Tag Archives: #music

The One That Got Away

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Clive Davis was once famously referred to as the “Man with the Golden Ears”. The stable of artists he discovered or nurtured is vast, making him a legend in the music business. Janis Joplin, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel are just a few iconic names from the list of music royalty influenced by Davis.

The task for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday is simple, select a song by an artist that was discovered, nurtured or produced by Clive Davis. I am going to step outside the box and stretch the rules a little. The post will most certainly be related to Clive Davis but the artist was not a Clive Davis product. Instead, I have chosen to focus on someone who auditioned for Davis but he chose to pass on as discussed in a 2017 interview with Rebecca Jarvis on the ABCNews’ weekly show Real Biz.

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Like the Stars Miss the Sun

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John Milton the English Poet and intellectual once said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.“ Think of that statement and then think of song lyrics where Milton’s quote rings true. That is Jim at A Unique Name For Me has challenged us with Sunday Song Lyric Sunday. We are to explore the mind for this week’s theme. The songs should be about mind, thoughts and/or the brain.

Think song of bliss, euphoria, depression, suicide and addiction. Examples range from Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Crazy Train“ to George Strait‘s “Nobody In His Right Mind Would Have Left Her“, from girl in red‘s “Serotonin“ to Joy Division‘s “She’s Lost Control“, from Tears for Fears‘ “Mad World“ to Patsy Cline‘s “Crazy“. There is no shortage of material to choose from that references the brain and the working of the mind.

This week I have chosen to highlight Lana Del Rey‘s haunting track “Summertime Sadness“. A song that skillfully weaves a tale of mental illness born from a deep loss. The track explores depression, while intertwining happy memories with thoughts of death and suicide. The accompanying music is eerily layered to evoke the sense of extreme melancholy the protagonist is experiencing.

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The Witch of November

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This week’s theme for Sunday Song Lyric is “Precipitation”. Of course, there are hundreds of songs that reference rain and picking just one was a difficult task.

In the end I chose a track from one of Canada’s most prolific songwriters. It was once said that SOCAN, the Canadian equivalent of ASCAP, maintained the collected works of Canadian artists in the main archive and then maintain a separate room in the archive to hold the collected works of Gordon Lightfoot. Keep in mind this was before the age of electronic storage and likely an old wives’ tale but it speaks to how prolific Lightfoot was as a songwriter.

I can think of several Lightfoot songs referencing rain including such hits as “Rainy Day People” and “Early Morning Rain”. Those are not the songs I have settled on for today’s challenge. The song I have chosen does not explicitly speak of the rain although it does mention ‘freezing rain’ in the lyric. Instead, as you listen to the song you can feel the freezing November rain driving across the deck as Lightfoot skillfully weaves through his tail of mariner woe.

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Drums and Trumpets

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I bring you a double shot for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. In 1985 the Waterboys released their third studio album “This Is the Sea” marking the end of what was known as ‘the big music’ era in the band’s history. The first two tracks “Don’t Bang the Drum” and “The Whole of the Moon” both make mention of musical instruments in their lyrics. The first one is obvious as it appears in the title and the second mentions trumpets later in the song.

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Peaches

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Fruit is food from the Gods. It has eye catching curves and beautiful shapes. It’s soft and supple, gently yielding in your hand when ripe for the picking. Once bitten its sweet intoxicating nectar flows forth filling ones senses with joy. Is it any wonder men have written poems and songs comparing the fairer sex to that of fruit?

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