I just got asked to recommend some music and it got me thinking....
I've long had associations with music and times of my life and 2006 for me will undoubtedly be forever linked in my mind with Don McGlashan's album Warm Hand, especially 'I will not let you down' and 'Miracle Sun'.
Since Pete very generously leant me his copy (how did you survive without it so long?) earlier in the year and then since I was given my own copy it's never been out of the cd player for long. It's accompanied me up and down State Highway 1 (both the bits you would and wouldn't pay to see - altho' given I was on Intercity buses I guess I'd paid anyway...) several times, covering almost it's entire length on the North Island - in fact I personally have covered it's entire length on Te Ika o Maui this year! From Cape Reinga to wherever it fizzles out in Wellington.
Whether singing it with Charlotte or alone, with or without the cd, I will not let you down has acquired a certain poinancy over the months - the imagery of burnt bridges behind you and yet not letting people down has a definite resonance for me. Seeing the video for Miracle Sun the first time I thought I recognised many of the places - travelling down through Hokianga Harbour and Waipou Forest with my parents kept bringing jolts of recognition - I knew I'd seen those places before!!! It's been almost three years since I was passing through them with Simon & Susie so whilst they looked familiar in the video it was far more of a vague feeling than the lightning strikes of deja vu I got when I went back to those places a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I had no-one with me to share that 'but that's where...' excitement with, whilst Mum & Dad had heard the cd they'd not seen the footage... should have texted Pete or Charlotte I guess!
As with the album that has many memories of 2005 - KT Tunstall's 'Eye to the telescope' has many Quaker associations - with KT she's a friend of Clea who was on the NYFSG staff with me a couple of years ago and she was raving on to us all about her saying we must buy the album when it came out - cheers Clea! - and then it kind of got stuck in the cd player between me and Mez at Glendevon Road. Warm Hands not only was introduced to me by Pete and as I've said big connection with Charlotte too amongst others but Don is from Mt Eden Meeting in Auckland.
We're back to that Quakers and small world thing again aren't we.....
2004 would probably have to be Bic Runga and Drive - I'm amazed my copy still worked by the time I got back from travelling, and still does - haven't managed to wear it out yet, but not for lack of playing. Again an intro through Quakers - M&Q and Jonathan - however this time no connection (that I know of!) to the artist.
I wonder what 2007 will bring....?
Does that help Sebastian?
Right, lunchbreak over - back to SG stuff, I guess I ought to pack....!
1 comment:
Some of the roads, turns and landmarks through the forest areas of northland are kind-of magic. When you see them, even for the first time, and even in the form of the Miracle Sun video, you feel like you've known them for ever. Like they've been part of your heart since before you were born, if that's possible.
Don was given a brief for a song needed on the soundtrack of a movie named No 2. The producers couldn't afford the royalties of either an artist like Aretha Franklin, or a song like "Walking in Memphis", but they wanted a blues number that would feel like a classic from the moment you first heard it for the first time, while watching the movie. The song Don wrote, "Bathe in the River", has some of the same magic feeling as the northland forest, like it's always been there in a part of your soul.
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