Thoughts in Progress

It is strange to think of a song like Tracy Chapman’s 1988 Behind the Wall in the context of the ubiquitous, free market-driven and fast-buck-making capitalism of that time. Not only that but also the fact that the track became one of her most listened-to on her eponymous debut album. At the time the charts were dominated – as they usually are – by inane pop of the Tiffany, Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley type. Behind the Wall was different. It had lines such as “And when they arrive/They say they can't interfere/with domestic affairs/between a man and his wife/and as they walk out the door/the tears well up in her eyes”. It was uncompromising pop by an uncompromising pop singer. Forget Tom Jones’s Delilah with those ominous but always crowd-pleasing words: “I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more”. In Behind the Wall, we are terrified because we know very well what will happen when the police “walk out the door”. The knife in the hand and the abrupt end to merriment do not trigger knicker-throwing hysteria. On the contrary, this is the reality of domestic violence. Domestic violence in Billboard magazine. Cheers, Tezza.

I have been thinking about Tracy Chapman lately. A trip down memory’s (slow) lane if you like. I did not become acquainted with Chapman until my first year in uni, circa 1990. A tape was passed around and I was immediately hooked by the combination of poetry, voice and musical arrangements. That was hard to find in pop music at the time. Most artists favoured just one of these elements. Add on the fact that in those days in Cuba we usually got the latest releases two or three years after they’d come out in the US and UK and it is less difficult to understand why many of us, freshmen, fell in love with the dreadlocked, folk singer from Cleveland. She was a novelty.

The other reason why this musical love affair blossomed between Tracy and me (not that she was ever aware, mind) was that every time she asked us if we didn’t know they were “talkin’ ‘bout a revolution”, I had a different type of revolution in mind. Mine was of the individual thinking variety. The consumption and interpretation of art is completely subjective and Chapman was a good example. We all took away a different message from her output.

Of course, when I listened to the Tracy Chapman album recently the only melody that got stuck in my head was ForYou. For very personal reasons, the lyrics call to a part of my life at the moment that is part love declaration and part self-analysis. “Deep in my heart/Save from the guards/Of intellect and reason/Leaving me at a loss/For words to express my feelings”. What a crafty way of saying that love does not obey the laws of rationality.

© 2018

Killer Opening Songs (Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout A Revolution)

So, where were you when Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America? That is one of the two questions that future generations will be asking us in years to come. The other one will be: What were you doing whilst history was being made?

To which Killer Opening Songs will reply... will reply... will reply...
Psssss, psssss... K.O.S., come out from under the bed, mate, it's all right, people will understand, you don't have to be ashamed of anything. See, we all have a soft, romantic, idealistic side and you, as part of me, but without being totally me which makes you a third of you with two thirds of me thrown in for good measure... Oh, I digress. Anyway, we all have moments when we are swallowed up by the surrounding euphoria and dare to dream. And that's what you were doing last Tuesday 4th November in the evening whilst washing up. Dreaming. That was the day the USA had chosen to vote. That was the day that the USA had picked up to make history. But you did not know that because you are five hours ahead of those who live in the East Coast and eight of those who dwell in the West Coast, so in your own way and guided by your subsconscious mind (capricious human artifact whose spell we fall under once in a while) your hand reached for that CD that many years ago had shaken you to the core. Those 36 minutes, 11 seconds of pure and blissful paradise. And you dared to do the impossible in these times of political cynicism and social misanthropy. You dared to dream. And as the first lines of 'Talkin' 'bout a Revolution', the Killer Opening Song from Tracey Chapman's eponymously titled debut album, blared out of the stereo in your kitchen, you felt as if the verses were clinging to your skin and you were being enveloped in a feverish embrace. Tracy Chapman's voice manages to capture that 80s angst caused by Reagan and Thatcher's laissez-faire market policies. And you couldn't find a more appropriate time to play this masterpiece than on that night:
Finally the tables are starting to turn/Talking about a revolution/Finally the tables are starting to turn/Talking about a revolution oh no/Talking about a revolution oh no
There are Killer Opening Songs that become trail-blazers in their own right. Their other-worldly nature strikes the listener as much an allegory as a melody. And tonight K.O.S. will be opening another mini-section within a section: tracks at the beginning of an album that have become either trendsetters or generational benchmarks. Some of them might feature famous guitar riffs, whereas other will boast powerful lyrics. There will be tunes whose delicate delivery will be the equivalent of venturing into a magical realm, maybe reminiscent of the Aztecs' cultural exuberance or the enchantment of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales.
These weekly Proustian memories (although on this subject the late French writer might have disagreed with K.O.S. as these souvenirs will be retrieved by intelligence, rather than by accident. My riposte would be that on being the object, K.O.S. turns the listener into the subject and therefore the effect of listening to a Killer Opening Song that has become a musical milestone in its own right is an involuntary act, pretty much the essence of the Proustian memory) will unlock episodes of our past lives which will produce elation and joy on being relived. So, a stiff upper lip and self-restraint are called for. K.O.S. would not like its beautiful bloggy-house to be flooded by readers' tears. Oh, all right, go on, bring out your hankies, let's all have a good ol' sob, shall we!
In the meantime, let's enjoy once more this epic song from a bygone era (a more innocent one, I would hazard to add) and let's sing together: Finally the tables are starting to turn/Talking about a revolution/Finally the tables are starting to turn/Talking about a revolution oh no/Talking about a revolution oh no.

Irreverent note: In nine months' time will we be able to say that Obama also contributed to the growth of the world's population (although inadvertently, mind)? And how many of those babies will be called Obama? Just a thought.




Copyright 2008

Road Songs (Lento)

Get in the car. Adjust the seat and the rear-view mirror. Strap yourself in and turn the engine on. Push the gear lever into reverse and enjoy that little moment when the car rolls back onto the road. Change into first gear, check your blind spot and drive off.

This is a run-of-the-mill journey. You have done it so many times. You’re going coffee-shopping. There’s only one supermarket in the entire borough that stocks the coffee you like and you go there at least once a month to purchase it. You know the route by rote. You could even drive there with your eyes closed. Every street, every traffic signal invites recognition. Even the people are the same. London can seem so provincial sometimes. As you come closer to your destination you stop at a set of traffic lights. Ahead of you the road curves upwards, thus, becoming the surname of this north London quartier. The light changes to green and you continue up that hill now, placidly, humming a tune or listening to the football on the car radio.

And suddenly it happens.

There, to your right there’s a road. Not just any ordinary road, mind. Or rather, it IS an ordinary road. But not anymore. This patch of asphalt has claimed your memory and left you speechless for a nanosecond.

Because it resembles another road, in another country, in another city.

The truth of the matter is that it does not really look like that foreign road at all. The architecture is different; for starters, the houses on either side point at human existence and the cars on the road betray drivers indoors. That other road, in that other country, in that other city, has fewer houses and a big fan on one side of the street, probably belonging to a factory.

But more importantly, one street is in London, and the other one is in Havana.

Yet you still want this road to look like that other one you left behind in November 1997.

I call this unbidden nostalgia. This is not the usual bittersweet longing for the past that the ancient Greeks labelled thus. This is not the gathering with friends that leads to ‘Do you remember…?’ sessions where tears are shed as photos are passed round. This is an uninvited feeling that overwhelms you wherever you are. It calls no one’s door and yet strolls through the front gate and by the time you realise it has sat down and shared your food.

Unbidden nostalgia is a frightening and yet wonderful feeling that tears through the fabric of your memory. It can be anything, someone moving an arm in an incongruous way on the tube, a starry sky at night or a… road.

Music is like that sometimes, too. Unbidden nostalgia in music is not the type that you carry around on your Ipod Nano or the one you stash away on your computer’s playlists. No, unbidden nostalgia will assail you whilst you are in the pub with a few of your mates and all of a sudden a track that you had forgotten about aeons ago comes on the jukebox. You did not even use to like it then to be honest, but never mind, it is eating you alive. And you stand up, walk down the carpeted floor and approach the machine. And by now, who cares? Someone has turned the tap on and your cheeks are wet and you know you can’t, you won’t, and you don’t want to stop it.




Copyright 2008