Musique pour vous
Jul. 3rd, 2007 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicI was going to write tonight. Instead, here is some music for you by one of my favorite folk/rock/country singer-songwriters, Richard Shindell. This is the kind of stuff you're most likely to find in my CD/media player on any given day. His voice may not be to everyone's liking, being somewhat nasal along the lines of Gordon Lightfoot, but he's a damn clever songwriter, an excellent guitar player, and a sweet, humble, funny guy. Seriously, if you like any of this, go buy some of his albums; he's releasing them by himself these days, and could surely use the support.
.zip file (33MB) contains:
- "Fenario" (Vuelta) – A breathtakingly beautiful song. The last verse is taken directly from a John Donne poem; Shindell modeled his own earlier verses after Donne's style. That's Lucy Kaplansky harmonizing. They and Dar Williams used to have a band together.
- "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (Vuelta) – The first song of his that I heard, and the one that made me rush out and buy this album when it was new (followed quickly by Courier and Somewhere Near Paterson). This is a cover of a Pete Seeger protest song, still frighteningly relevant today, and with some added zing at the end.
- "There Goes Mavis" (Vuelta) – Again, just a lovely, lovely song, this time with Spanish flavor. Shindell is originally from Long Island, NY, but he lives with his wife and daughter now in Argentina, and you can certainly hear the influence in his music here.
- "You Stay Here" (Somewhere Near Paterson) – I probably should have included the epic-parody "Transit" as the representative song from this album, but this one's my favorite, so here you go. I love the guitar—redundant when it comes to him—as well as the story he's telling and the way the song builds.
- "Fishing" (Courier) – So damn clever, this song. An illegal immigrant, an officer, and an extended metaphor.
- "Born in the U.S.A." (south of delia) – south of delia just came out, an album exclusively of covers. This track is the most accomplished of them all. I never paid close attention to Bruce Springsteen's song, and figured, probably like many of you, that it was all bluster and patriotism. NOT SO. Listening to this version, you will have a whole new appreciation of what the song's actually about—it's not pride that made Springsteen shout, but anger, and irony. The lyrics are the same; it's the emphasis that's different here, and that makes it seem like a completely different song. The riff gets a new rhythm, and the chorus reflects the entire song's more subdued tone. Pretty much it's Springsteen done as a Shindell song. Heh – the album came out right around Remix Redux, and this track in particular made me think about how what we were doing was very much like writing song covers; maintaining or teasing out or taking a different angle on something key in the original, while making it ours.
- "Texas Rangers" (south of delia) – For the Richard Thompson fans; he plays guitar on this track.
- "Are You Happy Now?" (Courier) – For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn, who laughs when this comes on the radio. The narrator's angry with his ex on Halloween. That's Lucy Kaplansky singing harmony again.
And plenty more where these came from, if this post goes over well.
Note: These files all came out as .wma instead of .mp3 (except "Fishing") because I wasn't paying attention and am too lazy to redo them. Let me know if you want to listen and can't open them in that format.
~ ~ ~
Randomly, here's a pair of songs by a rock band called The Exit off their CD "Home for an Island." If I were making a John Sheppard fanmix, these would be on the playlist. I'm not making a fanmix, though, because these would be the only songs on the playlist.
.zip file (10MB) contains:
- "Home for an Island." The lyric, "I'm not your hero, I only know how to survive," is what made me think of Sheppard.
- "Warm Summer Days." I like the heavy, urgent tone of this one a lot. Form and function, kids. Form and function.
The bridges of both of these are noisier than I prefer, but the rest more than makes up for it, IMO.
ETA: Re-uploaded as mp3's with somewhat higher quality. These don't sound as good in my computer headphones as they do in my car, where I've been listening to them. *shrug*
~ ~ ~
You don't have to comment if you're downloading, but I'd very much like to know what you think of anything you listen to.
P.S. At long last, this journal now has the design I like in "front" and the plain Verdana-font layout on the "inside." That was on purpose, in case you're wondering. I've been getting itchy with the way the text got squished and crowded, especially for stories and poems. When you're reading your own journal in ?format=light, it's time to do something. :)
.zip file (33MB) contains:
- "Fenario" (Vuelta) – A breathtakingly beautiful song. The last verse is taken directly from a John Donne poem; Shindell modeled his own earlier verses after Donne's style. That's Lucy Kaplansky harmonizing. They and Dar Williams used to have a band together.
- "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (Vuelta) – The first song of his that I heard, and the one that made me rush out and buy this album when it was new (followed quickly by Courier and Somewhere Near Paterson). This is a cover of a Pete Seeger protest song, still frighteningly relevant today, and with some added zing at the end.
- "There Goes Mavis" (Vuelta) – Again, just a lovely, lovely song, this time with Spanish flavor. Shindell is originally from Long Island, NY, but he lives with his wife and daughter now in Argentina, and you can certainly hear the influence in his music here.
- "You Stay Here" (Somewhere Near Paterson) – I probably should have included the epic-parody "Transit" as the representative song from this album, but this one's my favorite, so here you go. I love the guitar—redundant when it comes to him—as well as the story he's telling and the way the song builds.
- "Fishing" (Courier) – So damn clever, this song. An illegal immigrant, an officer, and an extended metaphor.
- "Born in the U.S.A." (south of delia) – south of delia just came out, an album exclusively of covers. This track is the most accomplished of them all. I never paid close attention to Bruce Springsteen's song, and figured, probably like many of you, that it was all bluster and patriotism. NOT SO. Listening to this version, you will have a whole new appreciation of what the song's actually about—it's not pride that made Springsteen shout, but anger, and irony. The lyrics are the same; it's the emphasis that's different here, and that makes it seem like a completely different song. The riff gets a new rhythm, and the chorus reflects the entire song's more subdued tone. Pretty much it's Springsteen done as a Shindell song. Heh – the album came out right around Remix Redux, and this track in particular made me think about how what we were doing was very much like writing song covers; maintaining or teasing out or taking a different angle on something key in the original, while making it ours.
- "Texas Rangers" (south of delia) – For the Richard Thompson fans; he plays guitar on this track.
- "Are You Happy Now?" (Courier) – For
synn, who laughs when this comes on the radio. The narrator's angry with his ex on Halloween. That's Lucy Kaplansky singing harmony again.And plenty more where these came from, if this post goes over well.
Note: These files all came out as .wma instead of .mp3 (except "Fishing") because I wasn't paying attention and am too lazy to redo them. Let me know if you want to listen and can't open them in that format.
~ ~ ~
Randomly, here's a pair of songs by a rock band called The Exit off their CD "Home for an Island." If I were making a John Sheppard fanmix, these would be on the playlist. I'm not making a fanmix, though, because these would be the only songs on the playlist.
.zip file (10MB) contains:
- "Home for an Island." The lyric, "I'm not your hero, I only know how to survive," is what made me think of Sheppard.
- "Warm Summer Days." I like the heavy, urgent tone of this one a lot. Form and function, kids. Form and function.
The bridges of both of these are noisier than I prefer, but the rest more than makes up for it, IMO.
ETA: Re-uploaded as mp3's with somewhat higher quality. These don't sound as good in my computer headphones as they do in my car, where I've been listening to them. *shrug*
~ ~ ~
You don't have to comment if you're downloading, but I'd very much like to know what you think of anything you listen to.
P.S. At long last, this journal now has the design I like in "front" and the plain Verdana-font layout on the "inside." That was on purpose, in case you're wondering. I've been getting itchy with the way the text got squished and crowded, especially for stories and poems. When you're reading your own journal in ?format=light, it's time to do something. :)
