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.
Go to 89: Know How by Young MC
Go to 91: Hyperballad by Bjork
If you’re an Irish person of a certain generation and musical inclination you will remember the music television show No Disco with reverence.
The televisual output of Irish state broadcaster RTE was generally a low budget rip-off of shows from across the water, which made the existence of No Disco so remarkable. Not that there was anything overly original about commissioning a late-night music show—but what was different was giving control of it to a man who had little interest in being on television in the first place.
Donal Dineen was so ill at ease with being onscreen it makes his years as No Disco host so much more heroic. He didn’t want to be there, but no one else was going to bring you this music. Still, it took him time to find his mojo and the first season of No Disco was pretty standard for an alternative music TV show, albeit with the quality barometer set much higher.
But by the second season Dineen really made it his own, paying no attention to the more commercial side of alternative music and making it his mission to shine a light on lesser names. Even Kurt Cobain’s death didn’t prompt him to play a Nirvana song—he simply dedicated Stina Nordenstam’s achingly gorgeous Little Star to the recently deceased king of grunge.
Towards the end of his stint as host his links consisted of mostly black screen with Dineen in a small box in the middle talking to the camera, as if his onscreen existence was only getting between the viewer and the music. So at odds with his medium, he often seemed frustrated by the inability to play songs that didn’t have accompanying music videos. He introduced a segment where he’d play visuals he created himself (he is also a film maker and photographer) over songs he liked and was happy to show the cheapest, least interesting promo video if the song was good enough.
MTV this wasn’t and his disregard of the conventional constraints of music television allowed Dineen to play a stunning piece of music that was originally created in 1971 by English composer Gavin Bryars, whose earlier work The Sinking of the Titanic was hugely influenced by the indeterminate theories of John Cage.
Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet is an altogether more palatable piece, based around an archive recording of a homeless man singing a short hymn. The tape was part of a documentary on London’s street dwellers made by a friend of Bryars and the composer recalled that though many of the interviewed vagrants frequently broke into drunken song, this particular man was sober.
The clip was not used in the final film but Bryars took the recording and played his piano along with it, noticing that his instrument and the man’s voice were in the same key. He also decided that the first 13 bars of the hymn formed an effective loop and hit on the idea of creating an orchestral accompaniment to it. But it was only when he began the task of physically making the long continuous loop did he realize the true power of the song.
Using the recording equipment of Leicester’s Fine Art Department where he worked, Bryars left the studio with the tape copying to get some coffee. On his return he noticed the atmosphere of the usually ebullient department was unusually subdued.
“People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.” he writes on his website. He quickly realized that the old man’s simple song had profoundly impacted those who heard it.
It is perhaps this experience that influenced the final orchestration that accompanied the first performance of the piece at London’s Queen Elizabeth House in 1972. When you really listen to the strings, flutes, horns and other instruments that gently build over 25 minutes, you can appreciate the truly lush orchestration and graceful playing, the patient pauses, the soaring melodies and the tearful textures. Yet the grand sound of tuxedoed professionals never overwhelms the sad beauty and purity of the old man’s voice.
Just over 20 years on from the original performance, Bryars recorded a new, longer version of Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me, this time drafting in Tom Waits to create a posthumous duet with the old man. Waits was an appropriate choice given his affinity for society’s down-and-outs (his 1985 album Rain Dogs is all about homeless people) and his rough and downbeat delivery contrasts well with the old man’s fragile sweetness.
To this 74-minute recording Bryars also adds a choral element that fills the spaces with a new splendor, an uplifting sensibility that takes the man and his song from the streets of origin to some higher glory; as if his faith—the “one thing I know for he loves me so”—is finally rewarded. It was the release of this version that prompted Donal Dineen to play a short excerpt on his late-night music television show using what I believe is the official promo video (embedded below).
For a 15-year old living in an isolated small town hearing little besides the pop charts and the alternative mainstream, music like this was revelatory—a glimpse of an otherworldly place where people created art not for the fame nor fortune, not even for the vainglorious conceit of self-expression, but simply to present the world with a portrait of itself in all its magnificent melancholy.
If you haven’t heard it before, do yourself a favor and listen to Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me. Both recordings are worthwhile, the Tom Waits version perhaps more accessible (especially the four-minute excerpt above. Don’t be put off by the length of the 25-minute original (embedded at the beginning of this article)—just press play, close your eyes and immerse yourself for however long you fancy. Or put it on in the background and go about your day. Though be prepared to be later found wandering around in a glassy-eyed daze, like Bryars’ Fine Art College fellows all those years ago.
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If you like this, try:
The Sinking of the Titanic
Go to 89: Know How by Young MC
Go to 91: Hyperballad by Bjork
Go to 89: Know How by Young MC
Go to 91: Hyperballad by Bjork
If you’re an Irish person of a certain generation and musical inclination you will remember the music television show No Disco with reverence.
The televisual output of Irish state broadcaster RTE was generally a low budget rip-off of shows from across the water, which made the existence of No Disco so remarkable. Not that there was anything overly original about commissioning a late-night music show—but what was different was giving control of it to a man who had little interest in being on television in the first place.
But by the second season Dineen really made it his own, paying no attention to the more commercial side of alternative music and making it his mission to shine a light on lesser names. Even Kurt Cobain’s death didn’t prompt him to play a Nirvana song—he simply dedicated Stina Nordenstam’s achingly gorgeous Little Star to the recently deceased king of grunge.
Towards the end of his stint as host his links consisted of mostly black screen with Dineen in a small box in the middle talking to the camera, as if his onscreen existence was only getting between the viewer and the music. So at odds with his medium, he often seemed frustrated by the inability to play songs that didn’t have accompanying music videos. He introduced a segment where he’d play visuals he created himself (he is also a film maker and photographer) over songs he liked and was happy to show the cheapest, least interesting promo video if the song was good enough.
MTV this wasn’t and his disregard of the conventional constraints of music television allowed Dineen to play a stunning piece of music that was originally created in 1971 by English composer Gavin Bryars, whose earlier work The Sinking of the Titanic was hugely influenced by the indeterminate theories of John Cage.
The clip was not used in the final film but Bryars took the recording and played his piano along with it, noticing that his instrument and the man’s voice were in the same key. He also decided that the first 13 bars of the hymn formed an effective loop and hit on the idea of creating an orchestral accompaniment to it. But it was only when he began the task of physically making the long continuous loop did he realize the true power of the song.
Using the recording equipment of Leicester’s Fine Art Department where he worked, Bryars left the studio with the tape copying to get some coffee. On his return he noticed the atmosphere of the usually ebullient department was unusually subdued.
“People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.” he writes on his website. He quickly realized that the old man’s simple song had profoundly impacted those who heard it.
It is perhaps this experience that influenced the final orchestration that accompanied the first performance of the piece at London’s Queen Elizabeth House in 1972. When you really listen to the strings, flutes, horns and other instruments that gently build over 25 minutes, you can appreciate the truly lush orchestration and graceful playing, the patient pauses, the soaring melodies and the tearful textures. Yet the grand sound of tuxedoed professionals never overwhelms the sad beauty and purity of the old man’s voice.
Just over 20 years on from the original performance, Bryars recorded a new, longer version of Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me, this time drafting in Tom Waits to create a posthumous duet with the old man. Waits was an appropriate choice given his affinity for society’s down-and-outs (his 1985 album Rain Dogs is all about homeless people) and his rough and downbeat delivery contrasts well with the old man’s fragile sweetness.
To this 74-minute recording Bryars also adds a choral element that fills the spaces with a new splendor, an uplifting sensibility that takes the man and his song from the streets of origin to some higher glory; as if his faith—the “one thing I know for he loves me so”—is finally rewarded. It was the release of this version that prompted Donal Dineen to play a short excerpt on his late-night music television show using what I believe is the official promo video (embedded below).
For a 15-year old living in an isolated small town hearing little besides the pop charts and the alternative mainstream, music like this was revelatory—a glimpse of an otherworldly place where people created art not for the fame nor fortune, not even for the vainglorious conceit of self-expression, but simply to present the world with a portrait of itself in all its magnificent melancholy.
If you haven’t heard it before, do yourself a favor and listen to Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me. Both recordings are worthwhile, the Tom Waits version perhaps more accessible (especially the four-minute excerpt above. Don’t be put off by the length of the 25-minute original (embedded at the beginning of this article)—just press play, close your eyes and immerse yourself for however long you fancy. Or put it on in the background and go about your day. Though be prepared to be later found wandering around in a glassy-eyed daze, like Bryars’ Fine Art College fellows all those years ago.
Follow me on Twitter
If you like this, try:
The Sinking of the Titanic
Go to 89: Know How by Young MC
Go to 91: Hyperballad by Bjork
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