Welcome back!mcq wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:06 am One of the very best songs I’ve heard all year is “Not” by Big Thief and this recent performance is the most powerful version I’ve yet heard.
The level of wound-up vocal intensity which Adrienne Lenker generates in this performance is just overwhelmingly powerful. There is a rage and frustration on display here which is intensely personal and is vocalised with a deeply committed visceral intensity that I find utterly compelling. The performance builds and builds with a concentrated inexorable force until the simmering emotions spill over into a guttural roar of anguish which is just electrifying. A quite incredible performance from one of the very best artists that we have right now.
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Thanks, Dermot. It’s good to be back.
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
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I adored Laura Gibson's album, Goners, and especially its closing track, I Don't Want Your Voice To Move Me. This version, recorded solo at a church in London, is the best version I have heard. Frighteningly intense and deeply affecting, it is an incredibly moving listening experience and one that I have found difficult to dislodge from my mind. The way in which Gibson inhabits her performance with a chilling severity communicates perfectly the sense of a mind lost within itself and totally dislocated from its physical surroundings.
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One of the last shows that Julien Baker performed last year was a festival in Holland in June. Not long after this show, she cancelled her remaining scheduled concerts for 2019 due to unspecified “medical reasons”. I’ve watched this performance quite a few times now and, on one hand, it is a good “professional” performance, but it is one clearly marred by fatigue and exhaustion exacerbated by all of the concomitant distractions that come with festival performances. There is something of the “rabbit caught in the spotlights” that I find a little concerning about this performance, as if a torchlight has been shone at close quarters into her eyes (perpetually at half-mast and involuntarily blinking from time to time) and it speaks volumes to me about the pressures placed on these young performers who are handed these gruelling tour schedules and are asked to dig deep into the tank night after relentless night and sometimes there’s just nothing there and you run on fumes and this is one of those nights for Julien. But, for songwriters in general, I think it’s even more demanding where every song you sing is personal and rooted in experience and usually dredges up dark, sour memories. The singing of these songs is often described as cathartic but such catharsis must take its toll and, aside from the physical exhaustion, that is what I see inscribed on Julien’s face throughout this performance.
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One of my favourite songs is Ketel Keineg’s Gulf of Araby, a song I first heard on Other Voices in a performance thankfully preserved on YouTube and, later in life, heard it again in Natalie Merchant’s very fine cover version. It was Merchant’s passionate advocacy of this song that drove many people (including me) back to the original.
It is an allegorical song whose meaning appears to slide in and out of view. The sheer density of metaphor reminds me strongly of mid-Sixties Dylan and the emotional dividend is just as powerful and I can accord it no higher praise.
Listening to Keineg sing the song, you get a sense of life’s injustices and a mind blown by senseless grief, and, for many years that is what I heard and that was enough to impress it upon my mind as a masterpiece. But, lately, I have been hearing the song in the context of the beautiful Serenity Prayer.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
There is no shelter from the immediacy of life, from its trials and tribulations, and whatever painful insights into one’s character that are gained from looking back can only inform the present and what we take into our future. The past is set in stone and we make our decisions - which would undoubtedly have been different if our thoughts had guided with the wisdom of hindsight but this is a theoretical and practical impossibility. It is said that character is fate, and the position we occupy at the end of our lives is a natural consequence of the expression of our behaviour, emotions and actions. That is true, but much of life is centred around coming to terms with the consequences of these actions and moving towards a place where we become at peace with ourselves. The Serenity Prayer is a beautifully succinct expression of this philosophy and re-listening to Gulf of Araby I hear the necessity of making this sometimes unquiet peace with ourselves in the face of the many harshnesses of life.
“If you could fill a vale with shells from Killiney’s shore
And sweet-talk in a tongue that is no more
If wishful thoughts could bridge
The gulf of Araby
Between what is, what is, what is and what can never be
If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek
And hide out from the one they said you might meet
If you could unlearn all the words
That you never wanted heard
If you could stall the southern wind
That’s whistling in you ears
You could take what is, what is, what is to what can never be
One man of seventy whispers free at last
Two neighbours who are proud of their massacres
Three tyrants torn away in a winter’s month
Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge
Five burned with tyres
Six men still inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide
The gulf of Araby
Well we would plough and part the earth to bring you home
We would harvest every miracle ever known
If they laid out all the things
That these ten years want to bring
We would gladly give them up
To bring you back to us
Oh, there is nothing we would not give
To kiss you and believe we can take what is, what is, what is
To what can never be
One man of seventy whispers not free yet
Two neighbours who make up, knee-deep in their dead
Three tyrants grab the reins in the summer’s heat
Four prisoners lost in the fallacy
Five, on my life
Six, I’m dead inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide
The gulf of Araby”
This is an incredible performance of a genuinely great song. The singer’s face remains obscured throughout by her hair, her eyes closed with barely an acknowledgement of her audience, but every word nourished with an inner fire and intensity and emotional authenticity that I find quite overwhelming. You really feel a sense of impotent rage that derives its emotional weight and authority from the quiet nobility with which the song is sung.
It is an allegorical song whose meaning appears to slide in and out of view. The sheer density of metaphor reminds me strongly of mid-Sixties Dylan and the emotional dividend is just as powerful and I can accord it no higher praise.
Listening to Keineg sing the song, you get a sense of life’s injustices and a mind blown by senseless grief, and, for many years that is what I heard and that was enough to impress it upon my mind as a masterpiece. But, lately, I have been hearing the song in the context of the beautiful Serenity Prayer.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
There is no shelter from the immediacy of life, from its trials and tribulations, and whatever painful insights into one’s character that are gained from looking back can only inform the present and what we take into our future. The past is set in stone and we make our decisions - which would undoubtedly have been different if our thoughts had guided with the wisdom of hindsight but this is a theoretical and practical impossibility. It is said that character is fate, and the position we occupy at the end of our lives is a natural consequence of the expression of our behaviour, emotions and actions. That is true, but much of life is centred around coming to terms with the consequences of these actions and moving towards a place where we become at peace with ourselves. The Serenity Prayer is a beautifully succinct expression of this philosophy and re-listening to Gulf of Araby I hear the necessity of making this sometimes unquiet peace with ourselves in the face of the many harshnesses of life.
“If you could fill a vale with shells from Killiney’s shore
And sweet-talk in a tongue that is no more
If wishful thoughts could bridge
The gulf of Araby
Between what is, what is, what is and what can never be
If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek
And hide out from the one they said you might meet
If you could unlearn all the words
That you never wanted heard
If you could stall the southern wind
That’s whistling in you ears
You could take what is, what is, what is to what can never be
One man of seventy whispers free at last
Two neighbours who are proud of their massacres
Three tyrants torn away in a winter’s month
Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge
Five burned with tyres
Six men still inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide
The gulf of Araby
Well we would plough and part the earth to bring you home
We would harvest every miracle ever known
If they laid out all the things
That these ten years want to bring
We would gladly give them up
To bring you back to us
Oh, there is nothing we would not give
To kiss you and believe we can take what is, what is, what is
To what can never be
One man of seventy whispers not free yet
Two neighbours who make up, knee-deep in their dead
Three tyrants grab the reins in the summer’s heat
Four prisoners lost in the fallacy
Five, on my life
Six, I’m dead inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide
The gulf of Araby”
This is an incredible performance of a genuinely great song. The singer’s face remains obscured throughout by her hair, her eyes closed with barely an acknowledgement of her audience, but every word nourished with an inner fire and intensity and emotional authenticity that I find quite overwhelming. You really feel a sense of impotent rage that derives its emotional weight and authority from the quiet nobility with which the song is sung.
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
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Wow! Real music is still alive after all.......
What can I say except to thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights into this charade that these gifted people find themselves going through. We're not worthy......
What can I say except to thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights into this charade that these gifted people find themselves going through. We're not worthy......
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Another example of an artist at the end of his tether. His last act before walking off the stage in the early hours is very telling. 18 days later he was dead.......
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“Peace and happiness and all the rest of that good shit.”
I think a lot about the great Peter Hammill song, After The Show, and particularly the line, “Where do the actors go after the show?” Maybe Hammill was referring to the years after the limelight has faded or the progressive loss of one’s own identity after subsuming yourself into so many other identities, but I always interpreted the song as a reference to the way in which great songwriters channel their emotions to powerful effect onstage but then, afterwards, there remains the question of just how they successfully compartmentalise those emotions in order to maintain the rest of their lives away from the stage.
“He made a bit of money
That's something you might like to know...
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
After the show
He's been so many people
He wore them all like poisoned vests
Still playing the soliloquy from Hamlet
Close to his chest
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
He had his hour of glory
That's something you should keep in mind...
When he's drinking in the cafe on the corner
There's no sense of time
Just waiting on for Godot
Convinced he's been here years before...
He's taken that philosophy in German
Square on the jaw
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
He made a bit of money
That's something you might like to know;
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
After the show
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?”
I think a lot about the great Peter Hammill song, After The Show, and particularly the line, “Where do the actors go after the show?” Maybe Hammill was referring to the years after the limelight has faded or the progressive loss of one’s own identity after subsuming yourself into so many other identities, but I always interpreted the song as a reference to the way in which great songwriters channel their emotions to powerful effect onstage but then, afterwards, there remains the question of just how they successfully compartmentalise those emotions in order to maintain the rest of their lives away from the stage.
“He made a bit of money
That's something you might like to know...
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
After the show
He's been so many people
He wore them all like poisoned vests
Still playing the soliloquy from Hamlet
Close to his chest
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
He had his hour of glory
That's something you should keep in mind...
When he's drinking in the cafe on the corner
There's no sense of time
Just waiting on for Godot
Convinced he's been here years before...
He's taken that philosophy in German
Square on the jaw
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?
He made a bit of money
That's something you might like to know;
He'll be drinking in the cafe on the corner
After the show
Where do the actors go after the show?
Where do the actors go?”
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
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This is a beautiful documentary on Peter Hammill that I stumbled on recently. It was produced for Dutch TV in 1998 and I think that much is quietly expressed about this man’s career during the confines of a 25 minute running time.
I rank Hammill alongside the greatest songwriters (living or dead) and he continues to perform with fire and vigour that belies his seventy-odd years. Sadly, he has not received the recognition that Dylan, Cohen or Mitchell have (justly) received and I fear that his life’s achievements will only be fully recognised after his death. Few have documented the human condition with such uncomfortable acuteness as Hammill and his songs remain as potent and urgent as they did when I first heard them 30 years ago.
I love the way this little film ends with an acapella version of one of his greatest latter day songs, A Better Time, about the necessity of maintaining a reverence for the present and refusing to allow yourself to be lost in the past and distracted by vague thoughts about the future.
“As surely as the countdown begins
Our time is not our own;
Already there's the breath of the wind
Which bleaches bare the bones
Of the deadlines we set, of the jokes we don't get
And forgetfulness that furrows the brow...
No, I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
So I wake up, to remainder the dream
Of personality and posture and face
For nothing can remain as it seems
In some perfect state of pure grace...
All we prize and protect only cause and effect
But I suspect the furrow may be guiding the plough
And I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
No better, no worse, much the same
We wait on the why and the when;
No question but we'll go as we came
With no shift in the shape of the zen
And it is as it is and we take as we find
Always next season's buds on the bough...
But I'll never find a better time
Hard though it is to allow
I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
This is the life and we've only time
To be alive right now.”
I rank Hammill alongside the greatest songwriters (living or dead) and he continues to perform with fire and vigour that belies his seventy-odd years. Sadly, he has not received the recognition that Dylan, Cohen or Mitchell have (justly) received and I fear that his life’s achievements will only be fully recognised after his death. Few have documented the human condition with such uncomfortable acuteness as Hammill and his songs remain as potent and urgent as they did when I first heard them 30 years ago.
I love the way this little film ends with an acapella version of one of his greatest latter day songs, A Better Time, about the necessity of maintaining a reverence for the present and refusing to allow yourself to be lost in the past and distracted by vague thoughts about the future.
“As surely as the countdown begins
Our time is not our own;
Already there's the breath of the wind
Which bleaches bare the bones
Of the deadlines we set, of the jokes we don't get
And forgetfulness that furrows the brow...
No, I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
So I wake up, to remainder the dream
Of personality and posture and face
For nothing can remain as it seems
In some perfect state of pure grace...
All we prize and protect only cause and effect
But I suspect the furrow may be guiding the plough
And I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
No better, no worse, much the same
We wait on the why and the when;
No question but we'll go as we came
With no shift in the shape of the zen
And it is as it is and we take as we find
Always next season's buds on the bough...
But I'll never find a better time
Hard though it is to allow
I'll never find a better time
To be alive than now
This is the life and we've only time
To be alive right now.”
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
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Doesn't quite compare with the great and wonderful PH (truly wonderful post Paul) but here it is anyway. Anyone recognise the sound? Listen to that guitar solo 🎸
https://youtu.be/HKa6MEdV_2c
https://youtu.be/HKa6MEdV_2c