For want of a better title – I went with this. It seemed most appropriate.
Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush
Teen years. I bought it as a single. I think it just made me wish for different things. For me, it has always been a downbeat song. Melancholic. Something sounds regretful about it. And it sounded like the desire for escape – “If I only could, I’d make a deal with God and I’d get him to swap our places. I’d be running up that road, I’d be running up that hill, I’d be running up that building.” And always something yearning and longing in it. I feel like I’ve gone a lifetime of just wishing, hoping and praying for things. For things to change. To experience relationships. Etc, etc. “If I only could.”
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses – U2
That distorted guitar riff with (on the right version of the song, with the correct sound system, volume, etc) that soft strings under and some tambourine is just somehow powerful, yet delicate. And those opening lines… “You’re dangerous, ‘cause you’re honest. You’re dangerous, you don’t know what you want.” Bono’s pretty good at selling a song right from the opening line. The mid song breakdown… “aaaah, the deeper I swim. Aaaah, the hunter will sin for your ivory skin. Took a drive in the dirty rain. To a place where the wind calls your name. Under the tree the river laughing at you and me.” Just…beautiful…
So Cruel – U2
As the previous song is ending “who’s gonna taste your salt water kisses? Who’s gonna take the place of me?” …. we come into soft piano followed by soft drums and “We crossed the line. Who pushed who over? It doesn’t matter to you. It matters to me.” So many words in this song just….yeah. I think it is one Bono’s stronger vocal performances too.
Ultra Violet (Light My Way) – U2
When the other two have melancholia and are about relationship failures and break-ups, there is something I find SSSOOOO uplifting about Ultra Violet. And I really love The Edge BVs on this. Again – Bono sells it with opening lines “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know” – very Velvet’s ‘Heroin’ (And I feel like I just don’t know.), “sometimes I feel like checking out. I want to get it wrong, can’t always be strong. And love it won’t be long.”
It has a great rhythm and Adam does some really fine bass work on this track. And then before it gets to this crescendo of this uplifting chant of the chorus, Bono delivers some of my favourite lines of any U2 song “I remember when we could sleep on stones, now we lie together in whispers and moans. When I was all messed up and I had opera in my head, your love was a lightbulb hanging over my bed.”
At this point I am thinking – “Fuck it. Lol. Just play ALL of Achtung Baby.” The album is class. And my favourite U2 album. It is always the one I return to, again and again.
Love Like Blood – Killing Joke
I think I am just crazing really fab basslines and catchy guitar riffs right now. This one played while I was listening to Spotify late one night. I have Spotify set for continuous playback, so if I start a specific album or playlist and it ends, then Spotify just continues to play a mixed selection of music in keeping with the genre just played. It went on into a continuous mode one night recently and it played Love Like Blood. I was roused from the slumber I had fallen into and I was enjoying it in my dwam state and then…it just got stuck there! It was an earworm for probably a week. Especially the chorus “Til the feelings come and the act is done. A love like blood, a love like blood.” Well…I thought he was saying “feelings” but he actually says “fearless”. Justified misheard lyrics there, I think. Still a great song. It has a great atmosphere.
Games Without Frontiers – Peter Gabriel
Last month, Uncut Magazine had Peter Gabriel on their cover. He was heavily featured within its pages. He had an interview with them as well as them doing a feature on the 40 anniversary of the release of ‘Melt’. All of his solo albums were eponymous but to distinguish which album was being discussed amongst fans, there were usually alternatives given. This release due to the appearance of Gabriel on the cover has for many a time been otherwise known as ‘Melt’. Like with other bands and artists, I wouldn’t describe myself as a “fan”, but I have always liked the things I have heard. Again, never felt much of a desire to really explore the Gabriel back catalogue, but I have had a few favourite songs from him over the years. games Without Frontiers being one. I bloody loved watching It’s A Knockout as a kid. Lol. I REALLY hope there is a deeper thought and undercurrent to the song than it just being about the bloody game show! If not, then it really does put it on a par with Thotch’s “Succulent Chinese Meal”.
O Superman – Laurie Anderson
That minimalist, repetitive pulse to it. The mesmerising video. I think it took me during the Rage years (weekends in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which I would sit up all night watching all the video clips on ABC music video programme, Rage – with a remix of the extended Speed Your Love To Me as part of its closing credits) – seeing the video a few times to really…get it and be taken in by it.
And it has just…been in my head lately because it was (what would have been) my mum’s 82nd birthday on August 12th.
It’s the words….
“‘Cause when love is gone, there’s always justice.
And when justice is gone, there’s always force.
And when force is gone, there’s always Mom. Hi, Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms. In your arms.
And with that pendulum swaying hand on the arm…backwards and forwards. I dunno. I have always found it super, super (excuse the pun!) emotional. I miss her. It had been a long time since she held me in her (long) arms. The last time…April 21st, 2016.
Es – Hideyuki Hashimoto
As mentioned in a previous post about it, it was due to a Spotify music genre playback shuffle that ai got exposed to this track. It’s just a really beautiful melody. And it’s short and succinct. Just a soft, mellow little gem.
I Love You You Big Dummy – Magazine
Deemed a cover of a Captain Beefheart song – but Howard Devoto adds so much more to it. Well, the whole band does, but Devoto does lyrically and with delivery. If the playlist is played in order, we go from something melodic and delicate…perhaps slightly melancholic and sweet to…well…something brash and raucous and celebratory and fucking awesome. Geez I fell in love the Magazine when I got into them a while back. Sometimes the comparisons to Simple Minds still perplex me but in other ways it’s very overt and obvious. I would love to go back in time and see both bands live, at the time Magazine were touring promoting Second Hand Daylight – which I do favour above Real Life and The Correct Use Of Soap (as much as I love them too).
Those opening lines: “You think I’m a lame duck” – yes, Jim. I know you do. I don’t blame you. “I don’t give a blue fuck” – I wish that was true! Lol. I’m trying to make it be.
But…I do “love you, you dummy!” Lol. I guess I always will now.
P.S. Barry Adamson’s bass work ROCKS!
Link to Spotify playlist: