If music be the food of love, let’s eat it!
Ten songs I've been enjoying recently. I hope you like them. No worries if not!
Hello to all my new followers who have found their way here via John Robins’s Substack. John’s excellent post also linked through to my old Tumblr blog, which prompted me go back and look through it. There are a few interesting bits and pieces there which I may repost here at some point, but the thing I was struck by was just how often I have switched platforms over the years. I think, in terms of blogging, I’ve gone MySpace>Wordpress>Tumblr>Medium>Substack – and am already looking to jump ship here because Substack is (to say the very least) not without its problems. It’s interesting that while a defining feature of the internet is its permanence – its omniscient retention of our actions and behaviours – in terms of day-to-day use, the online experience feels remarkably transient. Platforms degrade, fall out of favour, or are taken over by imbeciles; links break (the brilliantly Cronenbergian phrase ‘link rot’); forums which used to be hubs of activity are abandoned like forgotten courtyards in Gormenghast (I’ve just used the phrase ‘like forgotten courtyards in Gormenghast’, so please feel free to unsubscribe now). And with this transience comes a bizarre nostalgia – catch a glimpse of a square Instagram post with a Valencia filter and it will generate a Proustian rush of undiluted 2012-ness.
Partly what I’m talking about here is ‘enshittification’. What next for Bandcamp? What next for Pitchfork? Are we 100% sure the internet hasn’t completely ruined every aspect of modern life? Is it giro day?
Anyway, chap might get a bit mis dwelling on all this, so here are ten songs which I’ve been enjoying recently on the internet and which you can now listen to through the internet.
‘I treni di Tozeur’ – Franco Battiato & Alice
I’m currently reading Listen: On Music, Sound and Us by Michel Faber, which is how I found out about Italy’s remarkable entry for Eurovision in 1984. It’s a truly beautiful song. I’m ashamed to say that I knew nothing about Franco Battiato before reading the book – indeed, Faber includes him in Listen in order to illustrate how difficult it is for artists who don’t sing in English to break through to audiences in the UK or US, no matter how brilliant or idiosyncratic they happen to be. But, as I am discovering, Battiato (or ‘Il Maestro’ as he is affectionately known in Italy) had a background in experimental music, which you can detect beneath the gorgeous melodies and shifting harmonies of ‘I treni di Tozeur’. I love the beautiful note of longing to the song, and the way the tune doesn’t sit evenly in 4/4; there are occasional bars of 2/4 to allow for the melody to drift and resolve in unexpected ways. That chorus melody too – the way the descending figure at the end of the phrase sounds rushed, giving it an unrefined quality; like no one has tried to smooth away its rough edges. ‘I treni di Tozeur’ is also, by nature of the fact it’s a Eurovision song, somewhat ridiculous, but that only seems to contribute to its atmosphere of strange sadness.
‘I Wish I Was in England’ – Christy Moore
I saw John Francis Flynn at the Dome in Tufnell Park recently. It was a fantastic gig and one of the highlights was his cover of this amazing Christy Moore song. ‘I Wish I Was in England’ sounds so simple at first, but there’s a lovely criss-crossing structure to the melody and chords that never quite settles, which adds to the sense of restlessness in the lyrics. Each verse has four lines, with one chord sequence for the first two lines and a slightly different sequence, with the introduction of a new chord, for the longer last two lines (and I’m getting this from the man himself); on top of this, the vocal melody ends on a low note in the first and fourth line, but a high note in the second and third. So the genius of the song, for me, is the way that those two distinct patterns (AABB and ABBA) intertwine with each other.
[Edit: I think I’ve got this completely and utterly wrong. The verses are three lines long (or six short lines), as Christy’s website makes clear. Will send an update about this soon, if you can bear the suspense!]
‘Mari Lwyd’ – trad. arr. Grace Williams, Counterpoint, Robert de Cormier
It’s absolutely incredible what you come across when you listen to Radio 3 in the morning. Some of the most amazing musical experiences I’ve had in the last few years have been while sitting on the top deck of the 363 bus, tuning into Breakfast or Essential Classics. (By the way, there has to be something akin to nominative determinism at work with Petroc Trelawney; could you be anything other than a Radio 3 presenter with a name like that?) Anyway, this incredibly eerie carol is connected to a South Welsh wassailing folk custom in which a hobby horse, adorned with a real horse’s skull, is paraded through the town. And why the bloody hell not.
‘Rückert-Lieder: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ – Gustav Mahler (sung here by Anne Sofie von Otter)
Another one from Radio 3. God, I love how she sings this. Such restraint. So beautiful. Reading the YouTube comments on other versions of this piece I can see that it plays a key part in the novel A Little Life, which surprised me because I have read that book but have no recollection of Mahler. I just remember an onslaught of unimaginable misery. Title means ‘I am lost to the world’, 'or ‘I have become lost to the world’ by the way. Imagine doing it at karaoke.
‘Materna Requiem: 1. Introit’ – Rebecca Dale
And another one from Radio 3. Just an incredibly powerful melody. Sorry these are all so sad! Let’s mix things up a bit.
‘Somewhere/Everywhere’ – Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette
I just finished Geoff Dyer’s most recent book The Last Days of Roger Federer, which mentions this beautifully elongated jam based on ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story performed by the Keith Jarrett Trio in 2009.
I love Geoff Dyer’s stuff; the way he can switch from writing about Beethoven and Nietzsche to John McEnroe and Van der Graaf Generator without dropping his serve. When he isn’t reading or writing or expanding/altering his mind at Burning Man he also somehow manages to find time to do nothing (and to eulogise about the act of doing it) – which is, clearly, genuinely inspirational.
Have you ever watched someone complete a Sudoku on the Cracking the Cryptic YouTube channel? Whenever I do, I tend to delude myself into feeling fantastically clever because it feels like I’m solving the puzzle along with them. Reading Dyer is a similar experience. He’s illuminating company, and you feel like you’re right there with him, making wonderful connections and profound observations. And then you put the book down and realise that you’re stuck with your own mediocre brain (which was never much cop at Sudoku).
The great thing about Dyer is that he’s very aware of when things might be getting a tad overblown. In The Last Days of Roger Federer he talks about the importance of having a built-in ‘ponce-ometer’, ‘that unfailing and enduring feat of chippy English engineering’. Also, witness the way he manages to equate William Basinski’s sublime, elegiac Disintegration Loops with running out of loo roll; somehow, the analogy not only works but is funny and moving at the same time:
Every added moment of the tape’s survival is also an additional increment of self-destruction. The last instants of the piece are latent in the first and the residue of that first moment is still there, even in its almost total extinction. Towards the end there is, unless I am mistaken, a gradual acceleration of decay as pieces of the tape fell off more quickly. This corresponds to the way that a toilet roll runs out more quickly towards the end (because a full loop consists of less and less paper – barely half a sheet by the end compared with two at the outset – as the roll shrinks and gets closer to the narrow circumference of the empty cardboard core). Or, to avoid lowering the tone like this, it’s similar to the experience of time accelerating as we get older, with each year consisting of a smaller and smaller percentage of one’s life. The pace of decay accelerates in The Disintegration Loops while time – the almost imperceptible beat of the music, the duration of the loop – remains constant. What increases is the space between what remains recognisable as music.
‘I Call Your Name’ – The Beatles
This song was released on the Long Tall Sally EP in 1964 and, in Beatles terms, is relatively unknown (just the 2m views on YouTube) – by which I mean it feels like it hasn’t been dulled by overexposure. The song is notable because there is an attempt at a ‘ska’ breakdown in the bridge, which is fascinating because it doesn’t quite work. Is it meant to be swung? It certainly tilts towards that at one point before straightening out. It sounds so much like a mistake, but, if it was, why didn’t they redo it? The Beatles rarely put a foot wrong, so it’s interesting to hear something where you can’t quite work out what it is they’re trying to do.
I love the song because of this breakdown, it’s the grit in the pearl. It’s also a reminder that one of the many reasons the Beatles are so magical is because their intentions are usually so clear. Their songs communicate so effectively (which is why ‘From Me to You’ is such an important song).
It’s what makes Paul, post-breakup, so interesting too. With McCartney, Ram and Wild Life, it was hard for contemporary audiences to work out what he was trying to do. Now, we can ‘read’ the McCartney album as it was intended: homespun, whimsical, sincere when it needed to be. But at the time, post Abbey Road, how could reviewers perceive it as anything other than under-baked and under-produced? To take another example, why would you choose to open the first album by your brand new band with a song in which you are making up the lyrics on the spot? It’s what I love about Paul in this era. He was fearless, happy for things to feel unpolished, and didn’t mind being out of step with trends – all great qualities – but because of this he moved away from the ways in which the Beatles, even at their most obtuse, were somehow always understandable. They were and are so deeply embedded in our culture, that even when they were being far out, you could still make sense of them. In other words, maybe ‘Mumbo’ would have worked on the White Album, but on Wild Life it’s difficult, strange and self-indulgent. Nothing particularly wrong with that (Lord knows I’ve listened to a lot of self-indulgent music in my time), but I guess it shows how hard it is to move out of the shadow of the Beatles and the way in which they are framed culturally – with every out-take, fluffed note, snippet of studio chatter and ill-advised ska breakdown somehow feeling rich with meaning.
As you may be able to tell, I recently read (and loved) Volume 1 of The McCartney Legacy by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair. I can definitely recommend it if you want to find out more about Paul after the breakup.
Anyway, I love ‘I Call Your Name’. And doesn’t John’s voice just sound so heartbreakingly good? That half-sung, half-shouted delivery, and the brilliant girl group-ism of ‘may-ay-ake it’. I love his voice in 1963-4. Naïve but careworn, it sounds unbelievably real and truthful in a way I can’t quite describe.
‘An Cailin Rua’ – Skara Brae
Ashamed to say that this beautiful folk tune was recommended to my by the Spotify algorithm. Big The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point energy.
‘Ndima Ndapedza’ – Oliver Mtukudzi
Michel Faber mentions Oliver Mtukudzi in Listen which made me go back to this song. I listened to it a lot around the time I was playing with Gravenhurst and The Allender Band. The friendships I formed in that period were life-changing, and so much of that friendship was based around music; recommendations, mix CDs, songs played on the tour bus or in hotel rooms. I probably hadn’t heard ‘Ndima Ndapedza’ for about 15 years, so it took me right back to that heady time. So glad I found it again though, because it’s so good! Incredibly catchy with a compulsive groove – I kind of never want it to end. WHY MUST THINGS END?
‘Intermezzo No. 1 in Eb Major, Op. 117 – Andante moderato’ – Johannes Brahms (played by Glenn Gould)
Speaking of ending, here’s my last song. And it’s Glenn Gould playing Brahms, what more do you want?
All these songs and more are on a playlist called ‘Ongoing Vibes’. I’m always adding to it so feel free to subscribe.
Anyway, until next time. Time to click send and immediately spot over a thousand typos.