Chris James's Blog, page 25

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #58: The Moody Blues, Never Comes the Day

Here’s a positive tune with an agreeable dollop of honesty.  Like all good Prog, it starts off in one direction, then changes tack and goes somewhere altogether different.  The only single released from their 1969 album On the Threshold of a Dream, this track was a commercial flop but the album was their first #1 in the UK.  This is one of The Moodies’ very best early tracks.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #59: Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights

Kate Bush wrote this when she was just 18 years old and became the first female artist to hit #1 in the UK with a self-penned song, at the beginning of 1978.  This is a mesmerising musical interpretation of a literary classic, in part inspired when Bush found out she shared her birthday with Emily Bronte.  And what do we get today?  Jane Austen with poxy zombies.  Call me an old grouch, but sometimes I’m so glad I was fortunate enough to grow up when young people could, with guidance, emerge at once as fully formed artists.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #60: Yes, Wondrous Stories

Many years ago, I decided that this song must be a kind of tribute to H. G. Wells, but the PoV (point of view) in the lyrics is all over the place.  It could be a devotee talking to H. G. (“I beg to leave to hear your wondrous stories”); or it could be Wells himself talking (“It is no lie, I see deeply into the future”); then again, it is probably neither.  In any case, the tune is gorgeous.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #61: Marc Cohn, Strangers in a Car

Marc Cohn’s only big hit was Walking in Memphis, which became an even bigger hit when Cher covered it.  This track, from his 1991 debut album, is a gentle, piano-led ballad whose lyrics reflect on the choices we all have to make, sooner or later—and how we can never know if they’re right choices or not.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #62, Genesis: Inside and Out

This track was recorded during the Wind and Wuthering sessions but didn’t make it onto the album.  Instead, it was relegated with the other leftovers onto 1977’s Spot the Pigeon EP.  Its structure is similar to The Cinema Show, opening with a plaintive, acoustic story of an ex-con who seems to have been convicted on suspect evidence.  However, it’s not the story here, but the music.  The second half of the track explodes with each of the four band members working in perfect, electrifying harmony.

Wind and Wuthering is one of the great Genesis albums, and to listen to this remarkable track brings into the sharpest focus the breadth and depth of talent the band could deploy at this time: Banks has a wonderful artistic fit on his keyboards; Hackett matches him with dazzling guitar work; Rutherford delivers an outstanding bass part; and behind them Collins pounds the drums to keep them all on track.  Yet they didn’t consider that it was good enough to put it on the album for which they wrote it.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #63: Sparks, When Do I Get To Sing ‘My Way’?

It’s remarkable to consider that brothers Ron and Russell Mael now have a career spanning over five decades, and they’re still going strong.  As with a few other acts on this list, Sparks deserve greater recognition and appreciation than they currently enjoy.  When Do I Get To Sing ‘My Way’? displays their prodigious talent fully.  My first choice for this list was their 1974 hit This Town Ain’t Big Enough, because I could have embedded the hilarious YouTube video where Sparks performed the song in the midst of a German studio audience in 1974, each member of which appears wholly comatose.  But the video for this track, from the 1994 album Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, is actually more enjoyable as it shows the Mael brothers’ endearing sense of humour at its best.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #64: The Moody Blues, Meet Me Halfway

In 1983 The Moodies released The Present, which shadowed 1981’s Long Distance Voyager quite closely in structure and form.  The cover is a pastiche of Maxfield Parrish’s painting Daybreak, one of the highest-selling prints of the 20th century.  Again, the Voyager 2 space probe is inserted into the picture, observing from above.  While arguably not as strong as LDV, The Present boasts plenty of tracks to keep fans happy, and in my opinion, this is the best of the bunch.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #65: Tubeway Army, Are Friends Electric?

Like Depeche Mode, Gary Numan emerged as part of the new wave, post-punk scene with a sound built around the then-new synthesisers.  As commentators pointed out at the time, this song has no discernable hook yet it reached the top of the UK charts for four weeks in 1979, in an era when disco ruled the airwaves.  In the video you can see Billy Curry doing his thing on one set of keyboards, before he went on to do very similar things with Ultravox.  And, at 59, Gary Numan is still going strong today.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #66: Renaissance, Carpet of the Sun

A song full of light and femininity, Betty Thatcher had the idea for the lyrics when a young child with her pointed at the lawn and asked: “What is the grass?”  Thatcher replied that it was the carpet of the sun, and the rest, as they say, is history.  I’m linking below to a video which I made from my own photos, because I wanted to point out to what the lyrics refer.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #67: Rush, Cygnus X-1, Book 2: Hemispheres

For Rush’s science-fiction storytelling, most fans would make a beeline for the 1976 classic 2112, with its gripping future-dystopia narrative.  As great as 2112 undoubtedly is, I’m going with 1978’s opener on Hemispheres.  A rocking ding-dong between Apollo and Dionysus battling for the soul of man, until Cygnus comes along and gives the pair of them the god-like equivalent of a slap upside the head.  This track has an outstanding intro, and the plaintive closing lyric is one of Rush’s best.

Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.