Reblog W The Song Lyrics In Your Head NOW. Either Stuck In Yr Head Or What Yr Listening To

Director's Cut - Kate knows what she's doing

Kate Bush’s new/old album Director’s Cut, a reworking of tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, has received largely positive reviews from critics and rather more mixed responses from the public. I’ve heard a few radio DJs expressing unhappy bemusement after playing the new versions of classic tracks such as 'Deeper Understanding', 'This Woman’s Work' and 'The Sensual World', a bemusement echoed and intensified by listeners’ texts. No doubt hearing new versions of old songs, especially ones that are already much-loved by fans, is going to provoke a reaction, and not always a good one. But I’m of the belief that the pissed-off fans are letting their emotions get in the way of their critical judgement.

I can accept that Director’s Cut, as a concept, could seem a bit pointless and redundant if you are a fan who already owns and appreciates the albums on which the tracks originally appear. But for people who are not familiar with her work it provides an almost perfect introduction to it, like a Greatest Hits, but with more care and effort put in. I am one of those people and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to hear a cross-section of her older work and to hear how she is working now – how her voice sounds now as a mature woman, how her producing skills are as experimental and precise as ever, how her interest in music is not frozen in time and how (unlike many other world-famous artists) she is not resting on her laurels and releasing a best-of every couple of years to keep bread on the table. A lot of work has gone into producing this album, and that alone justifies the price.

Like most people, I was always familiar with Kate Bush; I knew her famous tunes and knew that she was the kind of artist I would like, but had not gotten around to investigating her properly. This was partly because of a fear of 80s production values – I couldn’t help but think that my enjoyment of her work would be hampered by an overload of cheesy synths and reverb. These fears have turned out to be unjustified, but it’s not hard to understand why I might have had them. Listening to the new tracks gave me a chance to sample a cross-section of her songs and decide from there if I thought her work was worth investigating further. The answer was, to echo the new version of the title track of The Sensual World, a resounding YES.

That song provides a good jumping-off point for approaching this album as a neophyte. I was only vaguely aware of the original song so on hearing the new version (now called 'Flower of the Mountain') I carried no baggage of expectation. All I knew was that she had succeeded in gaining permission from the notoriously protective Joyce estate to use Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from the end of Ulysses as the lyrics. People who were used to the 1989 version, with Bush’s own adapted lyrics, can’t seem to get their heads around the song now, but as far as I’m concerned it works much, much better (as would befit its original conception). As Bush said herself: ‘I’m not James Joyce’, - while her adapted lyrics are quite poetic, they have nothing on the fluid, rushing, earthy lines of the original text. The soliloquy lends itself extraordinarily well to music, with lines like ‘when I put the flower in my hair like the Andalusian girl used or shall I wear the red yes’ flowing gorgeously through the tune and giving the song a subtler yet more powerful sensuality than the original’s somewhat-overdone breathiness. The drums and bass are stronger on this version too, giving the song a secure scaffolding and letting the uilleann pipes come through with more clarity. It’s not only the new lyrics that make this the definitive version of this song.

Other tracks serve as complements to the originals, rather than supplanters. 'Deeper Understanding', told from the point of view of a programmer drawn into an obsessive relationship with a computer has been extended and reworked to include a creepy Auto-Tune effect on Kate’s voice in the chorus (when the computer is supposed to be addressing the programmer). Some have argued that this cheapens the song somewhat, ‘spelling out’ the meaning for the listener rather than leaving it ambiguous. My main issue with this song is that on first hearing I thought the obsession described by the narrator was simply the rush of becoming absorbed in the complexity and mystery of programming itself, but on closer listening the lyrics seem to indicate that the narrator installs a programme that directly simulates a friend, a meaning that strikes me as overly literal. The new video, starring Robbie Coltrane and Noel Fielding, seems to bear this interpretation out. The song would be more compelling if the concept of the narrator befriending or falling in love with the computer was approached metaphorically, framed in a story about absorption in the programming process. This issue remains the same in either version, so I have no preference of the new over the old track or vice versa – they are both musically interesting in different ways, and the use of a Bulgarian women’s choir in both is very well done. The extended ending of the new version has a good deal of experimentation in various electronic sounds which will appeal to some and not to others – again it’s a matter of taste. 

'This Woman’s Work' is one of the few tracks that has been completely re-recorded, in a lower key to accommodate Bush’s mature voice. Again I wasn’t familiar enough with the original to be especially attached to it over the new. The original scores points for being sparer and not as reverb-heavy as the new, but Bush’s current, slightly lower voice is more to my taste. In both versions the power of the song remains undiluted. The same can be said for 'Moments of Pleasure', another entirely re-recorded track. 

A few critics have referred to The Red Shoes as one of Bush’s weaker albums, which only leads you to amaze at how good the good stuff must be, if tracks such as 'Lily', 'Moments of Pleasure', 'The Song of Solomon', 'Top of the City' and the title track are ‘bad’ by her standards! The songs from The Red Shoes that have been re-recorded remain fairly close to the originals so again fans can’t froth too much at changes. Having listened to both the new and original versions I think these tracks benefit hugely from the more muscular drumming and deeper vocals they receive on Director’s Cut – the vocals on 'The Song of Solomon' and 'Top of the City' particularly are much more powerful and affecting than in the originals, and the new drum track on 'The Red Shoes' – a track Bush has said in interviews that she is particularly happy with – gives the song the full, crazy propulsion necessary to carry its whirling-dervish beat and melody. 

Bush’s reasoning for recording this album was that she felt that the songs on the two original albums were not produced as well as she would have liked. The results on Director’s Cut bear her creative judgement out. There have been so many developments in audio technology since 1989 and the digitisation of the two original albums, at a time when digital audio technology was still developing, seems to have given the originals a rather thin sound. Bush’s decision to transfer the audio to analogue and re-record the drums and vocals was intelligent – it brought out the strength of the instrumentation that had got lost in the digital mist, and the new additions helped to, well, make the songs louder, which they needed to be.

'Rubberband Girl' is the only track which doesn’t seem to benefit much from re-recording – it has a strangely muted audio quality, which, if intentional, was misguided.  But apart from that Kate Bush hasn’t put a foot wrong in this album, and unlike many established artists, she’s not just plugging the gap between albums with repackaged old albums – she’s actually put in studio time and commitment, and given her fans something new and interesting. Breath is bated for her new album, and in the meantime there’s a whole back catalogue to discover.

Strumpet City

Set in Dublin during the Lockout of 1913, "Strumpet City" is a panoramic novel of city life. It embraces a wide range of social milieux, from the miseries of the tenements to the cultivated, bourgeois Bradshaws. It introduces a memorable cast of characters: the main protagonist, Fitz, a model of the hard-working, loyal and abused trade unionist; the isolated, well-meaning and ineffectual Fr O'Connor; and the wretched and destitute, Rashers Tierney. In the background hovers the enormous shadow of Jim Larkin, Plunkett's real-life hero. "Strumpet City's" popularity derives from its realism and its naturalistic presentation of traumatic historical events. There are clear heroes and villians. The book is informed by a sense of moral outrage at the treatment of the locked-out trade unionists, the indifference and evasion of the city's clergy and middle class and the squalor and degradation of the tenement slums.

Joanna Newsom at Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin

Joanna Newsom and band performing in Vancouver. Photo: Skot Nelson

It’s been three years since Joanna Newsom’s last gig in Dublin, so on Tuesday evening fans from all over the country eagerly converged on the Grand Canal Theatre for the opening date of her latest tour. As some commentators noted, there was a positive outpouring of hipsters into what is normally a suits ‘n’ heels kind of area, with trendily dressed people at varying stages of youth milling around the windswept square and gleaming lobby of the theatre from the early evening onwards. But unlike some events that draw that kind of crowd, this was no exclusivist gig designed to alienate those ‘not in the know’. From the moment a smiling Joanna appeared on stage to rapturous applause, she showed yet again why she and the musicians she works with deserve all the praise they get.

Her music is complex but hugely accessible, even more so when performed live. My companion, who’d never heard her music before, was astounded and delighted at the beauty and richness of the arrangements performed, reproduced almost note-perfectly from her latest album Have One On Me. The band, comprising uber-arranger and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Francesconi, percussionist Neal Morgan, two women on violin and viola respectively whose names I didn’t catch and Andrew Strain on trombone (who, incidentally, looked like the love child of Dougie Howser MD and Spencer from The Hills – thanks to Alice for that observation!) performed such epics as the album’s title track, ‘Easy’, ‘Kingfisher’ and a tremendous new arrangement of Ys’ Monkey and Bear with passion and military precision.

Joanna’s harp playing is better than ever, showcased beautifully on the show opener, ‘Jackrabbits’ and on ‘Peach Plum Pear’, performed as an encore. She took to the piano a number of times too, though the location of the instrument toward the back of the stage meant her voice carried less powerfully during these tracks and was sometimes drowned out by the drumkit. (I have heard since that those sitting further back actually had a better acoustic experience, as the instruments sounded more balanced when heard from further away). Her voice is less abrasive than in recent years but still carries a tune powerfully, with only a few bum notes hit. Uncharacteristically for her, she mixed up some of the lyrics in Soft As Chalk, but considering the vast quantity of words she manages to learn by heart and sing perfectly every night a small blunder is easily forgiven. A slightly fuzzy memory was also revealed when she repeated a story she told the last time she played in Dublin, about how she overheard some people criticising her performance. From what I can tell, this incident occurred the first time she was in Dublin, not in 2007, since she told the same story at the last gig. Anyway, the criticisers would be eating their words if they were in attendance last night!

Small mistakes such as these also makes her seem more human, a side of her that came out during a brief interlude when she interacted with the audience while re-gluing her fingers (necessary for harp-playing). Joanna may look the picture of innocence, but I laughed heartily when she commented ‘This is taking longer than I anticipated because I haven’t finished gluing my fingers….that’s what she said’. A funny back-and-forth between her and Neal Morgan about Twitter and its lack of appeal for them indicated a good rapport within the band.

She played two tracks, Kingfisher and Autumn, that I tend to skip over on the CD, but the live context brought out a richness to these delicate tunes that I will be going back to investigate further. Soft As Chalk and the the aforementioned Monkey and Bear were highlights, full of excitement and drama. Neal Morgan’s percussion was astounding, on a par with Joanna’s harp playing, as he switched between a variety of sticks and surfaces to get exactly the right sound.

The show was just under 90 minutes long, time that seemed to shoot by. The pre-encore closer was the wonderful Good Intentions Paving Company, with its piano and trombone coda extended to a rocking jam that nearly had the audience on its feet – proof yet again that Joanna can really rock out when she wants to. A richer arrangement of Peach Plum Pear was actually an improvement on the album original. The near-capacity crowd (in a venue that accommodates 2,000 people) gave a riotous standing ovation and the trendyheads even cracked a few smiles on their way out. Let’s hope Joanna doesn’t leave it as long for her next visit.

currently 70 pages into Derek Taylor's book and I'm absolutely charmed, did everyone else know how funny he was and just not tell me!!?

melody maker letters as the burn book from mean girls

So you think 'Imagine' ain't political? It's 'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself!! You obviously didn't dig the words. Imagine! You took 'How Do You Sleep' so literally (read my own review of the album in Crawdaddy.) Your politics are very similar to Mary Whitehouse's -- 'Saying nothing is as loud as saying something.' Listen, my obsessive old pal, it was George's press conference -- not 'dat ole debbil Klein' -- He said what you said: 'I'd love to come but...' Anyway, we basically did it for the same reasons -- the Beatle bit -- they still called it a Beatle show, with just two of them! Join the Rock Liberation Front before it gets you. Wanna put your photo on the label like uncool John and Yoko, do ya? (Aint ya got no shame!) If we're not cool, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU? No hard feelings to you either. I know basically we want the same, and as I said on the phone and in this letter, whenever you want to meet, all you have to do is call.

John Lennon's letter responding to Paul, published in its entirety in Melody Maker

literally the ramblings of an insane person I am GAGGED

fuckkkkkkk offffffffffff

The Beatles rehearse for the BBC radio show Teenager's Turn (Here We Go) in Manchester, England | 11 June 1962 © Mike McCartney

My latest Songs Tinhat theory is that Paul recorded "Kreen-Akrore" as a response to "Cold Turkey".

"If *YOU* can make weird sex noises on a record under cover of being about something else, then *I* can make weird sex noises on a record under cover of being about something else!"

Beer In The Snooker Club

This is one of my favourite novels, and the edition pictured above boasts the only decent cover I’ve seen of this (admittedly infrequently published) work. I picked it up in a second hand bookshop in Limerick about five years ago, and with retrospect it probably should have cost more than €3, especially considering the rarity of the old Penguin edition. Perhaps its value will rise again with its reissue in December by Serpent’s Tail, complete with a new introduction by Diana Athill, in whose house the author lived and committed suicide in in 1969.

This novel triggered my interest in the now all-but-disappeared Egyptian Coptic elite. Leaders in society in the pre-Nasser area, the Copts, like the Greeks before them, were caught between worlds – the world of aristocratic Europe to which they aspired, with its country clubs and communication through French, and the dramatically unequal society in which they lived, where priests’ palaces adjoined slums and the fellaheen (peasants) laboured for a subsistence lifestyle while the elite held hunting parties on the land they tilled. It was inevitable that dramatic change would come, but the Copts had an extraordinarily ancient Christian heritage, almost unique in the area, that ran the risk of being lost forever after Nasser’s rise to power.

The author (a distant relative of former UN Secretary Boutros-Boutros Ghali) came from this rarefied world, and like his alter ego, the character Ram, entertained Marxist ideals before the disillusionment of experience and the ugly reality of post-revolution Egypt caused him to retreat into cynicism. The story covers the experiences of Ram and his avowedly Communist friend Font as they move from Cairo to London, full of romantic dreams of living an artist’s life in the East End, but are disillusioned by casual racism and their upper-middle class hosts’ lack of loyalty. When they return to Cairo, Nasser has taken power but the socialist revolution is far from the dream Font imagined, with a Jewish friend beaten half to death by soldiers and Ram’s excursions into amateur spying revealing endemic levels of prisoner torture.

But it’s more than just political disillusionment that stalks the characters. Ram particularly finds himself becoming more and more detached from any authentic sense of self as the novel progresses. A lifetime of floating between categories – West and East, European and Egyptian, socialist and playboy – as well as the tragedy of a failed love affair, leads him to separate his psyche in two, vividly described in the following passage from the novel:

‘That moment….was the very beginning – the first time in my life that I had felt myself cleave into two entities, the one participating and the other watching and judging.’

The cataclysm of that cleavage is what causes Ram to descend into cynicism and accept so many things that he had once found intolerable. I’ve never read any book that better encapsulates what it must feel like to be caught between two cultures, with no clear sense of belonging to either. Not only does it achieve this, it’s also funny, sympathetic and full of vividly drawn characters that encapsulate the two cities it memorialises. I hope its reissue brings it the widespread attention it deserves.