#sotd16

Posting one of twelve-year-old me’s favourite songs, in honour of the 90s throwback YA literary salon I attended last night, starring Ann M Martin, genius creator and author of The Baby-Sitters’ Club. 

This was playing in the car when I arrived back home in Suffolk to see my little sister and her even smaller daughter. 

This is such a Lady Bakewell song. 

That pseudo-U2 intro. The perky, 80s party vibe. Relentless sunshine, breezing through Lionel Richie and Huey Lewis and the News, parties and nostalgia and zero shame about cheesiness or optimism. 

My little sister has a tendency to overuse certain emoticons; the kissy smiley face and the triumphant fist. 

Possibly one of the best openers to an album in recent years.

Yes, it’s total drivetime AOR, but when that stuff’s done well, it’s gooooood.

Sprawling, generous and expansive, this track is like a hug, or a journey, or a dance. It sweeps you up and kisses you hard and takes you with it, effortlessly.

I love this. Fell right into my ears at the perfect time. 

Early hours of the morning on Tuesday 5th April. Dozing, but not dreaming yet. Only dimly aware of the gentle strains of Jason Isbell lulling me to sleep.

It’s the first time in a long time that I’m unable to sleep, not because I’m stressed, or because something feels “off”, but because I am *excited*.

Work is hard and demanding but ridiculously rewarding and stimulating. Life is weird, and surprising and changing. Everyone’s fucking getting married or getting divorced or having epiphanies or winning awards or finding their feet or falling in love or buying houses or leaving home. Everyone around me is working their socks off to make stuff happen. My niece is about to start talking any day now. Every single day leaves me exhausted and laughing.  

And I was just drifting off, hearing this track playing, sinking into absurd dreams about manuscripts and tigers and friends’ weddings and parties... 

The strings kick in on the second minute, and they stirred me out of my haze. I became acutely aware of where I was in that moment, lying in bed, happy and busy and with no life plan ahead of tomorrow.

The song grew. The drums kicked it. The strings soared. The guitar wailed. 

And it hit me like a hurricane. 

Joy. But also fear. And excitement. And extreme grief. Leaving one life and launching into another, with no parachute. 

It’s not often I agree with The Daily Telegraph. But what Nathan Rabin wrote about this track, crowning it #1 of the 50 Best Duets Ever in the newspaper’s 2003 list, is spot on.

One of the strangest, druggiest, most darkly sexual songs ever written - ambitious, beautiful and unforgettable...  Hazlewood and Sinatra sound like they don’t inhabit the same universe, let alone the same song. Over loping spaghetti-Western guitar, Hazlewood sings of Greek mythology and “some velvet morning when I’m straight,” while Sinatra coos about flowers and daffodils in a stoned haze against a backdrop of bubblegum psychedelia. “Some Velvet Morning” sounds like two songs spliced together by a madman, or an avant-garde short film in song form.

One of my favourite songs. 

Ever.

This morning (Sun 3rd April), someone - whose taste and judgement I respect, admire and chime with - demanded I sit down and listen to Eddie Vedder’s vocal on this and be suitably moved and awed by it. 

Of course, I refused, shrugging my shoulders in a non-committal fashion, and reaffirming my long-standing tribal allegiance to Nirvana. 

Childish, I know. On all counts.

But I hate HATE being told what to think or how to react to a piece of music/cinema/theatre/art - even if I agree with every breath of what the person is saying. So I couldn’t acknowledge it then. 

But now, on my own, revisiting this again, I can sit here and admit that, yes, there are fast, fleeting moments in this track where Eddie Vedder gives me the chills. (2:08: I’ll ride the wave, where it takes me/I’ll hold the pain, release me)