It’s been a little while since I did a music post, so let’s do a bigger than usual one, with nine tunes instead of my normal five.
Tonight’s theme is pretty broad: music from some awesome female artists. I’m not going to try to narrow it more than that–it’s some good stuff, and hopefully there’ll be something that works for you that you haven’t heard before.
Some comments:
- Ani DiFranco – Freakshow: I’ve been an Ani fan for ages, and this is one of my favourites of her tunes. Almost every line is awesome, but the overall contrast between the stresses inside and the camaraderies, and then again between the stresses inside and the quiet desperation outside, just knocks me over every time.
- Mary Gauthier – Last Of The Hobo Kings: Mary’s a bit more country than my usual range, but she put on a hell of the show the time I saw her at the Stan Rogers Festival, so I’m inclined to stretch a bit. And any song that’s essentially a sic transit gloria mundi for the hobo world has to be OK in my books.
- Cass Elliott – Make Your Own Kind Of Music: I mentioned my weird Cass Elliott phase earlier this year, I believe. This is a hangover from that. You might have heard this tune on TV if you watch Lost, but I put it on here because–as corny as it might be–I like the message.
- Judy Henkse – Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out: This is a blues standard, written in the early 20s, and covered by more than 50 artists in the intervening years. Judy Henske, my appreciation for whom has been no secret on this blog, covered it in the Sixties. I like that it functions both as a reminder of the fleeting nature of material things and the friends they bring, and as a kind of barstool prophet “I used to have it all” story.
- Susan Tedeschi – Angel From Montgomery: John Prine can write a marvellous song, and make a character come alive, but I think Tedeschi actual does a better job at the vocal invocation of that character.
- Ute Lemper – They Call Me Naughty Lola: And we move into the area of cabaret covers. I’ve known Ute Lemper since she appeared in the big live performance of The Wall in Berlin 1990. And this song, of course, I’ve known since I heard Marlene Dietrich sing it in The Blue Angel (which, incidentally, I first watched because of Marillion lyrics). Lemper, of course, has spent quite a lot of time conjuring the spirit of Dietrich.
- P. J. Harvey – Send His Love To Me: From cabaret music on to Polly Jean and a song from the To Bring You My Love album–one I usually describe as “an album of torch songs, as they would be sung in the clubs in Hell”. I think this one is about the pain of being separated from the one you love–although my morbid mind tends to cast it as either survivor’s grief, or maybe even an impatient ghost’s song.
- Wendy McNeill – Ask Me No Questions: And we’re apparently sticking with the cabaret theme, with a tune from this delightfully off-kilter artist from Western Canada. The song is about a chance and dangerous encounter with a Trickster.
- Thea Gilmore – The Parting Glass: What better way to end a mix than with this beautiful old song, rendered here by Thea Gilmore (displaying a tiny part of her astounding range) in the most beautiful form in which I have ever encountered it.
