Day #19 of the 30 Day Music Meme

[shadowkat]

Day #19 of 30 Day Music Meme.

Okay I've a self-imposed rule - I don't post any song that I've seen someone else post already. And wendahl, god love her, posted Both Sides Now, and a good cover of it to boot, and that's the song I'd plotted and planned on posting, also the Joanie Mitchell pick for this meme. Now, alas, I have to find something else. I could use it...but...I've decided to find something else.

For a while I debated using Stephen Stills hit "For What It's Worth" but, I'm not sure it quite fits. Also considered Mitchell's The Circle Game, but I don't really like the song, it kind of grates after a bit.

So...I'm going with...this song, make of it what you will.

Watch on YouTube

As an aside, sometimes I feel the world around me and online is a reflection of this Song. Actually been feeling this song for a while now. I wish for the first song, but the second feels more and more real each day.

Make of that what you will as well.

Comments

[atpo_onm]

Now I'm curious-- were you into Bert Jansch at all before cjl and I spoke highly of him? If you're into him now, he has an extensive catalog, so there's plenty of tunes to choose from.

On the second tune-- One of the hallmarks of a truly classic song is that other artists can cover it, and not only make it their own, but sometimes totally reinvent it, and make it work. I'm unfamiliar with this fellow, but his version of Simon's song was just stunning, and then a great video to go with it.

This is one of the things I've really missed since my friends all moved away from town in my late 20's and early 30's-- we'd constantly be turning each other on to new music!

Excellent choice, 'kat!

[shadowkat]

Now I'm curious-- were you into Bert Jansch at all before cjl and I spoke highly of him? If you're into him now, he has an extensive catalog, so there's plenty of tunes to choose from.

No. I don't remember you even discussing him.

The song is from the film The Squid and the Whale, which I have the soundtrack to. That's where I got the song from. The singer's name I forget. I didn't know it was sung by him at all when I thought of it. In fact I never can remember the name of the song, just a few lyrics. What I remember is the film - The Squid and the Whale - and the song, or the lyric that "the world is insane...and I just want people to get along".

On the second tune-- One of the hallmarks of a truly classic song is that other artists can cover it, and not only make it their own, but sometimes totally reinvent it, and make it work. I'm unfamiliar with this fellow, but his version of Simon's song was just stunning, and then a great video to go with it.

Oh, thank you. I thought most people had seen it? It was going the rounds a few years back - when his song was chosen by a figure skating team at the last Olympics.

we'd constantly be turning each other on to new music!

Yes, I like that about the meme as well. Which is why I'm trying not to post a song someone else has previously posted and am kind of instilling that rule?

You didn't introduce me to Bert, but you did to Ellen McInwale - who'd I'd forgotten, and beergoodfoamy introduced me to The Cowboy Junkies, while wendahl did to Holly Near, and dlgood to Betty Davis. So...

[atpo_onm]

Alllll righty! This one came to me quickly, and I don't think anyone else has picked it for any day so far.

I know I've mentioned before that on occasion I hear a song, usually on the radio, that's new to me, and when it was done playing, my first thought is that I must have it, no matter what else is on the album.

The good thing about that is, the rest of the album is generally pretty darn good also. In the case of the first time I heard Light Flight, I had never heard of the band, or it's stunning lead vocalist, Jacqui McShee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gCN9-Jnfg

Heh... one of the commenters on this youtube page asked:

Jacqui McShee, Annie Briggs, Norma Waterson, Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, June Tabor...what was in the drinking water in England in those days?

Perhaps one of the Brits following this blog could respond, if they know? ;-)



Let's get away, you say, find a better place,
Miles and miles away from the city's race,
Look around for someone lying in the sunshine
Marking time, hear the sighs, close your eyes...

Ba - da - pa do da da - ba - pa do da da...

Stepping from cloud to cloud passing in their flight
Visit the frosty stars in the backwash light
Star becomes a vision, never mind the meaning,
Hidden there, moving fast, it won't last...
Time passes all too soon, how it rushes by,
Now a thousand moons are about to die
No time to reflect on what the time was spent on,
Nothing left, far away, dreamers fade

Ba - da - pa do da da - ba - pa do da da...

Strange visions pass me by, winging softly thru the sky
Over the water, oooohh

Swirling, the waters rise up above my head.
Gone are the curling mists how they all have fled.
Look, the door is open, step into the space
Provided there

Da do da, - da, do da ....

Songwriters: Cox / Jansch / Mcshee / Renbourn / Errol Thompson

[cjlasky7]

Bert Jansch! Pentangle! This is my kind of party!

I've never seen that clip of Pentangle. It's stunning. Danny Thompson rocking the double bass! (OK, I'll compose myself now...)

My selection: Talking Heads, "Once In a Lifetime"

This could have fit tomorrow's (today's?) upcoming category, because there's so many ways to interpret Byrne's lyrics. (But I have another song waiting.)

To me, the song is a plunge into the American subconscious, as we wonder if anything we've achieved or built has any meaning, or if we should look for meaning on a deeper level.

This is not my beautiful house
This is not my beautiful wife

Where does that highway go to?

https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8

Shame about these guys. I'd like to see them live one more time, but as a wise woman once said, they are never ever ever getting back together...

[shadowkat]

Every time I hear "Once in a Lifetime" - I think about two movies and an episode of a television show - the first is a film with Nicholas Cage, where he gets knocked on the head and finds himself living a suburban life, the second is a film with Juliette Binoche - except I can't remember the name of that film either, where a single photographer trades lives with a bored housewife - the love bit about the second film, is that the single photographer gets back to her own life and is sooo relieved. (Which is an excellent subversion of the trope!). And the third is an episode of Angel S5 - where Lindsey, then Gunn are trapped in a perpetual suburban hell.

All three comment on the idealization of the 20th Century dream of suburban family life - much as David Byrne's song does.

I love that song by David Byrne and the Talking Heads - it's my favorite song by that band. Good selection.