Maybe it’s just me but I sometimes wonder if music doesn’t just drive you mad. I was having a wee nap recently and dozed off to an ipod shuffle that kept throwing up gems. I wanted to smile beatifically – Bilko style – but kept waking myself up to check what the track was.
It’s the same in the pictures. I was fairly disappointed at my two cinema adventures last week but always curious to watch the credits so I could check out who sang what. It’s a curse I tell you…ask my wife.
On a lovely drive back through the hills of Galloway today I returned to some old playlists; in particular the songs of two years ago we loved on the AC. The annoying thing was hearing old friends but forgetting the artists name and the titles of the records. (Nathaniel Rateliff and Gregory Alan Isakov were two highlights!)The memory is the music I guess. It’s what we all want to happen when we hear music…we want to be taken somewhere. In so many cases – and often for me in my teens and early adulthood – I wanted to be somewhere else. I wanted to be in the place I heard that song taking place or I wanted to be the guy singing the song or often I wanted to imagine people waiting to hear what song I’d play next – a radio audience. I wrote a song I found recently about that very wish. It’s called Frank The Graveyard Man – about someone who loves being on the radio late at night and mixing it up a bit. His songs choices are so poignant that the listener can’t help but imagine what the heck is going on in his private life. It reminded me of a lecturer I once enjoyed listening to. Was he really telling us about Anthony and Cleopatra or was he revealing his own marital failings and foibles? I dare say you might concoct a strange picture if you tried this with the AC – so I’m bound to advise you against it. Nevertheless music sparks the imagination and none of us is immune to the tricks it can play. It changes the colour of our sky and makes the coldest and harshest of truths a little more bearable – and for that we are all grateful.
On Friday we will collectively imagine the worlds of Aoife O’Donovan, Steve Earle, Jim Jones, Ry Cooder and Beth Orton. We will inevitably remember again why we love country music and to that end we will have a star witness:
Caitlin Rose is that rarest of AC visitors – the third time returnee. Since she first charmed us with the Dead Flowers EP a couple of years back she has been a very busy young woman. Steeped in the ways and lore of Music Row she has, wisely in my opinion, decided not to fall to heavily under the spell of the charms of these fabled streets. She has instead set her own course, written her own songs and she is therefore a more rounded and original artist for all of that. She came in with some of her touring ensemble and cut some songs from her excellent new album, The Stand In. She also covered a brilliant song I first heard performed by Linda Ronstadt.
I should reassure you she is a stand-in for no one and her voice is strong clear and original. Join Caitlin, her band and me on the radio this Friday and let your own imaginations take flight. The very least we can offer you is a two hour trip to Another Country. It all starts at five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.
Great, great blog! Much of this resonates with me, too: I am sure my own quality of sleep suffers for my habit of listening to/sharing music on my iPhone late at night after I’ve gone to bed, and I am also so often transported somewhere by music that I associate with a time and place from my past. One such example from this week is, incidentally, “New Recording”. I was put in mind of that record from listening to “Trouble Came Looking” (which is fantastic, by the way—looking forward to 21st at Union Chapel!) just in terms of its mostly bare production, but I am so powerfully taken back to a particular time and place in my life from it (a good memory) that it almost distracts me from the songs themselves.
I recall “Frank the Graveyard Man”, and it’s too late now—you’ve opened that proverbial can of worms in terms of how I listen to The AC! Seriously, though, that subjectivity in our appreciation and presentation of art is fascinating to me in and of itself. I often found it to be the case when studying psychology, too, and formed the view that it at least sometimes acts in detriment to that discipline, given how intertwined it is with its subject matter.
I look forward to hearing more from Caitlin Rose on tonight’s show, too. I have yet to pick up a copy of “The Stand-In” but I strongly suspect I will be doing so before the day is out, and exploring where the music takes me. “It changes the colour of our sky and makes the coldest and harshest of truths a little more bearable – and for that we are all grateful”—perfectly and beautifully put.
Dear Adam,
So lovely to get your replies and know someone reads and listens.Would you be free to pop back after Union Chapel for awee beer. I’ll stick your name plus any pals on the after show list if that suits?
Ricky
Hi, Ricky. That would be wonderful for next Sunday, yes! I only live a short walk away from Union Chapel so can readily stop on for a drink, and would love to do so. I’ll be coming on my own, I think, so no entourage in tow! Thank you—I’ll look forward to that.
I’m sure the blog has its wider regular readership… As much as I use social media, I’m a little allergic to reducing everything to the click of a “Like” button or 140 characters, hence taking the opportunity to share my thoughts in turn here!
See you in a week or so, then…
Adam