Trollheart

Title: “Took the last train”
Format: Single
Written by: David Gates
Performed by: David Gates
Genre: Pop
Taken from: The Goodbye Girl
Year: 1978
Acclaim: Meh, no. 30 in the US. Nothing like the title track did.

I was always a fan of Bread. That's the band, not the food. A lot of people give them stick for the same reasons they deride Air Supply – that they were basically a love songs band – and for much of their career that is true. Standards like “Baby I'm-a want you”, “If” and “Make it with you” were huge hits for them in the seventies and remain classics today. However this is from lead singer David Gates's solo album, which was also the soundtrack to the Neil Simon movie The Goodbye Girl, which in itself gave Gates his only major hit. I love that song, but I like this one too.

Things I like about this :

1. The sort of Latin, bossa-nova beat
2. The jangly guitar
3. The semi-French chorus
4. Saxamaphone

Things I don't like about this:

Nothing



Rating:

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Trollheart

Title: “Mystery train”
Format: Album track
Written by: Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Falcon
Performed by: Bon Jovi
Genre: Rock
Taken from: Crush
Year: 2000
Acclaim: n/a

One of four ballads on Crush, I really like this one. It has that kind of “trying to figure out what the woman thinks” idea that a lot of Bon Jovi's ballads depend on, so it's nothing new but I still like it. If you don't, that's fine but I'm a Bon Jovi fanboy to the end, so don't bug me.

Things I like about this :

Everything

Things I don't like about this:

Nothing



Rating:

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Trollheart

And finally, just to annoy Tristan when he thought he was getting away with it...

Title: “When the fog rolls in”
Format: Album track
Written by: Pat Monahan, Greg Wattenburh, Butch Walker
Performed by: Train
Genre: Pop
Taken from: California 37
Year: 2012
Acclaim: n/a

Before anyone gives me stick, I'm not a Train fan. I listened to this album thinking it might be good, and the overall impression I came away with was sub-boyband, and an enduring desire not to listen to any more of their material. However there were two songs on it that gave me pause, and I featured them previously in The Playlist of Life under my “More Than Words” section. Of the two, this is the one I like best, which actually closes the album. It's a lovely ballad dealing with the immediate aftermath of a breakup, like immediate: the guy in the song is going back to collect his things, and reminiscing about how things were and the things he'll miss. Fuck Train, yes, but this is a beautiful and delicate song.

Things I like about this :

1. The piano lead
2. The lyric is mostly what impresses me
3. The chorus is pretty great

Things I don't like about this:

Nothing



Rating:

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Trollheart

And that about wraps it up for trains. There are about sixteen thousand million songs written about trains, so it's not like I'm stuck for examples, but I don't want to stick on one subject for too long.

So this will be the next theme:

Yup. Mountains. Songs about mountains, songs by bands with mountain in their names, songs involving mountains. Suggestions as always welcomed, though I have of course already got plenty of ideas.

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Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

this one is 8 minutes so if you don't want to bother with i understand, but just know it's awesome.

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Music Blog / RYM / Last.fm / Qwertyy's Journal of Music Reviews and Other Assorted Ramblings

The Batlord

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Frownland

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

Time to kick some life back into the old journals. And when I say old, I mean old! The last time I looked at this was all of three years ago; in fact, I’d forgotten mostly about it. Well, I hadn’t, but today as I considered bringing it back from the dead I was thinking over themes I could use. Little did I know that way back in December of 2016 I had already decided the next theme would be Mountains.

And so it shall be.
And I’m kicking off with a super classic from pop’s heyday.

Title: “Climb Ev’ry Mountain"
Format: Single
Written by: Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II
Performed by: Tony Bennett
Genre: Showtune
Taken from: In Tony’s case, not any of his albums (though I imagine maybe one of his ten thousand “Greatest Hits” compilations) but originally anyway fromThe Sound of Music soundtrack.
Year: 1959
Acclaim: Who doesn’t know this song? It’s been covered by, among others, Christina Aguilera, Barbara Streisand, Shirley Bassey and Andy Williams. As far as I can see, the only one to have a major hit with it was Bassey, who got to number one in 1961, where she stayed for a staggering eighteen weeks!

I personally don’t like The Sound of Music, though my sister loves it. Too twee for me. Do, a deer, a female deer? No thanks. However I did at one point walk into her room while this was on and, while I kind of know the song anyway (who doesn’t, at least in my age group?) one thing that did strike me was the passion and emotion conveyed through the song. Admittedly, some nun was singing it at that stage, but it’s more in the lyric and the way the melody is delivered through the song that I feel it makes its impact.

At its heart, of course, it’s a song of encouragement, exhorting others to seek out what they want in life, follow their dreams, never give up. The mountains (and streams) referred to in the lyric are naturally metaphors for the obstacles we all face in life, be they big or small, and we can all identify with this. How many times has something seemed so out of our reach, so impossible, so hard that we feel we have to climb a mountain in order to overcome it?

The composers are of course masters of their craft, having written the music for some of the most famous and best-known films and musicals (and musicals turned into films; possibly films turned into musicals… you get the idea) including Oklahoma!, South Pacific and The King and I. And this one. Generally speaking, big musical numbers tend to be quite forceful, dramatic and lavish, and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (not sure why the apostrophe is there, but it is) is no exception. Though it begins relatively low-key, Bennet’s version dropping into a basic soft pop version after the opening salvo of strings, it builds until at the end it’s just like a heart swelling with pride and determination as he belts out the last chorus.

Why did I choose his version from all the ones I could? Have to admit, I got a soft spot for ol’ Tony. As a young lad, I would never have admitted this, but I admire the guy and he has one hell of a set of pipes. Also, he’s one of the few male artists who covered this, and I just wanted to try something different. Shirley Bassey, having hit number one with it would have been the obvious choice, but I’m not mad about her singing.

You know, listening to Tony’s rendition of the song, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed. The power and passion I mentioned is really lacking here, and it ends on a damp squib. Maybe not the best choice to have made? Great song nevertheless, and a universal theme among humanity: never give up.

Things I like about this :

1. The lyrics
2. The passion in the melody
3. Kind of a simple song but no worse for it.

Things I don't like about this:

1. Tony lets me down here. Where’s that passion I expected Tony? Oh dear.
2. It’s from the bloody Sound of Music!


Rating:

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Trollheart

With the return of my History of Ireland journal imminent, I thought I'd check out an old Irish traditional ballad next.


Title: “The Mountains of Mourne”
Format: Album track/classic ballad
Written by: Percy French
Performed by: Finbar Furey
Genre: Traditional/Folk
Taken from: Chasing Moonlight: Love Songs of Ireland
Year (Performer): 2003
Year (Composer): 1895
Acclaim: One of the best-known of Irish ballads

People say we Irish are “a nation of begrudgers”. I don’t disagree. If we’re not complaining about the weather or the government, we’re eyeing the foreign nationals and migrants warily, while still regularly attending Sunday mass. We are, really, a nation of hypocrites. And nowhere is this clearer than in the plight of the immigrant, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Granted, life in Ireland back then was tough: we lived under the English yoke, as second or even third-class citizens, almost as slaves in many cases, and with nobody to speak for us. To some, the idea of getting the hell out of Ireland was the most logical thing, and if they had the money and the resources that was exactly what they did.

Now that’s all very well and good, as far as it goes. But the problem is that we constantly think that the grass is greener, even when we’ve seen the particular grass in question and discovered we’re wrong. In other words, an Irishman or woman (but usually man, at this time) living in poverty or under the oppressive heel of England would yearn for freedom, for a new life, for a chance to make something of himself, for the opportunity to gain respect and standing, none of which he could hope to achieve at home. So they’d set sail, for America or Canada or England (yeah, go figure: to the very country ruled by the king or queen who oppressed them, virtually into the lion’s den as it were!) and seek their fortune.

But once there, they discovered that the streets were not paved with gold, that while Lady Liberty may indeed have held her torch high and welcomed them, once they were past Ellis Island she literally turned her back on them, and with a sort of shrug metaphorically declared “Oh yeah, send me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. No problem. Just don’t expect me to do anything for them!” Now they were on their own, and despite the stories read in the letters sent home, and the novels and the travellers’ tales, life was no easier in New York than it was in Dublin, and the landlords of Whitechapel were just as scheming and ruthless as those in Mayo. Jobs weren’t just waiting there to be taken, and the cheery, smiling faces written of were in fact scowling, suspicious ones that turned away, or advised you in colourful terms to return whence you came.

And as cold, hard reality came crashing down on them like the coldest snows of an Offaly winter, the poor Irish immigrants began thinking of home, and wondered if it had been that bad after all? Had they exchanged one bad situation for another? Had they made things worse? At least at home, they were known: they had friends, family, perhaps even jobs, if badly-paid ones. They had somewhere to live. Here, in Boston or Toronto or Manchester, they were, literally, strangers in a strange land, outcasts and exiles, even if it had been voluntary exile. Things may not have been so rosy in the garden of Erin, but they had stepped into another just as tangled and overgrown and filled with rotting vegetation, and additionally far from home.

In short, they realised they had made a mistake. They had gambled and lost, believed the hype and found it was not true. They had expected a new start, an easier life, fame and fortune, but probably ended up scratching out a meagre living in a land where everyone hated them, or found their way to the cold embrace of the workhouse.

Which is why so many Irish traditional songs sing of emigrants who wish they had never emigrated, and want to come home. Suddenly, the green green fields of Ireland seem a much more inviting and welcome place than the cold hard streets of Spitalifields, and the remembered faces of friends, the cheery Irish brogue and the pint down the pub all seem like memories of a life left behind, slowly fading. While some immigrants did of course make it and become very rich and famous, they were in the minority and during the Famine, almost all of those who crossed the ocean had an even harder time of it at their destination (assuming they survived the trip aboard the “coffin ships”) seen as worse than refugees, almost as lepers cast out of their own country.

Written in 1856, “The Mountains of Mourne” speaks from the point of view of one such emigrant, who in a letter tells his wife about all the wonderful things he sees - “People all working by day and by night” - no doubt a strange sight to an Irishman where, at least for those in rural areas, the day began early but ended before nightfall. He talks about fashions, about the people he meets and above all his desire to return home. It’s hard to say whether you can take it literally when he says “There’s gangs of them digging for gold in the streets/At least when I asked them that’s what I was told/So I just took a hand at this digging for this gold” but of course he is disappointed and finds none. You’d have to assume that’s a metaphor; hard to imagine anyone being stupid enough to literally dig for gold in the streets, much less being allowed to. Probably likely they were workmen of some sort pulling his chain. But it does illustrate the fanciful stories people were willing to place credence in, and that often spurred their exodus to this or that promised land, only to find the promises broken, the gold tarnished, and their dreams as broken as their pockets by the time the truth hit.

Interesting too, to note the changed attitude towards the oppressor, when the narrator of the song sings of the King and says, rather shame-facedly to his wife, “God forgive me I cheered with the rest” when he saw him “from the top of a bus”. I had first-hand experience of the unreliability of memory, as I had always been convinced when he met the Irish policeman in the streets the line he sang was “He stopped all the traffic with a wave of his hand”, but it’s street, not traffic. A small thing, yes, but that line had always stuck with me from the song, and it’s odd to find I was wrong about that small detail.

Why have I chosen Finbar Furey’s version? I just wanted a well-known balladeer like Paddy Reilly or Johnny McEvoy, but he’s the closest. He’s well known in Irish trad circles, so I thought, yeah he’ll do. I mean, Don MacClean covered it, but I wanted an Irish singer. It’s probably pretty much the same no matter who sings it; that’s the nice thing about trad ballads. They really don’t change that much over the years, or even centuries.

And, unbothered by the passage of time, the Mountains of Mourne still sweep down to the sea...

Things I like about this:

The lyric
The tune
The images conjured up
Its timelessness

Things I do not like about this:
Nothing really

Rating:

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The Batlord

I thought you said the Irish weren't racist nationalists?

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