening and weekends and at concerts. For nearly everyone of them, bluegrass music is their life, and their day jobs are just a way of paying their bills. There are some legendary musicians too, who don’t play at concerts, who live deep in the mountains, who only play music  in their home or their barn and strive for perfection in their art. Emma John writes about some of these musicians too. Emma John writes about a whole list of great bluegrass musicians and it made me want to find their music and listen to it. The book has some of the most beautiful descriptions of music that I have ever read. Emma John was a trained musician (violinist) herself and it shows in those beautiful descriptions.

I loved ‘Wayfaring Stranger‘. It is a beautiful love letter to bluegrass music, the American South, and the Southern way of life. It is part memoir, part travelogue and part history of bluegrass music. It is one of the best books on music that I’ve ever read and it is one of my favourite books of the year. I enjoyed reading all three of Emma John’s books and I’ll always have a soft corner for her cricket book, but I think ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ is her finest work. It is destined to become a classic.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite passages from the book.

“The mandolinist began to play before anyone else was ready, a little atonal riff he seemed to be offering up to no one but himself. Was he still tuning, perhaps? The banjo plucked a few unlikely notes behind him. A guitar slid in with an answering run, like a batter stealing first base; the bass player laid down some long bow. I couldn’t tell if this was the start of a song or the end of a sound check. But then the individual noises began to grow and coalesce like a creeping threat. Alien bacteria, perhaps, absorbing their environment and evolving rapidly into something cogent, conscious, dangerous. The sound grew louder, more sinister; a fiddle added urgent spikes of fear; I felt my lungs begin to bubble with anxiety. The music reached a crescendo of terror … and stopped dead. A half-breath later, the guitar kicked up a funky beat, and the mandolin player began to sing about his friend who tended bar. The next hour was like falling down a rabbit hole and landing in a club compered by Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch. I had no idea exactly what was going on, but I recognised the genius at work. The band’s authoritative handling of their instruments matched anything I’d heard in the classical world, but their masterful playing was only the half of it. It was what they were doing to music itself that was extraordinary: bending it, contorting it, dismantling its molecules and creating new elements from scratch like chemistry savants. Certainly, this was music I could never think or hope to play myself; it’s probable that only a handful of people on the planet would have the skills to replicate what they were doing. They were a post-modern firework display, showering their listeners with ideas, allusions and deconstructed melodies that charged the atmosphere with electricity and emotion. When they finished, the air I’d been breathing was stuck in my windpipe like a bruise. After an ovation I didn’t think was long or vociferous enough, their mandolin player returned on stage alone and encored with a prelude that Bach had written for violin.”

Have you read ‘Wayfaring Stranger‘? What do you think about it?

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Favourite Musical Moments from 2015

I think two months have already passed in this year and this is pretty late to write a ‘Favourites’ post for last year. But I thought, it is better late than never. Last year, sometime in March, my TV stopped working one day and it was out for nearly two weeks. I am totally into TV shows and it was hard for me, but I am not one who will be brought down by such things. I thought I will make the best of a bad situation. My music listening has gone down over the past few years and I thought I will redeem that situation. I got the CD of the latest Grammy nominees, listened to the songs from the first to the last, went back to my favourites and listened to them again, and then went back to my most favourites and listened to each note carefully, trying to find out why I liked them so much. Then one thing led to another and before I knew my music CD collection was expanding beyond control. (I have a huge book collection and a huge movie collection – they went out of control a long time back – but my music collection has always been under control. Well, that is changing now.) I am still not a digital music guy – I don’t buy online and download music or rip them off free from Youtube – I still buy music the old-fashioned way, I buy the CD and look at the cover, and the back, open it and see whether there is an essay about the artist inside or whether the artist or the band has said anything, read the lyrics if they are present – I do all the stuff that an old-fashioned music fan does. I am not that connoisseur, classic fan though – I am not into vinyls. I am just a traditional music fan. So, one CD led to another and before long I was listening to pop, rock, folk, country and this and that, music which was difficult to qualify and categorize. I am happy to report that my music buying has still not stopped, though the TV has long been fixed and is working happily now – my newest batch of CDs arrived a few days back and I have listened to many of the songs in them and have some new favourites now.

 

I have always wanted to write a year-end music post inspired by my friend M—–l from Outgoing Signals and my friend Delia from Postcards from Asia. I have always loved the music posts of M—–l. His is the only music blog I follow and his year-end lists are legendary. (In addition to music, M—–l also writes about many other things like books and ephemera, but music is the prime theme of his blog – atleast I think so). For example, check out his wonderful music acquisitions during the past two months, here and here. Also, his famous ‘Ba-Ba’ songs list. It is always an education to read his year-end lists and discover and explore new music. I clearly remember that I discovered ‘Scottish Pop’ and ‘Iron and Wine’ because of him. My friend Delia from ‘Postcards from Asia’ occasionally writes about music. For example, this wonderful post about her favourite music. And this beautiful one about that haunting music collection called ‘Saudade’. Now, inspired by these two wonderful bloggers, I thought I should write about my own favourites from last year.

 

So, here is the list of my favourite musical moments from last year. I have called them ‘musical moments’, not because I am a cool, stylish, classy guy, but because some of them didn’t involve listening to music but reading about it and sometimes learning a new fact about it. However, it was mostly amazing music and songs and singers that I discovered or went back to. I have to add a couple of qualifiers. Last year, doesn’t really strictly mean last year. I have also included music from the first two months of this year. I didn’t want to wait till next year to write about something that is fresh in my mind now. I wanted to share it now. The second qualifier that I want to add is this. My music taste is unashamedly populist. It is more on the pop-culture side of things. I am not going to apologize for that. That is the way things are. But, if your music taste is sophisticated and is the musical version of literary fiction, I hope you still find something here which appeals to you and which you like.

 

So, here is my list.

 

• To Have and Not to Hold (Madonna) – Madonna is one of my favourite singers. Probably my most favourite. It is odd, because I never liked Madonna when I was younger. But I hadn’t listened to her music then. I had only read about her in the papers and whatever appeared in the papers about her was always controversial. I don’t remember anyone saying nice things about her at that time. It was always one controversy after another. She didn’t help herself by calling her autobiography ‘Sex’ and kissing fellow women singers on the mouth during award ceremonies. At some point I listened to my first Madonna song. I think it was ‘American Life’. I think I first heard it in a bar on a Saturday night and everyone was dancing to the song. I didn’t even know who the singer of the song was at that time. After I went back home I googled and discovered that it was Madonna. And then I got a collection of her songs and before long I was head-over-heels in love with her music. And then I got one album after another and discovered that her voice was always fresh, contemporary. Though she explores some of the same themes across the years – like the Catholic school girl repenting for her sins, or songs on love and heartbreak in which she uses the f-word and the b-word liberally – her music has always stayed contemporary to the era in which it was created. Her music from the ‘80s is different from her music of the ‘90s which is different from her music of today. Critics have blamed her for this, saying that she has no talent or distinctive style and she just sings according to the current fashion to please the audience. Some of them have even mocked her, calling her ‘La Diva Ciccone’. My own take on that is that ‘La Diva Ciccone’ has adapted to the times well. It is hard to stay relevant in the musical universe for long – the average career of a singer is only a few years (and many long years after that of singing the same songs again and again). But Madonna has managed to be an exception to that and she has done it exceptionally well. Even Michael Jackson or the Beatles didn’t manage to survive that long. That Madonna has managed to do that – survive and prosper and succeed as a musical artist for more than three decades – is an unparalleled achievement. It must have been even more harder because she is a woman. Of course, the controversies keep coming. In the most recent one, Madonna turned up drunk for her own concert and she arrived three hours late. She probably reached the venue and started swearing at everyone. It is sad. This kind of news might make it hard for some fans to like her. But I have reached a stage in my life as a music fan, in which such controversies have ceased to matter. I love her work and so I love her for that. Sometimes I love her inspite of her controversies. Sometimes I love her because of them, for showing the middle finger to her critics and not being scared of anyone and not worrying about what people think. Well, after this long song of praise for Madonna, I should get to her music. It is hard for me to choose a favourite song, most of which I listened to during the previous year. Her voice has an incredible range (something which she doesn’t flaunt but wears lightly on her sleeve) and she has sung on a wonderfully diverse range of themes, that it is hard to pick just one favourite. But if I have to choose one, it would be ‘To have and not to hold’ from her album ‘Ray of Light’. In that song (and in that album), she tamed her wild, strong, bold voice, she made it soft, and showed that she can sing melodiously divine songs as well as anyone. When she sings – ‘To have and not to hold, To love but not to keep, To laugh but not to weep, To look but not to see’ – well, how is it possible to not love that? It is one of my favourite Madonna songs and everytime I listen to it, it reveals the magical possibilities of musical art that only a great artist can make us discover. You can find the song here.

• Birthday (Katy Perry) – When my TV went off, the first new favourite singer I discovered was Katy Perry. I was listening to a Grammy nominated song collection and a song called ‘Dark Horse’ popped out and it was wonderful in all kinds of awesome ways and when I went to find out the identity of the singer, I discovered that it was Katy Perry. Katy Perry has, of course, been around for a while, and she has even performed in my city, but I have never bothered to listen to her music. Until now. And I am glad I did. Her voice range is amazingly broad and deep, she gives depth and mystery to vowels and consonants like no one else does, she pronounces every alphabet in the word beautifully which adds enormously to the song and it makes one wonder why others don’t do that. She exploits the range and beauty of the singer’s language so magnificently that it is a pleasure to listen to her. When I first discovered Katy Perry and fell in love with her music, at some point I went and read everything about her that I could read and listened to different versions of my favourite songs of hers and even went and watched her movie ‘Part of Me’ and laughed and cried with her while watching the movie (and cursed Russell Brand). I don’t know what it says about me as a music fan when I say that Katy Perry is one of my favourite singers now, because though I see grownups in the audience in her concerts, most of her fans, atleast those who talk about her, seem to be teenagers. Probably, I am still a teenager at heart. Though Hilary Clinton also says that Katy Perry is one of her favourite singers. Which means that I seem to be in good company. It is hard for me to choose a favourite Katy Perry song – she has the kind of hit ratio in her albums that no one has ever had before – and I am trying to include only one song by a singer or a band here and so that is an impossible task. ‘Dark Horse’ is, of course, wonderful, and I also love her other perennial crowd favourites ‘Firework’, ‘Roar’, ‘California Girls’, ‘Teenage Dream’, ‘ET’ and the song which made her a star, ‘I Kissed a Girl’, a song which I love so much. But the one which I want to mention here is ‘Birthday’ from her recent album ‘Prism’. There are two video versions of it – an actual video version, which is quite bad in my opinion (I have found Katy Perry’s videos to be hit-and-miss – the ‘Dark Horse’ video was pretty disappointing, but the videos of ‘I Kissed a Girl’, ‘Roar’ and ‘Firework’ were totally awesome), and a lyric video version which is totally awesome. It is one of my favourite birthday songs and makes me happy everytime I listen to it. You can find it here.

 

• If You Were in My Movie and Song in Red and Gray (Suzanne Vega) – I love Suzanne Vega. I love all her songs. I was pretty late to the party though. I discovered her music only a few years back (and she has been around for nearly thirty years) and I can’t remember how I discovered her music. I thought my friend M—–l from Outgoing Signals recommended her music, but he says he didn’t and so I am not sure. I must have read about her during my initial days of blogging and I can’t remember exactly where, now. It led me to the discovery of her songs ‘Luka’ and her a capella version of ‘Tom’s Diner’. In recent years Vega took many of her famous songs – around fifty of them – and re-recorded them with minimalistic music, with only the acoustic guitar. Amazingly, this improves the original songs beyond recognition. These re-recordings were called ‘Close-Up’ and came out in four volumes, each one arranged by theme. The first one has love songs. In the inside flap, Vega introduces each volume and in the first she says that though this collection is supposed to have love songs, they are also songs of attraction, flirtation and confrontation. That description always makes me smile. Because it is perfect. And the song which fits that description perfectly, atleast the attraction and flirtation part, is this one – ‘If You Were in My Movie’ . Whenever I listen to it, I listen to it on repeat-mode. You can find it here. The second Suzanne Vega song that I love so much is ‘Song in Red and Gray’. It is also part of the love songs collection. It is about a woman who looks back on an affair she had with a married man years back and the woman addresses the song to the man. It is a song about love and loss and the aftermath. It touches the past and the present, has some surprises, and it makes the heart ache deeply in all the right ways. You can find it here.

 

• Lights (Ellie Goulding) – I discovered Ellie Goulding’s music by accident. I was browsing through music lists online and her music appeared in one of them and when I listened to one of her songs – I can’t remember which one – I liked it enough to get one of her albums. This album was called ‘Halcyon Days’ and most of the songs in it were wonderful, but the one which I loved the most was ‘Lights’. Ellie Goulding brings all the glorious beauty of the British accent to the fore, in her own unique way, in this and other songs in this album. Sometimes we like one song of a singer very much, but when we listen to another song we like the new one more. So, I wanted to see how ‘Lights’ will fare on this front and so I tested it with other songs of Goulding and it came out with flying colours – it was still wonderful and my most favourite though others also got added to the favourites list. And sometimes as it happens, this and other Ellie Goulding songs suddenly started cropping up in all kinds of places – I heard them in an episode of a TV show called ‘Jane by Design’, in an advertisement for a new TV channel and in other places. Sometimes we listen to one thing and like it very much and suddenly we discover that the whole world is filled with it. You can see the video of ‘Lights’ here.

• L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock (Ennio Morricone) – This one is just music. No song here. When I recently saw the recent Quentin Tarantino movie ‘The Hateful Eight’, I loved the music during the opening scene. It was bleak, dark, haunting – it started slowly and then picked pace and rose to a crescendo and made my heart explode. I discovered that it was composed by Ennio Morricone. Initially I thought he had come back from retirement and composed this music for this new movie. Then I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and discovered that he must be in his late eighties. Then I thought that Tarantino must have taken music composed by Morricone for one of the classic Sergio Leone movies. But I wasn’t satisfied with the situation. I wanted to find which one of the two possibilities was true. I went and did some digging. I should have trusted my instincts. Morricone did indeed compose this music, especially for this movie. It made me so happy. And when I watched the Oscars and saw the master getting an Oscar for his brilliant, haunting score, it gave me goosebumps. This old, frail gentleman with thinning white hair, probably finds it difficult climbing stairs. He probably can’t speak a word of English. But he knows one or two things about composing music. If you don’t believe me do check it out here.

 

• House of the Rising Sun (Scotty’s cover) – This song is old and its origin is unclear. But it was first made famous by a British band called ‘The Animals’ in the ‘60s. Though the story it tells is set in New Orleans. It is told by a man who narrates the story of his life and how he lost his way. It has many versions. The one I heard was not the famous one by ‘The Animals’, but a cover sung in a TV show called ‘The Affair’. It has since become famous as ‘Scotty’s cover of House of the Rising Sun’. The lyrics have been modified a little bit from the original and interestingly they have improved the song. And when I heard it first while watching the season finale of ‘The Affair’, in the context of the story – it was haunting, dark, bleak, plucked all kinds of heartstrings, made my heart ache in all the right ways and refused to let me go. It inspired me to get the version of ‘The Animals’, but that didn’t do it for me. Scotty’s cover was something. You can find it here.

• Burning Love (Elvis Presley) – I have always wondered what the big deal was about Elvis Presley. Because he is always mentioned fondly and with awe by music lovers and critics. When I first tried listening to his songs years back, they didn’t work for me. I never went back. And then I saw a cover of his song ‘Burning Love’ performed in a TV show called ‘Package Deal’ (the context was this – the main character declares his love for his girlfriend and uses this Elvis song to do that) and it was so funny, and beautiful and romantic and awesome that I went on listening to the song on repeat-mode and then I finally knew why Elvis was cool and stylish and all the other great things that people say about him and I became a huge Elvis fan and went and got a collection of his No.1 hits and listened to them and loved every one of them and sang along with them.

• Claridad (Natalia Clavier) – I discovered this song through this post by Delia from ‘Postcards from Asia’. It is in Spanish and the only non-English song in this list. Natalia Clavier is an Argentinean singer and she sings both in Spanish and English. This song is part of a larger album called ‘Saudade’ by Thievery Corporation, which has songs by different artists, all on the topic of saudade, a Portuguese word which has a complex melancholic meaning, like a sad ending to a beautiful love story. I don’t know Spanish, except for the few standard regular words that everyone knows. But after listening to this song, I so fell in love with the song, with Natalia Clavier’s haunting, intimate voice and the poignant mood which seeps throughout the song that I got the lyrics in Spanish and their English translation and then read the Spanish version a few times after understanding the meaning and then went back and listened to the song and it was even more beautiful then. You can find the song here.

• Helen Reddy – I was reading a book on the history of 20^th century popular music and it had an article on Helen Reddy. The story went like this. It was the year 1973. Helen Reddy’s song ‘I Am Woman’ won the Grammy that year. When she went to accept the award, Helen Reddy said – “I thank God because She makes everything possible.” I couldn’t stop smiling when I read that J Of course, this created some controversy at that time, probably among the patriarchy – how dare she call God, ‘She’! Well, this is more than forty years too late, but I have to say this – ‘Way to go, Helen! You are awesome!”

• Jimi Hendrix – I don’t think I have ever listened to Jimi Hendrix. Till now. Even when I used to listen to a lot of rock music, I don’t think I listened to Jimi Hendrix. Lots of Pink Floyd and Jim Morrison and people like that. But Jimi Hendrix, no. But I have heard friends rave about him, saying that his guitar play was something. Then I read this description by music critic Tom Moon, of Jimi Hendrix’ guitar play in his first album ‘Are you Experienced’ – “Throughout this most essential rock document, the Seattle native (Jimi Hendrix)…plays as though handling fire. It’s right on his fingertips, pulsing through his wrists, and as long as he keeps moving, he won’t get burned. His lines sear the wires that carry them. His rhythm playing doesn’t merely dictate pulse – it suggests an almost savage way of keeping time. Inside his playing is a concentrated expression of abandon, freedom seeking, the embodiment of every psychedelic desire.” Wow! Who wouldn’t want to listen to Jimi Hendrix after reading that? Well, I went and got his album ‘Are You Experienced’. And as often happens when the expectations are too high, it fell flat. It was disappointing. I didn’t find anything special in it. Maybe Hendrix did magic when he first recorded it and which others have subsequently copied and so we are so used to it now that it doesn’t feel awesome anymore. Or maybe, it is not my kind of music. Or maybe, Jimi Hendrix is an acquired taste like fine wine and classical music and poetry and single malt whisky. Hopefully that last one is true. Hopefully I will make an effort and listen to the album a few more times and at some point I will be able to see the magic.

• Who Makes You Feel (Dido) – I first heard a Dido song years back in a song video collection I had. It was called ‘Thank You’. It was a beautiful and sad song. Then I went and got a CD collection filled with songs from two of her albums. And I never listened to it. Well, I got that out last year and listened to it. And surprise, surprise – there was a treasure inside it, which I liked even more than ‘Thank You’. It was this song ‘Who Makes You Feel’. It is a song with simple lyrics, but there is a yearning in the song, which makes the heart ache in all the best ways. I don’t know whether anyone listens to Dido these days, but I will be listening to this song for a long time. You can find it here.

• I Really Like You (Carly Rae Jepsen) – One of my favourite ways of discovering a song is when it is featured in an episode of a TV show. Last year when I was watching the newest season of ‘Castle’ (which is still running), there was an episode which featured a singer singing in a studio. I think this was the first time a song was featured in ‘Castle’. It was so beautiful and so addictive – I couldn’t stop listening to it. Then I went and did some research on it – I wanted to find out whether it was by an actual singer or whether it was a song which was just composed for the show. I discovered that it was a new song by Carly Rae Jepsen and she was as real as they come. Carly Rae Jepsen is, of course, famous for her iconic song a few years back ‘Call me, Maybe’, which everyone was posting about on Facebook and Twitter. I like that song. But I like this even more. She is, clearly, a wonderful talent. Later there appeared a video version of the song, in which Tom Hanks makes some funny moves. You can find that here. You can find the song version from ‘Castle’ here.

• This Ole House (Bette Midler) – I always thought that Bette Midler was an actress. Till I heard this song. And then I went and did some digging. Well, I discovered that she is a singer, an actress and everything in between and has won every kind of award that is out there. Such amazing talent. I discovered this song last year. It is a nostalgic song about time, change, the past, old houses. It is a classic country song and it makes us nostalgic, happy and sad, all at the same time. You can find it here.

• Redneck Woman (Gretchen Wilson) – Redneck is not regarded as a good description of someone. But Gretchen Wilson tells us how cool a redneck woman can be. If you don’t believe me, you should listen to this song. When she says ‘I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long’, it is hard not to smile. This song made me get a whole collection of Gretchen Wilson songs. She is cool, this redneck woman. You can find her here.

• The Heart Wants What It Wants (Selena Gomez) – I think I discovered Selena Gomez while exploring music on Youtube. But this particular song – I got to know of it through Delia from Postcards from Asia. It is beautiful and it says everything in the title – it is about how we sometimes want things that we cannot have or which we should not desire, but that is what life is, dreaming about things which are beyond our reach and occasionally experiencing glorious happiness when we realize our desire. You can find it here.

• I Lived (One Republic) – One Republic has been around for a while but this is the first time I am listening to one of their songs. When I heard this song ‘I Lived’, it touched a chord. When I heard the line ‘Hope you fall in love and it hurts so bad’ – well, it made my heart ache. Such a beautiful song. You can find it here.

• Talking Body (Tove Lo) – Once upon a time there was J.Lo, whose songs I loved. And then there was J. Law. And then Cee Lo. Now there is Tove Lo. I have never heard of her before. I went digging for more information. And I was surprised to find out that she was Swedish. And sang in English. But this song – it is so addictive. I couldn’t stop listening to it. Is it a love song? Is it a rebellious song? Is it a song about empowerment? Or is it just a song with a catchy tune? I don’t now. I know a couple of things though. I love Tove Lo’s voice. And I love this song. One day, maybe, I will get more insight into what this song is about.

• Take Your Time (Sam Hunt) – I have it on multiple collections and so I guessed there must be something about it. And there is. The lyrics are beautiful. When Sam Hunt sings – “I don’t want to steal your freedom, I don’t want to change your mind, I don’t want to make you love me, I just want to take your time” – it made me smile. How can you not like that song? You can find it here.

• Light in Your Eyes (Sheryl Crow) – Sheryl Crow was one of my favourite singers once upon a time. I think she still is. Her song ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ is my most favourite song from a Bond movie. I like it even more than Madonna’s ‘Die Another Day’ and Adele’s ‘Skyfall’. I have heard every song in every Bond movie since ‘Doctor No’ and I think Sheryl Crow’s Bond song is the best ever. There are other songs of hers that I like very much too. This is one – ‘Light in Your Eyes’. The music starts slowly at an even pace and rises high and high. I let my heart flow with the music and it is beautiful. You can find it here. The other song which I want to mention is ‘Everyday is a Winding Road’. It tells a story and has the same musical style – even pace and then a sudden quickening and rising. You can find it here. There is one reason that I will always remember and like ‘Everyday is a Winding Road’. I watched the Julia Roberts movie ‘Erin Brockovich’ years back when it first came out. Recently, when it came on TV in one of its endless reruns, I paused what I was doing and watched the last few minutes of the movie. And in the last scene, Erin leaves her office and drives somewhere and knocks at a door. And during this sequence a song is played. And it is ‘Everyday is a Winding Road’! I don’t remember that from my earlier watchings of ‘Erin Brockovich’. And I have heard Sheryl Crow’s music before I watched the movie for the very first time. And I have watched ‘Erin Brockovich’ so many times. I can’t believe that I didn’t catch it the first time. And in subsequent times. It is amazing how many new things we discover in a movie when we watch it years later – we have changed a lot in between and we have learnt new things and have had new experiences and this changes our perception of the movie and the things we see in it. It is something to ponder about.

• Umbrella (Rihanna) – I love Rihanna’s music. And this song is one of my favourites. Its relaxed, hip-hop pace is like a lullaby and makes one happy. It is a good song to listen to at night, dimming the lights and sitting comfortably on the couch and let the music slowly wash over our being. You can find the video version here.

• Pink Balloon (Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals) – I first heard this on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’. I don’t even know whether the song has been released yet. I loved the song – it was addictive and I recorded it on my DVR and played it on repeat mode. I want to listen to more songs by Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals. Maybe I will buy this album when it comes out. You can find it here.

• It’s No Good (Depeche Mode) – I discovered Depeche Mode through my old friend Delia. I must be the only person who hadn’t heard of Depeche Mode at that time. Well, I got a collection of their songs and listened. This one is my favourite. The music style made me smile because it is from a bygone era, the kind of music we all loved while growing up. When we hear Dave Gahan sing – ‘Don’t say you want me, don’t say you need me, don’t say you love me, it’s understood’ – well, how can we not like that J You can find the it here.

• The Unquiet Grave (Sarah Greene) – I love discovering new songs through TV shows. They have surprised and delighted me so many times. I discovered this song through the TV show ‘Penny Dreadful’. It is set in the 19^th century with the stories of Dracula, Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, séances, Egyptian myths all woven into one seamless narrative. If you love horror stories and you haven’t watched it yet, I would highly recommend it. About this song now. It is an old English folk song. In the story, in the season finale, it is sung by a witch, who walks in after the big cataclysm has happened and sings it, starting with the line ‘My breast is cold as clay’, while she collecting stuff and putting it in a bag and she leaves the burning house while she continues singing the song. This witch is young and beautiful and, of course, she is a witch and so there is more to her than meets the eye, because she is probably evil and she has just seen her rival off, and we know that she is going to be upto more mischief. But the song is beautiful, cold, bleak, seductive, addictive. And the witch sings it and we can’t stop listening to it. When she sings – “And if you kiss my cold clay lips, your days they won’t be long” – our heart shudders with horror, but we can’t stop listening to her sing. You can find it here.

• Back to Love (Ingrid Olava) – I discovered this song while watching the Norwegian TV show ‘Lilyhammer’. The story is about a New York gangster who turns witness and who ends up in Norway in Lillehammer. Well, he ends up buying a bar, falls in love with a local girl and there is heartbreak. Then he asks the singer in his bar to sing his favourite song. And she sings this. I have never heard of Ingrid Olava – I am happy I have discovered her now. It is a heartbreak song, the best kind of song, and it makes the heart ache. You can find it here.

• This is My Least Favourite Life (Lera Lynn) – When the first episode of the second season of ‘True Detective’ aired, opinions of fans were mixed. For me, though, it was a wonderful start. One of the reasons I felt that way, was this song by Lera Lynn. The setting is a dark bar, there are only a few people around, and there is a singer on stage singing about hearbreak. And when she sings – ‘This is my least favourite life / The one where you fly and I don’t / A kiss holds a million deceits / And a lifetime goes up in smoke” – it does something to the deep, romantic, vulnerable part of our hearts and the ache doesn’t go away till the song ends. Here is the audio version.

• You’re Broken Shadow Lines (Ashes of Rome) – I discovered this song through an episode of the TV show ‘Parenthood’. I don’t know whether it is a real band or a real song. I did some digging and discovered that the band is not real and neither is the singer, but the song is real and every time I hear Oliver Rome sing ‘You’re broken shadow lines / Lost and drifting in the busy sky / Do you feel the rush keeps pulling us in a steady line / Where our orbits intertwine’ my heart leaps with delight. It is such a beautiful song. You can find it here.

• Snapback (Old Dominion) – I first heard this song in ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’. The song was nice and catchy. But the reason I liked this song, loved this song was the last minute. When the singing was all done and dusted and the focus shifted to the guitarist, the one who didn’t sing much, and he took his guitar and plucked its strings and did all kinds of things with it which were so awesome and at one point he didn’t care that it was a public concert and that he was playing the guitar to please fans – this guitarist reached a zen state and became one with his guitar and the guitar became an extension of his fingers – then I knew what it meant to be a musician, a zen musical monk at one with his guitar. The lead singer tried joining in the guitarplay, but it looked like he just wanted to show off, while our zen monk was extracting all kinds of magic from his guitar. You can find that video here.

• A description of ‘Almost Famous’ – I want to round off my list with this description of a scene from the movie ‘Almost Famous’. This description is found in an essay called ‘Chasing the Essential’ by Tom Moon. Everytime I read it, it gives me goosebumps. Here is how it goes.

“There’s a scene in Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s semiautobiographical film about his unlikely rise as a teenage rock critic, that illustrates the kinetic thrill of discovering music. The Cameron character’s big sister has just left home, and he’s checking out her record collection – gazing meaningfully at Cream’s Wheel of Fire and Led Zeppelin II as though trying to decipher sacred texts. When he opens the gatefold of the Who’s rock opera Tommy, he finds a note : “Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you will see your entire future.”

He follows the instructions, drops the needle on the hi-fi, and hears those galvanizing guitar chords, a call-to-arms across generations. Even though maybe he’s ten years old, he promptly gets the glassy look in his eyes which says, “Please don’t disturb this cosmic moment.” With this one scene, which has no dialogue, Crowe makes manifest something music lovers know in their bones. That if you listen intently, you will encounter more than just constellations of cool sounds – that lurking within them is information worth having, perhaps even a signpost pointing you toward the next key step on your journey.

That’s how music works. It can take your blues, dust them in a wicked mojo, sneak them to the crossroads where the Devil hangs out, and swap them for a veggie burrito made by a blissed out Deadhead in a parking lot. That might not be exactly what you ordered, but it might inspire you all the same. Music can shred your illusions, show you ways of getting along in the world, expose vices and vanities, bring calm to moments of turbulence. It can shine a light on the traps that await you on your path, and offer a sneak preview of what life feels like when you fall into them. It can send your fantasies into overdrive and magnify the reality of your surroundings. As Leonard Bernstein once said, music can “name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” But don’t take his word. Or mine. Put one of these records on, light a candle, and see what happens.”

 

Have you listened to any of these songs? Which ones are your favourites? What were your favourite musical moments and discoveries from last year?

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Beautiful song – The First Snow of 2002

I have been a ‘bad’ blogger of late. My reading is going okay, but not as good as expected. I am one review behind – ‘Four Letter Word : New Love Letters’ edited by Rosalind Porter and Joshua Knelman, in case you are curious – and I am reading Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ now. ‘Wuthering Heights’ is a tough read, filled with dark characters, which makes it difficult for me to turn the page, because I don’t know who is going to suffer next. So, I thought I will post some music 🙂

I was going through the archives in my computer a few days back trying to find something, and I discovered some old songs that I used to like very much. When I heard them again I felt very nostalgic – I liked them very much even after all these years. Here is my most favourite out of the ones I listened to. It is in Chinese, and it is called ‘The First Snow of 2002’. Happy Listening!

The translated lyrics of the song go like this.

The First Snow of 2002

The first snow of 2002
Came later than it did before
The public bus which stops at the Kunlun hotel
Carried away the last fallen autumn leaf
The first snow of 2002
Is the complex story from Wulumuqi that I cannot give up
You are like a fluttering butterfly
Fluttering about in the virgin snow like a flickering flame

I cannot forget the feeling of you in my arms
Warmer than the passion inside my heart
I forget the biting cold North wind outside the windows
As I bring forth familiar tender emotions

It is your red lips that I hold fast in my memory
It is your every care which makes me feel alive again
It is your ten thousand tender sentiments which melt the ice
It is your sweet speech and honeyed words which change the season

Thanks to Soul Muser from Life Wordsmith for identifying the singer of the song and for showing me the translation. Thanks to my old friend Dop Sun for introducing me to the song in the first place and for giving me more information on Dao Lang.

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Favourite Songs – Song No.6

Here is my sixth favourite 🙂

Tomorrow Never Dies by Sheryl Crow – I have a compilation of theme songs from James Bond movies which I used to love when I was younger. I used to put the cassette, which had this compilation, in the stereo and listen to it everyday.  Many famous singers have sung the theme song in James Bond movies including Paul McCartney (‘Live and Let Die’), Louis Armstrong (‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’), Nancy Sinatra (‘You Only Live Twice’), Duran Duran (‘A View to a Kill’), Tina Turner (‘Golden Eye’), Madonna (‘Die Another Day’). But my favourite is Sheryl Crow’s ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. It encapsulates the personality of Bond and the Bond theme in one song and Sheryl renders it beautifully. 

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

(If you want to read about my previous favourites you are invited here – song no.1 and song no.2 and song no.3 and song no.4 and song no.5).

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Favourite Songs – Song No.5

Here is my fifth favourite 🙂

Song No.5 – Oh, Lonesome Me by Don Gibson

I discovered this song in a CD song collection that I got. The collection is called ‘Perfect Day : 100 Amazing Songs’ 🙂 I like the pace of the song, the lyrics, the melodious country music and the wonderful singing of Don Gibson – that is, pretty much everything about the song 🙂 The guitar play at 1.26  is awesome, isn’t it? Other singers have released covers of this song, including Neil Young and Johnny Cash, but I think Don Gibson’s original is the best.

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

(If you want to read about my previous favourites you are invited here – song no.1 and song no.2 and song no.3 and song no.4).

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Favourite Songs – Song No.4

Here is my fourth favourite 🙂

Song No.4 – Overload by Sugababes

 

 

I discovered this song in a DVD song collection that I got. I like the pace of the song, the music and the singers (one of them is English, another is Jamaican and another is Filipino, making a real rainbow). I also like the way the video is produced – simple-style with a white background. I don’t know many people who have heard this song. I don’t know why. Because it is really nice.

The strange and sad thing is that the three original singers of the band are no longer part of it now and there are three new singers now. I can’t understand how it can be the same band then! (It is like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr left ‘The Beatles’ and there are four new singers calling themselves ‘The Beatles’. A music band is not a company, for God’s sake!)

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

(If you want to read about my previous favourites you are invited here – song no.1 and song no.2 and song no.3)

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Favourite Songs – Song No.3

Here is my third favourite 🙂

Song No.3 – Wherever You’ll Go by The Calling

 

I discovered this song in a DVD song collection that I got. It made me cry when I listened to it the first time. I like the way the singing changes when the story depicted takes a dark turn. I also like the love-affirming ending. I have never heard of the band, ‘The Callling’ , before, and so I did some research in Wikipedia. I discovered that this was their most famous song and they have stopped performing now. It is sad. It also makes one realize that creating a beautiful work of art is a difficult, complex, uncertain task. Whether it is a poem or a song or a book or a play or a movie or a painting or a scarf or furniture or a garden. One needs lots of luck and hardwork, dollops of inspiration and dashes of genius. It is not for the faint-hearted. For most of us, one beautiful work is all that we can produce in our life – if we are lucky. For ‘The Callling’, I think this is that one song. But what a song!

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

(If you want to read about my previous favourites you are invited here – song no.1 and song no.2.)

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Favourite Songs – Song No.2

Here is the introductory note that I wrote for the first post of this series.

I have been writing a lot about books for a while now, and in the process I have been neglecting another of my loves, music. So, I thought I will give music some time. The first thing I thought I will do is make a list of my favourite songs. So, I sat down, thought about it, heard some old CDs, which I haven’t heard in ages, and thought about how I felt when I first heard a particular song. Then I made a list of my favourites. Then I thought that I will post about the songs in this list 🙂

One small note on the word ‘favourite’. A favourite song doesn’t mean that it is critically acclaimed, it launched the singer’s / band’s career, it has won awards like the Grammies, it has been in the Billboard top 10 or some other list, it has made a lot of money, it has one of the highest hits in YouTube or it is played in the mall (though some of this might be true for a specific song). It also doesn’t mean that the song is an unknown classic and no one has heard this song and I am feeling very possessive towards it and am proud of helping the world discover it. It also doesn’t mean that the singer is a role model of mine and I admire his / her political views or way of life.

I use the word ‘favourite’ here to mean that I just liked a song when I first heard it and I had the time and the patience to listen to the song fully at that time and I was probably in the right mood and in the right receptive state of mind which helped me to discover the beautiful secrets hidden inside the song. 

Another note on my favourite songs – they may not necessarily be my favourites right now at this moment because our favourites keep changing every moment. But they are all songs which when I heard them first, created a deep impression on me. Some of them made me laugh, some of them made cry, some of them made me hum, some of them made me sing-along. One of my friends says that music can sometimes explain the world in a way that words cannot. Some of these songs did that to me.

These songs are not ranked in any particular order. They are just randomly listed. Most of them are songs sung in English, but I will throw in the occasional Indian or Chinese or Russian song or a song in another language.

If you want to know about my first favourite, you are invited here.

Here is my second favourite 🙂

Song No.2 – Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega

 

I am not sure how I discovered Suzanne Vega’s music. I thought my dear friend M—–l, from Outgoing Signals, who is a music connoisseur, introduced me to Vega’s music, but he vehemently denies it 🙂 

I love this song for two reasons. The first is for the way it depicts an everyday scene beautifully. The second is because it has no accompanying instrumental music (a cappella-style, it is called). It makes me marvel at the astonishing possibilities of the human voice. There are many versions and remixes of this song and most of them have accompanying instrumental music, which kills the central idea behind the song. This version is the best because I think it stays true to Vega’s original vision.  

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

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Favourite Songs – Song No.1

I have been writing a lot about books for a while now, and in the process I have been neglecting another of my loves, music. So, I thought I will give music some time. The first thing I thought I will do is make a list of my favourite songs. So, I sat down, thought about it, heard some old CDs, which I haven’t heard in ages, and thought about how I felt when I first heard a particular song. Then I made a list of my favourites. Then I thought that I will post about the songs in this list 🙂

One small note on the word ‘favourite’. A favourite song doesn’t mean that it is critically acclaimed, it launched the singer’s / band’s career, it has won awards like the Grammys, it has been in the Billboard top 10 or some other list, it has made a lot of money, it has one of the highest hits in YouTube or it is played in the mall (though some of this might be true for a specific song). It also doesn’t mean that the song is an unknown classic and no one has heard this song and I am feeling very possessive towards it and am proud of helping the world discover it. It also doesn’t mean that the singer is a role model of mine and I admire his / her political views or way of life.

I use the word ‘favourite’ here to mean that I just liked a song when I first heard it and I had the time and the patience to listen to the song fully at that time and I was probably in the right mood and in the right receptive state of mind which helped me to discover the beautiful secrets hidden inside the song. 

Another note on my favourite songs – they may not necessarily be my favourites right now at this moment because our favourites keep changing every moment. But they are all songs which when I heard them first, created a deep impression on me. Some of them made me laugh, some of them made cry, some of them made me hum, some of them made me sing-along. One of my friends says that music can sometimes explain the world in a way that words cannot. Some of these songs did that to me.

These songs are not ranked in any particular order. They are just randomly listed. Most of them are songs sung in English, but I will throw in the occasional Indian or Chinese or Russian song or a song in another language. So, here is my first favourite 🙂

Song No.1 – Sitting, Waiting, Wishing by Jack Johnson

 

I discovered this song by chance because it was part of the song compilation in one of my CDs. The thing which pulled me into the song was the melody and the guitar play – it is simple and melodious and pulls a string in one’s heart. I realized after hearing the song that the lyrics are beautiful too. This song is about a man who loves a woman, and waits for her to love him back. This song is classified under the genre folk rock / pop rock. If you know about genres, do tell me what is pop rock.

Have you heard this song before? What do you think about it?

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‘You Had Time’

Beautiful passage from Nick Hornby’s book ’31 Songs’ that I am reading now.

‘You Had Time’ sets itself a further handicap : it begins with more than two minutes of apparently hopeful and occasionally discordant piano noodling. I know, I know – neither ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ nor ‘(Hit Me) Baby One More Time’ begins with piano noodling, and they wouldn’t have been much good if they had; that’s not what pop is supposed to be about. But DiFranco’s song is nothing if not ambitious, because what it does – or, at any rate, what it pretends to do – is describe the genesis of its own creation : it shows its workings in a way that should delight any maths teacher. When it kicks off, the noodling sounds impressionistic, like a snatch of soundtrack for an arty but emotional film – maybe Don’t Look Now, because the piano has a sombre, churchy feel to it, and you can imagine Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie wandering around Venice in the cold, grieving and doomed. But it cheers up a little, when DiFranco makes out that she’s suddenly hit upon the gorgeous little riff that gives the song its spine. She’s not quite there yet, because she hasn’t found anything to do with her left hand, so there’s a little bit more messing about; and then, as if by magic (although of course we know that it’s merely the magic of hard work and talent) she works out a counterpoint, and she’s there. Indeed, she celebrates the birth of the song by shoving the piano out of the way and playing the song proper on acoustic proper – the two instruments are fused together with a deliberately improbable seamlessness on the recording, as if she wants us to see this as a metaphor for the creative process, rather than as the creative process itself. It’s a sweet idea, a fan’s dream of how music is created; I’d love to be a musician precisely because a part of me believes that this is exactly how songs are born, just as some people who are not writers believe that we are entirely dependent on the appearance of a muse.

–  From Nick Hornby’s essay on the song ‘You Had Time’ by Ani DiFranco

You can hear ‘You Had Time’  here.

Do listen to it and tell me whether you agree with Hornby 🙂

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