I’m counting down my 100 favourite songs of all time. To keep this from becoming a Bob Dylan / Tom Waits love-in, only one track per artist is allowed. Feel free to leave your comments below.
Go to 96: Take Me to the River by Al Green
Go to 98: The Truth by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat Roisin Murphy
Go to 98: The Truth by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat Roisin Murphy
Go to 96: Take Me to the River by Al Green
Go to 98: The Truth by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat Roisin Murphy
Will Oldham spent the first part of his career working under a variety of monikers. He began as The Palace Brothers, which became Palace Music for two further albums before Oldham used his real name for the 1997 record, Joya.
He explained the shifting sobriquet as an attempt to deal with a listener’s expectations. Music by The Palace Brothers should sound like the Palace Brothers; changing the name gave him the freedom to change his music.
Yet since 1999, Oldham has recorded 11 albums as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and while he has hardly swung from extremes, one would be foolish to assume this means Oldham settled on a single style.
He explained the shifting sobriquet as an attempt to deal with a listener’s expectations. Music by The Palace Brothers should sound like the Palace Brothers; changing the name gave him the freedom to change his music.
Yet since 1999, Oldham has recorded 11 albums as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and while he has hardly swung from extremes, one would be foolish to assume this means Oldham settled on a single style.
His widely acclaimed masterpiece I See a Darkness is both brooding and brash. The Brave and the Bold, his 2006 collaboration with experimental rockers Tortoise, is noisy and eclectic. 2008’s Lie Down in the Light is surprisingly jaunty.
Both lyrically and musically, death seems like a constant presence in his songs. On I See a Darkness, it’s something to be explored, resisted, mourned and laughed at. But by his 2006 album The Letting Go, it feels like Oldham has reached the point of acceptance, an acknowledgement of the circuitous science of life and death, fearful though the concept may be.
The album takes its name from a phrase in an Emily Dickinson poem (so without even knowing the full line, you know it's death related) and the title track is like a gentle, resigned last breath that soon leads to the record’s, and Oldham's, finest moment.
Both lyrically and musically, death seems like a constant presence in his songs. On I See a Darkness, it’s something to be explored, resisted, mourned and laughed at. But by his 2006 album The Letting Go, it feels like Oldham has reached the point of acceptance, an acknowledgement of the circuitous science of life and death, fearful though the concept may be.
The album takes its name from a phrase in an Emily Dickinson poem (so without even knowing the full line, you know it's death related) and the title track is like a gentle, resigned last breath that soon leads to the record’s, and Oldham's, finest moment.
I Called You Back opens with a simple soft drum setting a pensive pace, while a gentle piano and guitar step quietly alongside. Then Oldham sings the song’s repeated refrain: “I called you back to a place beside me”. The phrase has a biblical quality, like something the Old Testament god might have pronounced to one of his put upon prophets — another pompous excuse for a cruel and untimely death.
But Oldham’s broken, straining voice gives it a kinder edge, imbues the line with a sense of renewal, of love reborn and — when singer Dawn McCarthy adds her beautiful high-pitched harmony and a soft horn crescendos — of glorious resurrection.
The California-based McCarthy features on every song on The Letting Go and is credited with the album’s stunning harmony arrangements. Nowhere are they better expressed than on I Called You Back where the duo’s contrasting registers revel in the song’s spaces. As it reaches a restrained climax, more of McCarthy’s vocals are laid down, with the additional harmonies augmenting the subtle fervor.
Despite all the spiritual allusions, I Called You Back is ultimately a love song, plain and simple. Sure it’s love that’s vividly aware of its own fragility, but in the lyric: “The older that we get, we know that nothing else for us is possible”, any sense of resignation is overwhelmed by pure contentment.
The growing old together cliché has found an essential expression in a song that transcends mundane mortality and firmly believes in a kind of eternity that is earned by five minutes and 45 seconds of sheer beauty. When I’m 64, it ain’t.
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Go to 96: Take Me to the River by Al GreenBut Oldham’s broken, straining voice gives it a kinder edge, imbues the line with a sense of renewal, of love reborn and — when singer Dawn McCarthy adds her beautiful high-pitched harmony and a soft horn crescendos — of glorious resurrection.
The California-based McCarthy features on every song on The Letting Go and is credited with the album’s stunning harmony arrangements. Nowhere are they better expressed than on I Called You Back where the duo’s contrasting registers revel in the song’s spaces. As it reaches a restrained climax, more of McCarthy’s vocals are laid down, with the additional harmonies augmenting the subtle fervor.
Despite all the spiritual allusions, I Called You Back is ultimately a love song, plain and simple. Sure it’s love that’s vividly aware of its own fragility, but in the lyric: “The older that we get, we know that nothing else for us is possible”, any sense of resignation is overwhelmed by pure contentment.
The growing old together cliché has found an essential expression in a song that transcends mundane mortality and firmly believes in a kind of eternity that is earned by five minutes and 45 seconds of sheer beauty. When I’m 64, it ain’t.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
Go to 98: The Truth by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat Roisin Murphy
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