Yes, it is a total chick flick, but I love "Bridget Jones's Diary". I also love Gabrielle's "Out Of Reach" and it's perfectly placed within the movie. I don't know why Gabrielle never caught on in the U.S. - the near miss of "Dreams" aside - but if this song couldn't do it, I don't know what would. Forget all the "to da left" histrionics, Gabby's picking up and moving on with dignity and she's not even waiting for anyone else to collect their stuff before she gets on with it.
Maybe she'll let me catch a ride on that string line.
See the cheap video and Gabrielle's rather mannish hands here:
Flush with Led Zeppelin cash and the pay-offs from other wise shopping in the wake of the summer of love, Ahmet Ertegan and Jerry Wexler began signing up the female vocalists who's voices he'd grown to love during the sixties. Starting with Dusty in 68, Lulu and Cher in 69 - the latter having already been recording for them as a duo with Sonny. In the wake of Carole King's tapestrophic success, they pulled in their own singer/songwriter, Jackie DeShannon, in 1972. Dusty and Lulu would pay off with hit singles and critical appreciation but the albums would be considered flops. Cher and Jackie, both coming from the Liberty family of labels, would end up little more than tax write-offs at the time. The L.A. polish of Jackie's Liberty/Imperial records is wiped raw as the Muscle Shoals gang brought her closer to her Kentucky roots where, by age six, she was singing country standards on local radio shows. Ending up closer to Aretha than to Carole King, the "What The World Needs Now" girl was barely recognizable and the "Jackie" album sank without a trace
But some grown up in my world bought "Jackie" and I think that I've known it as well as I've known the alphabet for as long as I've known the alphabet. As a kid, a line from "Brand New Start" made me laugh as it conjured up Looney Tune images: "...and here I am, at your front door - just knocking with my heart...". Now, having the painful pleasure of knowing that feeling, I can't hear it without a sharp intake of breath, and admiring its perfection even as I wince at the memories. The rest of the song is just as good and Jackie's vocal is perfection; getting rawer and rougher the more she bares her soul. That rawness may be why she lost the singer/songwriter race with "Tapestry", an album that, for all it's beauty, was crafted as meticulously as any of Carole King penned forty-fives for Bobbie Vee or Steve Lawrence.
Fortunately, the good folks at Rhino Handmade also believe in a brand new start and pulled this one-time lost masterpiece of its genre from the dust bin and gave it a fresh mastering and new lease on life back in 2003 with a numbered limited edition. A quick glance over at Amazon shows that it's still in print which could mean that the world is catching on or is still missing a still fresh spin on the singer/songwriter genre.
Actors who cross over to pop music are usually something that makes me run screaming: even if they can sing or play, the music tends to be demographically formulated to fit the moment and really, when was the last time you thought to yourself, "Gee, I'd really like to hear Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time".
Zooey Deschanel is a different proposition all together. Hooking up with M. Ward provides a surprisingly perfect fit for her sunshine pop suited voice although the outcome is better suited to early evening when the horizon turns lavender and dark pink.
"I Thought I Saw Your Face Today" addresses the mind tricks our memories can play and it sounds as familiar, yet utterly fresh as such moments can be.
The good, and the bad, thing about a group of friends is that when something is wrong with one, the matter seems to reverberate across the ether. As we begin trying to redefine normal, to figure out what life is without one of us, I wonder if a widow's snapping suddenly from a reverie is the reason he popped into my thoughts out of the blue. Or if one us is looking at a picture or wondering why or just wondering.
In the wake of what would commonly be called a senseless tragedy (if only in the figurative sense ;-{ ), I find myself getting on stuck on the word "good". Every time that I say it, type it, think it, I find myself pausing. I'm not sure what good means anymore. I don't know if that's normal in times like this but it's what I'm experiencing and it's made me addicted to Matchbox 20's "Back 2 Good" today.
Like most sane people, the endless parade across the airwaves of songs like "3A.M." and "Push" made me wish Matchbox 20 would go away and want to cut my own ears off. Too enamored of the Cobain/Vedder growl and scream, Rob Thomas' vocal had a tendency of beating undeniable pop hooks over the head like a bad muppet dream. But "Back 2 Good" was different. For one, the arrangement borders on Bacharach, with horn charts that act as lyrics and guarantee their existence on any decent idea of a cover version. Second, there is a depth of maturity that is sorely lacking in the rest of the tracks on their debut album. Wikipedia offers several examples of what the song is about but they all amount to fucking up in a big way. That's over simplified, perhaps, but true nonetheless.
Because it's what we do when friends fuck up, we'll all be here to pick up the pieces; to try to get it back to good even if we're not quite sure what good is anymore.
I remember asking Wayne, as he was transitioning from someone who was my boss to someone who was my friend, "Quick! The first thing that comes to mind - what's your favorite song?"
He immediately said, "How can you such a decision?", which delighted me. "But off the top of my head: 'In My Life' by The Beatles."
I was surprised and he knew it. "Why is your face like that? Are you surprised that I'd pick something so sentimental?"
To be honest, I was. But I was also thinking what I always think when I hear "In My Life": why do the verses have to be so awkward? But I also couldn't help wondering how long it had been his favorite song because I've always been uncomfortable with it. I could never quite grasp why, but I always felt that its perspective - and its delivery - too old for Lennon's age of twenty-five.
As I woke up with it in my head this morning, I thought, "It is an ending masquerading as a love song." Although my perspective may be clouded by recent events, I suspect Wayne may have felt that way, too.
And now we begin the process of re-defining normal.
The good news is that the new B-52's album doesn't suck. The bad news is that Fred Schneider's become that once loved goofy uncle you've outgrown. Every time he pops up on the album, I get agitated and afraid that he's going to ask me to pull his finger.
"Juliet of the Spirits" is my song of choice from "Funplex". Boiling down Fellini's flick to a four and a half minute dance groove with some nice guitar work, I can't help but but wonder what the film maker would make of all this shimmer and pop. Hey, it works for me. Give it a spin and maybe take this chance to rise above the mundane and the sadness, you hands up in the air, waving like you just don't care. If anything, you'll feel a bit more, if not better.
March is over. Done. Kaput. My sour list of anti-Valentines will come to an end with "It's All Over But The Crying" by Garbage. A beautiful kiss off to drama with a smart nod to what was once only the theme to The Young and The Restless before Nadia ran off with it. It looked like it might be the song that brought the curtain down for the band but rumor has it that they're about to start work on a new album.
Not everything comes to an end - even when it seems like it's the end of the world.
