I haven’t taken all that much to music after about the early 90s onwards; when your hearing gets worse, it’s hard to make sense of anything you’ve not heard over and over since you were six. Every so often something does manage to get through…
Life for Rent by Dido was a Christmas gift some years ago. It occurred to me when I was playing it just now that I’ve taken it to my heart as fully as anything I loved when younger. It presses the same kind of buttons, and yet really only takes me back to my old house and the cats who lived there. And the house is still there…. just over there a little way.
Some of this CD sounds as though it has roots in the past. It has a bright, modern sound, and yet… It’s a classic (for me), and ageless in some respects, but I’m not sure if that’s all it is. Sand in My Shoes made me think of an orchestra, and then the next time I listened to it, it had more of a Portishead sound. Now it sounds Spanish! How does a song change so much in one’s mind?
Dido’s singing puts me in mind of a girl met in the street on a bright sunny day, very modern and full of friendly confidences, and then she’s all women who have ever been in the spotlight…. Melanie, for instance, with her piercing voice, or any female folk singer.
Some days ago, one of Dido’s songs was in my head but I couldn’t recall which one exactly. I thought it would be White Flag or Life for Rent… but it turned out to be This Land is Mine. I didn’t realize that was one I loved as much as the others… sometimes they have to come and batter down the door before I wake up to it. You listen to the CD a lot and some of them take you over, whereas others stay in the background… for a while.
From behind these walls I hear your song
Oh sweet words
The music that you play lights up my world
The sweetest that I’ve heard
June 7, 2009 at 11:16 am
Dido has a very smooth voice. It goes up and down like a wave, no leaping from note to note. It’s a very haunting, emotional way to sing.
June 7, 2009 at 3:16 pm
It makes me think of icing on a cake… very white and sweet.
June 8, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I wake up every morning with song lyrics in my head. Sometimes they actually tell me how the day will go, and other times its just the white noise in the background of my existence. But, you point out one really important aspect of those words and lyrics, they change meanings, over time because we have changed. But, they also anchor us to what we really feel is important.
Thanks for this one, I’ve had one particular song in my head for weeks. “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone…” Took me a while to realize that the words weren’t about another person, they were about me being here but ‘absent.’
Elizabeth
June 11, 2009 at 3:04 pm
It’s funny how songs can depend on something that’s going on or even just a word or phrase we’ve come across. For instance, I read about ‘needles and pins’ and had the song in my head for ages after! I guess that’s the real reason a song will turn up without us knowing (or remembering) why.