The Coral – Dreaming Of You (2002)

After last night’s mayhem in Istanbul, it’s been an overwhelmingly quiet day.

Manchester City winning the Champions League effectively ticks off a key item on my life’s “bucket list” and there is now a bit of a hole when it comes to future football hopes and dreams.

I spent most of the day finishing off Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen‘s lovely memoir “Home in the World”. I’m not sure there is anything in there that I need to read again but it’s an engaging book that I’d recommend to others and so it will now take its place on the appropriate shelf of my library.

I’m trying to get back to close to daily blog posts and, with that in mind, I spent a bit of time looking at my list of potential candidate tunes. I spotted The Coral‘s “Dreaming Of You” on there but assumed that I’d already posted it and just failed to have crossed it off the list. However, a check of the pantheon of the bestmusicofalltime revealed that I’d somehow omitted to post it already and so it’s a great pleasure to rectify this error.

The Coral are from my birthplace, the Wirral, but, for all intents and purposes, tick all the Scouse scallies boxes that you might want to apply.

I’ve previously posted a couple of tunes by the band’s guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones here and here. He’s a talented fellow.

The single version and then a great live take filmed for Later … with Jools Holland!

Perfect pop music.

Play loud!

Bruce Springsteen – Into The Fire (2002)

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, there is wall to wall coverage of those terrible events on the radio, television and internet.

The images from that awful day are indelibly imprinted on my mind and I often get choked up remembering them.

However, today’s endless replays of the TV footage and the radio reports seems to me to be over the top – bordering on the voyeuristic.

I’ve only watched one programme about the attacks this week – the quite outstanding BBC documentary “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room“. It includes some very candid interviews with Bush, Cheney and Rice and I can’t praise it highly enough. Depending on where you are in the world, you might be able to watch it on the BBC iPlayer here.

Given the gravity of what happened, the musical “response” to the atrocities was, inevitably, pretty muted – sometimes art simply can’t deal with the enormity of life’s events.

However, I’ve previously posted a couple of pieces (check here and here) by William Basinski whose haunting Disintegration Loops are always associated with the destruction of the Twin Towers. And I’ve also posted (here) the beautiful “Nothing Man” from Bruce Springsteen‘s 9/11 themed LP The Rising released in 2002. “Into The Fire” from the same album is another worthy addition to the blog.

It’s heartfelt stuff.

Up the stairs, into the fire

I’m hoping that the 11th of September 2021 is going to generate a better memory for New York. Emma Radacanu, the plucky British tennis player, is in the final of the US Open with a genuine chance of victory. It would be wonderful if a talented young woman who wasn’t born 20 years ago could lift the spirits.

Mind you, if she loses, we will have to extend our sympathies to the unlucky Canadian/Romanian competitor ….!

The LP version then live in Barcelona.

Calexico – Not Even Stevie Nicks … (2002)

It’s just been announced that Charlie Watts has died at the age of 80 – he did well to get that far in my view.

I suppose I should post a track by the Stones to mark his passing but I’ve already posted a few of theirs and nothing immediately leaps to mind tonight – but check here for their definitive reading of “Route 66” (and here for Nat King Cole’s stupendous version from 1946!)

It was announced yesterday that UB40‘s saxophonist, Brian Travers, had died at the age of only 62 – that’s not a fair innings. It’s easy to forget that the first two UB40 LPs were excellent before they moved into their “cover version” pop reggae mode.

Paradoxically, my all time favourite track of theirs is a cover version: “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” from their debut LP Signing Off. Check here for an earlier post featuring that very reworked version of Randy Newman‘s original.

Anyhow, I was listening to a free CD given away with a recent edition of Mojo magazine and there was a great track on it by Calexico. I logged on to Discogs.com to check whether I already had the tune somewhere in my collection and spotted that I do have it on their 2002 LP Feast Of Wire. However, in perusing the track listing of that album, I spotted this song “Not Even Stevie Nicks ….” which I’d been meaning to post at some point.

As Stevie Nicks (and Fleetwood Mac) is someone who everyone in my family enjoys, I had no hesitation in posting this tonight.

Apparently, it’s about a chap who has a deep love for Stevie’s music but even that can’t stop him driving his car off a cliff.

Ah well.

With a head like a vulture
And heart full of hornets
He drives off the cliff
Into the blue, into the blue

Not even the priestess
With her wrenches and secret powers
Could save him from danger
For a little while, for a little while

Not even she could save him
Not even she could save him

The original LP version and then a great live take from the Newport Folk Festival in 2008.

Classic US indie rock!