The Playlist of Life --- Trollheart's resurrected Journal

Trollheart · 10-24-2011, 09:16 AM

No more shall we part (2001)

Then the longest hiatus in Cave's career, with four years until the release of “No more shall we part”, which features such gems as the title track

The heartbreaking “Love letter”

The wonderful “We came along this road”

And the powerful closer, “Darker with the day”.

Nocturama (2003)

Two more years passed before “Nocturama” hit the shelves. It's not one of my favourite Cave albums, although it may be heading into the “Last Chance Saloon” before long, but it does have “He wants you”

“Right out of your hand”

“Rock of Gibraltar”

and “She passed by my window”

The mournfully beautiful “Still in love”

Not to mention “Wonderful life”. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to give this album another chance!

Only a year later Cave released not one, but two albums, at the same time.

Abbatoir blues/The lyre of Orpheus (2004)

The first of the two, “Abbatoir blues”, is a mostly heavy, rock record, though the title track is slow and bluesy

Then there's the weird “Cannibal's hymn”

But it's “The lyre of Orpheus” that contains the most laid-back, relaxing, slow ballads, like “Babe you turn me on”

The gospel-like “Carry me”

“Spell”

“Easy money”

And a song that apparently featured in one of the Harry Potter movies, though they're not something I'm personally interested in, a track called “O children”.

That brings us to his last, to date, album, released in 2008, “Dig!!! Lazarus, dig!!!”

Dig!!! Lazarus, dig!!! (2008)

It doesn't really have any slow tracks, the closest being “Hold on to yourself”.

So there you are: if you thought all Nick Cave wrote about was death and betrayal and revenge and lost love and devils and murder and agony and loneliness and anger, well you were right. But he has been known to write such material in ballads and slower songs too, as this feature has, I hope, demonstrated. Either way, he's a great artist with a lot to say, a very distinct and unique way of saying it, and if you haven't checked him out before now, well it's high time you made his acquaintance. “Please permit me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...”

Trollheart · 10-24-2011, 09:26 AM

A band I'm struggling to like, but slowly getting to grips with, album by album, track by track, is Spock's Beard. I should like them. All the elements are there: prog rock, great lyrics, and of course the Star Trek connection. But somehow it's become hard work, though I think I'm finally beginning to warm to them.

And so they feature in our “More than words” section. Prog rock bands of course often write very deep and meaningful lyrics about diverse and often weird subjects, but I feel this deserves inclusion because it is about something at once normal and mundane, and also totally surreal. It's in fact the opening movement, if you will, to a suite which goes under the banner heading of “A flash before my eyes”, and it concerns the last moments before death, as the subject of the song sees a truck come screaming towards him at an intersection and knows he is about to die. The song traces his life in that “flashing before your eyes” phenomenon that's supposed to occur just before you die.

The ballet of the impact --- A flash before my eyes, part 1 (Spock's Beard) from “Octane”, 2005.
Music and Lyrics by Dave Meros and John Boegehold

The song is itself split into three parts; the first, I guess the overture, is called “Prelude to the past”. It's followed by “The ultimate quiet”, a slower, more moody and atmospheric instrumental, until “A blizzard of my memories” kicks in the lyric as the guy realises he's about to die. But it's not just that, oh no.

There are unspoken but written narrative passages that accompany each section of the suite, and in order for the song to be properly appreciated, it's necessary to reproduce them below, along with, and before, the lyric, as it is more the former than the latter that tell the real story, and make this song such a triumph, and so different to many other prog compositions.

The juxtapositioning of the ordinary, everyday things like the coffee cup on the seat, Jagger singing and the fact that one of the thoughts in the guy's head is that he has just paid off this car, with the wholly supernatural, like angels dancing down from Heaven, and his sudden fear that Heaven may not exist after all, that all that may await him after this life could be darkness, really makes the song.The whole of “A flash before my eyes” takes up more than half the album, over thirty-one minutes of the overall fifty-five.

So this is the song itself with the narrative underneath, and then the lyric.

9:27 a.m., today...

Suddenly, I'm aware of everything that surrounds me. About fifteen feet to my right, there's an old man picking out roses at a flower cart. He's leaning on a carved wooden cane, but barely maintaining his balance as a flurry of pigeons rises from the sidewalk around him. A few steps away on the corner, there's a little blonde girl with a pink plastic purse, holding her mother's hand as they wait to cross the street. I see all of this through the delicate, miniature rainbow made by the sun reflecting off the coffee spray from my "world's greatest dad" cup, which a moment ago was balanced on the passenger seat.

The intersection of West Lexington and Grant Avenue has become the cosmic nexus of all I am, ever was and will be. As profound as all of that seems, some small part of my brain is distracted by the irony of Mick Jagger singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want", coming from the radio of the speeding truck that has just begun ripping through my newly-paid-off, freshly washed Honda Accord.

So, is this it? Is this where an army of angels appears in blinding white light to sing me to my eternal rest? Is this where I sink forever into that darkest bog of dreamless sleep? I never really bought either poetic scenario, but it looks like I may finally get the answers to all of those herb-fueled philosophical questions that sprung up from endless, all-night discussions in college. Of course, this is a lot sooner than I ever imagined having to confront the ultimate reality.

There is one thing I know for sure. If I ever wake up, this is going to hurt like hell...

”The windshield explodes/ Like a bomb packed with diamonds.
There's a deafening silence; /Time flows to a crawl.
As the ballet of the impact/ Spreads out across the blacktop,
Angels dancing like raindrops /In the air as they fall.
So this is how it goes.
So this is how it ends.
A flatbed runs a red light:
No time to comprehend,
As a blizzard of my memories
Lights up like fireflies
In the sliver of an instant
In a flash before my eyes...

Trollheart · 10-24-2011, 09:34 AM

Random Track of the Day
Monday, October 24 2011
A new week, another Monday, time for some ELO. Taken from one of their earlier, and less successful albums, this is a song which nevertheless provided them an early almost-top ten hit, and began what would become something of a theme in ELO songs, of the western/cowboy lyric.

Showdown --- Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) --- from "On the third day" on Jet

Trollheart · 10-25-2011, 10:39 AM

Time for some more girl power! Another five tracks by ladies who have made it big in what was traditionally a male-dominated walk of life, and who have now firmly stamped their identity on the music biz, deserving to be there just as much as their male counterparts.

One of the most independent and outspoken women in rock, here's the inimitable Kate Bush, with “Running up that hill”.

An utterly amazing voice, and one my favourite female singers, it's Sam Brown, with “Stop!”

Can't keep a good woman down, Ike! This is of course Tina Turner, but let's take something less obvious than her major hits. This is from the album “Break every rule”, and in fact the closing track, “I'll be thunder”.

Good rockin' from another stalwart, Stevie Nicks, with a track from her “Bella donna” album, this is a live version of “Enchanted”.

And to end up, here's one of my all-time favourite Madonna tracks, the lovely ballad “This used to be my playground”.

Trollheart · 10-25-2011, 10:40 AM

A nice slice of Scottish rock today, the worm remembers Big Country, and one their big hits, “Fields of fire”.

Trollheart · 10-25-2011, 12:52 PM

The last sound you're going to remember as you finish an album is the closing track, so as we've said before, it had better be good, or no matter how good the album is all you're going to remember is THAT track; you'll be humming it and not the seven/eight/nine others that came before it. Of course, a great closing track can also redeem a largely unremarkable album: if the last track is great, you'll remember it and not the other tracks, as above, but with a different emphasis.

An album I reviewed near the beginning of this journal, Pendragon's “Believe”, has an absolutely breathtaking closer, and this is it: “The edge of the world”.

Supertramp's final album with Roger Hodgson, “Famous last words”, gives even more importance and weight to the final track, “Don't leave me now”. From the opening mournful sax to the desperate, closing guitar solo, it's a classic the like of which we would consider ourselves lucky to hear again.

A great closer to a great album, Dio's second, “The last in line”, this is called “Egypt (The chains are on)”.

Although the CD version is longer and has more tracks, the vinyl copy I bought thirty years ago now of Pallas' “Arrive alive” had only five, and closed with this excellent epic, “The Ripper”.

And finally, the closing track to Roger Waters' magnum opus, this is “Amused to death”.

Play any of those songs and guaranteed you'll be humming them to yourself long after they've faded or crashed into silence. Incidentally, every album featured above is excellent, but even if they weren't, each of these tracks would go a long way towards helping to redeem them.

Next time I'll endeavour to pick great closing tracks from albums which are, shall we say, less than great. Till then...

Trollheart · 10-25-2011, 12:55 PM

Random Track of the Day
Tuesday, October 25 2011
Today's Random Track of the Day slows things down nicely, with another example of that fine electronica duo Air, and a little piece taken from their “Premiers symptomes” album.

Le soleil est pres de moi --- Air --- from "Premiers symptomes" on Source

Nice little atmospheric, ambient piece, laid back with as usual a preponderance of keyboards and synth, and nice use of the vocoder, “Le soleil est pres de moi”, which means the sun is close to me, is one of those dreamy, nod-off-to-sleep tunes that would be at home on any chill collection mixtape. The album is actually a compilation of many of Air's early singles, and you don't need A-Level French I'm sure to work out that the title of the album translates to “first symptoms”.

Trollheart · 10-25-2011, 07:04 PM

Although I've made it my business, insofar as I can, since I began this journal to update it every day, tomorrow there will be NO update, as I have to take my sister to the hospital, and thanks to ridiculously long waiting lists it's likely we'll be there all day.

Please bear with me, and normal service should be resumed on Thursday, when I'll run TWO Random Tracks of the Day and two Daily Earworms.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Troll

Trollheart · 10-27-2011, 02:28 PM

Random Track of the Day
Wednesday, October 26 2011
As promised, since I wasn't here to update the journal yesterday there are two RTOTDs today. This is the first, ostensibly for Wednesday, and a surprisingly good track from the band who made me doubt the worth of “Chasing cars”. Yeah, it's Snow Patrol.

Tiny little fractures --- Snow Patrol --- from "Final straw" on Fiction

Yes, a decent track for once, or maybe “Songs for polar bears” was just a weak debut. Either way, this is a good little indie-rocker with a nice line in chorus and backing vocals.

Trollheart · 10-27-2011, 02:29 PM

Random Track of the Day
Thursday, October 27 2011
And here's today's proper Random track, from Journey, one of my favourite bands. Title track from their millions-selling breakout album, “Escape”.

Escape --- Journey --- from "Escape" on Columbia

Proving Journey can rock with the best of 'em, it's a good rocker with odd elements of Genesis, of all bands, in the melody. Steve Perry on fine form, and although there are much better tracks on the album (including of course their huge singles “Who's crying now” and “Don't stop believin'”) it's definitely worthy of inclusion on the album. Nice guitar from Neal Schon near the end.

10-24-2011, 09:16 AM	#411 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	No more shall we part (2001) Then the longest hiatus in Cave's career, with four years until the release of “No more shall we part”, which features such gems as the title track The heartbreaking “Love letter” The wonderful “We came along this road” And the powerful closer, “Darker with the day”. Nocturama (2003) Two more years passed before “Nocturama” hit the shelves. It's not one of my favourite Cave albums, although it may be heading into the “Last Chance Saloon” before long, but it does have “He wants you” “Right out of your hand” “Rock of Gibraltar” and “She passed by my window” The mournfully beautiful “Still in love” Not to mention “Wonderful life”. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to give this album another chance! Only a year later Cave released not one, but two albums, at the same time. Abbatoir blues/The lyre of Orpheus (2004) The first of the two, “Abbatoir blues”, is a mostly heavy, rock record, though the title track is slow and bluesy Then there's the weird “Cannibal's hymn” But it's “The lyre of Orpheus” that contains the most laid-back, relaxing, slow ballads, like “Babe you turn me on” The gospel-like “Carry me” “Spell” “Easy money” And a song that apparently featured in one of the Harry Potter movies, though they're not something I'm personally interested in, a track called “O children”. That brings us to his last, to date, album, released in 2008, “Dig!!! Lazarus, dig!!!” Dig!!! Lazarus, dig!!! (2008) It doesn't really have any slow tracks, the closest being “Hold on to yourself”. So there you are: if you thought all Nick Cave wrote about was death and betrayal and revenge and lost love and devils and murder and agony and loneliness and anger, well you were right. But he has been known to write such material in ballads and slower songs too, as this feature has, I hope, demonstrated. Either way, he's a great artist with a lot to say, a very distinct and unique way of saying it, and if you haven't checked him out before now, well it's high time you made his acquaintance. “Please permit me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...” __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-24-2011, 09:26 AM	#412 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	A band I'm struggling to like, but slowly getting to grips with, album by album, track by track, is Spock's Beard. I should like them. All the elements are there: prog rock, great lyrics, and of course the Star Trek connection. But somehow it's become hard work, though I think I'm finally beginning to warm to them. And so they feature in our “More than words” section. Prog rock bands of course often write very deep and meaningful lyrics about diverse and often weird subjects, but I feel this deserves inclusion because it is about something at once normal and mundane, and also totally surreal. It's in fact the opening movement, if you will, to a suite which goes under the banner heading of “A flash before my eyes”, and it concerns the last moments before death, as the subject of the song sees a truck come screaming towards him at an intersection and knows he is about to die. The song traces his life in that “flashing before your eyes” phenomenon that's supposed to occur just before you die. The ballet of the impact --- A flash before my eyes, part 1 (Spock's Beard) from “Octane”, 2005. Music and Lyrics by Dave Meros and John Boegehold The song is itself split into three parts; the first, I guess the overture, is called “Prelude to the past”. It's followed by “The ultimate quiet”, a slower, more moody and atmospheric instrumental, until “A blizzard of my memories” kicks in the lyric as the guy realises he's about to die. But it's not just that, oh no. There are unspoken but written narrative passages that accompany each section of the suite, and in order for the song to be properly appreciated, it's necessary to reproduce them below, along with, and before, the lyric, as it is more the former than the latter that tell the real story, and make this song such a triumph, and so different to many other prog compositions. The juxtapositioning of the ordinary, everyday things like the coffee cup on the seat, Jagger singing and the fact that one of the thoughts in the guy's head is that he has just paid off this car, with the wholly supernatural, like angels dancing down from Heaven, and his sudden fear that Heaven may not exist after all, that all that may await him after this life could be darkness, really makes the song.The whole of “A flash before my eyes” takes up more than half the album, over thirty-one minutes of the overall fifty-five. So this is the song itself with the narrative underneath, and then the lyric. 9:27 a.m., today... Suddenly, I'm aware of everything that surrounds me. About fifteen feet to my right, there's an old man picking out roses at a flower cart. He's leaning on a carved wooden cane, but barely maintaining his balance as a flurry of pigeons rises from the sidewalk around him. A few steps away on the corner, there's a little blonde girl with a pink plastic purse, holding her mother's hand as they wait to cross the street. I see all of this through the delicate, miniature rainbow made by the sun reflecting off the coffee spray from my "world's greatest dad" cup, which a moment ago was balanced on the passenger seat. The intersection of West Lexington and Grant Avenue has become the cosmic nexus of all I am, ever was and will be. As profound as all of that seems, some small part of my brain is distracted by the irony of Mick Jagger singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want", coming from the radio of the speeding truck that has just begun ripping through my newly-paid-off, freshly washed Honda Accord. So, is this it? Is this where an army of angels appears in blinding white light to sing me to my eternal rest? Is this where I sink forever into that darkest bog of dreamless sleep? I never really bought either poetic scenario, but it looks like I may finally get the answers to all of those herb-fueled philosophical questions that sprung up from endless, all-night discussions in college. Of course, this is a lot sooner than I ever imagined having to confront the ultimate reality. There is one thing I know for sure. If I ever wake up, this is going to hurt like hell... ”The windshield explodes/ Like a bomb packed with diamonds. There's a deafening silence; /Time flows to a crawl. As the ballet of the impact/ Spreads out across the blacktop, Angels dancing like raindrops /In the air as they fall. So this is how it goes. So this is how it ends. A flatbed runs a red light: No time to comprehend, As a blizzard of my memories Lights up like fireflies In the sliver of an instant In a flash before my eyes... __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-24-2011, 09:34 AM	#413 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Random Track of the Day *Monday, October 24 2011* A new week, another Monday, time for some ELO. Taken from one of their earlier, and less successful albums, this is a song which nevertheless provided them an early almost-top ten hit, and began what would become something of a theme in ELO songs, of the western/cowboy lyric. Showdown --- Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) --- from "On the third day" on Jet __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-25-2011, 10:39 AM	#414 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Time for some more girl power! Another five tracks by ladies who have made it big in what was traditionally a male-dominated walk of life, and who have now firmly stamped their identity on the music biz, deserving to be there just as much as their male counterparts. One of the most independent and outspoken women in rock, here's the inimitable Kate Bush, with “Running up that hill”. An utterly amazing voice, and one my favourite female singers, it's Sam Brown, with “Stop!” Can't keep a good woman down, Ike! This is of course Tina Turner, but let's take something less obvious than her major hits. This is from the album “Break every rule”, and in fact the closing track, “I'll be thunder”. Good rockin' from another stalwart, Stevie Nicks, with a track from her “Bella donna” album, this is a live version of “Enchanted”. And to end up, here's one of my all-time favourite Madonna tracks, the lovely ballad “This used to be my playground”. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-25-2011, 10:40 AM	#415 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	A nice slice of Scottish rock today, the worm remembers Big Country, and one their big hits, “Fields of fire”. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-25-2011, 12:52 PM	#416 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	The last sound you're going to remember as you finish an album is the closing track, so as we've said before, it had better be good, or no matter how good the album is all you're going to remember is THAT track; you'll be humming it and not the seven/eight/nine others that came before it. Of course, a great closing track can also redeem a largely unremarkable album: if the last track is great, you'll remember it and not the other tracks, as above, but with a different emphasis. An album I reviewed near the beginning of this journal, Pendragon's “Believe”, has an absolutely breathtaking closer, and this is it: “The edge of the world”. Supertramp's final album with Roger Hodgson, “Famous last words”, gives even more importance and weight to the final track, “Don't leave me now”. From the opening mournful sax to the desperate, closing guitar solo, it's a classic the like of which we would consider ourselves lucky to hear again. A great closer to a great album, Dio's second, “The last in line”, this is called “Egypt (The chains are on)”. Although the CD version is longer and has more tracks, the vinyl copy I bought thirty years ago now of Pallas' “Arrive alive” had only five, and closed with this excellent epic, “The Ripper”. And finally, the closing track to Roger Waters' magnum opus, this is “Amused to death”. Play any of those songs and guaranteed you'll be humming them to yourself long after they've faded or crashed into silence. Incidentally, every album featured above is excellent, but even if they weren't, each of these tracks would go a long way towards helping to redeem them. Next time I'll endeavour to pick great closing tracks from albums which are, shall we say, less than great. Till then... __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-25-2011, 12:55 PM	#417 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Random Track of the Day *Tuesday, October 25 2011* Today's Random Track of the Day slows things down nicely, with another example of that fine electronica duo Air, and a little piece taken from their “Premiers symptomes” album. Le soleil est pres de moi --- Air --- from "Premiers symptomes" on Source Nice little atmospheric, ambient piece, laid back with as usual a preponderance of keyboards and synth, and nice use of the vocoder, “Le soleil est pres de moi”, which means the sun is close to me, is one of those dreamy, nod-off-to-sleep tunes that would be at home on any chill collection mixtape. The album is actually a compilation of many of Air's early singles, and you don't need A-Level French I'm sure to work out that the title of the album translates to “first symptoms”. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-25-2011, 07:04 PM	#418 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	A special message from Trollheart --- service interruption Although I've made it my business, insofar as I can, since I began this journal to update it every day, tomorrow there will be NO update, as I have to take my sister to the hospital, and thanks to ridiculously long waiting lists it's likely we'll be there all day. Please bear with me, and normal service should be resumed on Thursday, when I'll run TWO Random Tracks of the Day and two Daily Earworms. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Troll __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-27-2011, 02:28 PM	#419 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Random Track of the Day *Wednesday, October 26 2011* As promised, since I wasn't here to update the journal yesterday there are two RTOTDs today. This is the first, ostensibly for Wednesday, and a surprisingly good track from the band who made me doubt the worth of “Chasing cars”. Yeah, it's Snow Patrol. Tiny little fractures --- Snow Patrol --- from "Final straw" on Fiction Yes, a decent track for once, or maybe “Songs for polar bears” was just a weak debut. Either way, this is a good little indie-rocker with a nice line in chorus and backing vocals. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-27-2011, 02:29 PM	#420 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Random Track of the Day *Thursday, October 27 2011* And here's today's proper Random track, from Journey, one of my favourite bands. Title track from their millions-selling breakout album, “Escape”. Escape --- Journey --- from "Escape" on Columbia Proving Journey can rock with the best of 'em, it's a good rocker with odd elements of Genesis, of all bands, in the melody. Steve Perry on fine form, and although there are much better tracks on the album (including of course their huge singles “Who's crying now” and “Don't stop believin'”) it's definitely worthy of inclusion on the album. Nice guitar from Neal Schon near the end. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018