In February this year, Max at PowerPop published an article (see above) about this wonderful duet from John Doe and Kathleen Edwards. It’s exuberant country rock where their voices entwine with great chemistry, as they describe each other – as a “symptom”, “body part” or “feeling” of the other – capturing how deeply intertwined and dependent they are. It’s a very cool lyrical device that underlines the vulnerability at the heart of the song. As the track progresses, I like when they both deliver the line – “when you walk away,” the melody shifts, with a new openness like the heart cracking open – almost feels like another song completely.
Biography John Doe, born John Nommensen Duchac in 1953, is a figure in American punk and roots music. Best known as the co-founder and bassist of the influential Los Angeles punk band X, Doe helped shape the raw, poetic sound of the late ’70s West Coast scene. His creative spirit, however, refused to be caged by genre – over the decades, he has built an impressive solo career blending punk, country, folk, and rock, while also establishing himself as a respected actor in film and television (Great Balls of Fire!, Road House, Law & Order).
Doe recorded The Golden State in 2007 on his solo album A Year in the Wilderness, with Canadian Kathleen Edwards on the original album. Another version features here with Eddie Vedder and Corin Tucker.
You are the hole in my head I am the pain in your neck you are the lump in my throat I am the aching in your heart we are tangled we are stolen we are living where things are hidden you are something in my eye I am the shiver down your spine you are the lick of my lips I am on the tip of your tongue we are tangled we are stolen we are buried up to our necks in sand we are luck we are fate we the feeling you get in the golden state we are love we are hate we are the feeling I get when you walk away you are the dream in my nightmare I am that falling sensation you are my needles & pins I am your hangover morning
I was recently reacquainted with So Cruel after years of not hearing it. During my late adolescence, it ranked among my favourite U2 songs, at a time when I enjoyed much of their work up until the Achtung Baby era. So Cruel is a searing, embittered love song, delving into themes of marital discord, betrayal, and emotional desolation. What always resonated with me and still does is its pulsating orchestration, steadily building to a restrained yet powerful crescendo. The song manages to feel both epic and intimate – with Bono’s plaintive vocals laid bare against a deceptively simple arrangement. Even within an album known for its sonic reinvention, So Cruel stands out for its raw vulnerability.
The following was extracted from the Wikipedia reference below:
The Edge separated from his wife during the recording of Achtung Baby. Their painful emotions were channelled in the lyrics. Bono said, “We’re a really tight community. This is not like somebody’s, you know, girlfriend’s left. We’ve grown up with these people, this our family, our community. This was really hard for us… It was like the first cracks on the beautiful porcelain jug with those beautiful flowers in it that was our music and our community, starting to go ‘crack‘.” Thematically the song is about unrequited love, jealousy, obsession, and possessiveness. Hot Press editor Niall Stokes described it as “the desolate complaint of a lover who has been spurned but who remains in love with his tormentor.“
Višnja Cogan wrote “Women… never get treated badly in U2 songs… Women are put on a pedestal by Bono, his mother’s untimely death being undoubtedly one of the reasons. If anything, in some of the songs on Achtung Baby, it is the man who gets the raw deal. On ‘So Cruel’, it is the man who is the victim of a woman. It is the reverse of the classical torch song“
So Cruel is the sixth track on U2’s seventh studio album Achtung Baby (1991), concluding side one of the album. The song was written at Elsinore in Dalkey. While audio engineer Flood changed reels to listen to a demo of another song, lead singer Bono began to improvise a song on guitar. The rest of the band quickly joined in, creating the first take of the song.
It was developed as an acoustic track but it was further developed by Flood “did a couple of treatments to the track that utterly transformed it.” He keyed Clayton’s bass with the bodhrán, which “gave it a much more bubbly, off-beat feel”. Clayton explained that while the original acoustic version “wasn’t something one could imagine being on the record“, it “was lifted up by studio trickery.” Flood believes that the use of technology was crucial in making the final mix. U2 performed So Cruel only three full times live on the Zoo TV Tour.
[Verse 1] We crossed the line Who pushed who over? It doesn’t matter to you It matters to me We’re cut adrift But still floating I’m only hanging on To watch you go down, my love
[Verse 2] I disappeared in you You disappeared from me I gave you everything you ever wanted It wasn’t what you wanted The men who love you, you hate the most They pass right through you like a ghost They look for you, but your spirit is in the air Baby, you’re nowhere
[Chorus] Oh, love You say in love, there are no rules Oh, love Sweetheart, you’re so cruel
[Verse 3] Desperation is a tender trap It gets you every time You put your lips to her lips To stop the lie Her skin is pale like God’s only dove Screams like an angel for your love Then she makes you watch her from above And you need her like a drug
[Bridge] She wears my love like a see-through dress Her lips say one thing, her movements, something else Oh, love, like a screaming flower Love, dying every hour
[Verse 4] Ah, you don’t know if it’s fear or desire Danger, the drug that takes you higher Head of heaven Fingers in the mire Her heart is racing, you can’t keep up The night is bleeding like a cut Between the horses of love and lust, we are trampled Underfoot
The Girl from Ipanema is so kitsch and cool. It embodies the 1960’s breezy elegance perhaps more than any other song. With its languid rhythm and innocent vocals by Astrud Gilberto, it captures the aura of city café society; the same stylish world inhabited by Petula Clark’s Downtown, Breakfast at Tiffany’sSally’s Tomato or The Seekers’ Georgy Girl. But this track brought a Brazilian twist to the cocktail: a samba swaying through jazz’s smoky lounges. The Girl from Ipanema bridged continents, introduced Brazilian Bossa Nova music to the global mainstream, and became a symbol of cosmopolitan sophistication.
The following was extracted, rearranged and condensed from Scott Frampton’s excellent article linked at the bottom of this page:
How you hear The Girl from Ipanema says a lot about where you’re from. American versions, ones that made the song an elevator music cliché of easy-listening, are in the key of F. Brazilian musicians all know the song should be in D♭. The song became an international sensation thanks to Astrud Gilberto (pictured above). She wasn’t meant to sing on the sessions her husband João and Antônio Carlos “Tom” Jobim were cutting in New York with jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, but new English lyrics had been commissioned for the song, and her command of the language was the strongest of the Brazilians in the studio.
The shortened version of the song on the Getz/Gilberto album, in the key of D♭, would be a top-5 US pop hit in 1964, introducing Bossa Nova to Stateside audiences. The Portuguese lyrics to The Girl from Ipanema were written by Vinicius de Moraes, a poet and playwright best known for the film Black Orpheus. It’s a scene drawn from his own life, where he observed a 17 year-old girl passing by the Veloso bar-café on daily walks through the neighborhood, sometimes stopping in to buy cigarettes for her mother. The song was such a sensation in Brazil that the inspiration for the song, the titular “Girl,” a 17 year-old named Helô Pinheiro, would become famous in her own right.
Astrud Gilberto was an untrained singer, but her naïve vocals is said to have restored some of the melancholy from Moraes’s original lyrics. Moraes’s lyrics are laden with what he called the “gift of life in its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow.” Astrud’s matter-of-fact vocals brush away the leering and exoticism from the tanned and lovely on Brazil’s beaches; it’s just a neighborhood scene. Her dispassionate near-whisper, in all its languorousness, also makes plain the truth that the U.S. version may have otherwise elided: The young beauty who passes you by is doing exactly that.
João Gilberto is known as the Father of Bossa Nova, which translates from Portuguese as “new trend” or “new wave.” Bossa Nova incorporated jazz and Tin Pan Alley songwriting into Samba, the Afro-Brazilian music that remains a national symbol of Brazil. This was not always a welcome development since it was initially seen as a whitewashing of this essential element of Brazilian culture.
In 2000, the 1964 release of the song by Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto on Verve Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Tall and tan and young and lovely The girl from Ipanema goes walking And when she passes, each one she passes goes “ah!” When she walks she’s like a samba that Swings so cool and sways so gently That when she passes, each one she passes goes “ah!”
Oh, but he watches her sadly How can he tell her he loves her? Yes, he would give his heart gladly But each day when she walks to the sea She looks straight ahead not at he
Tall and tan and young and lovely The girl from Ipanema goes walking And when she passes he smiles But she doesn’t see
We are upping the tempo today with some fun and frivolity from one of the most colourful and dazzling 80’s performing artists – Cyndi Lauper. The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough is her second entry here after her signature hit Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1983). The Goonies was released in support of the 1985 film of the same name which I enjoyed as a kid, you know the whole treasure maps, booby traps, pirate ships thing. The movie was accompanied by an equally zany two-part music video (see below) directed by Richard Donner himself.
The song was initially titled ‘Good enough‘, but was re-titled to “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” by Warner Bros. for marketing purposes. Lauper originally didn’t want to write a theme song. In interviews, she admitted to feeling creatively boxed in by being asked to conform to the film’s requirements. She said also how she hated the song. Ouch! So much so that she didn’t perform it live for over 15 years. She even left it off her greatest hits album, much to fans’ dismay. That’s a shame to learn that and caught me by surprise since The Goonies is my favourite song by her. I always liked Lauper’s high energy performance, its quirky charm and the catchy melody never grew tired on me.
The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough became a bona fide hit of course reaching No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked within the top-ten in Australia and Canada. It was Lauper’s fifth top ten single but only spent 15 weeks in total. While it wasn’t as big as Lauper’s earlier hits like Girls Just Want to Have Fun or Time After Time, it held its own in the constellation of mid-’80s pop. As aforementioned despite Lauper growing to dislike the song, due to nostalgia (and fan pressure) she brought it back to her concert setlists y the 2000s. Phew!
[Verse 1] Here we are, hanging onto strains of greed and blues Break the chain, then we break down Oh, it’s not real if you don’t feel it
[Pre-Chorus] Unspoken expectations Ideals you used to play with They’ve finally taken shape
[Chorus] What’s good enough (Good enough) For you, it’s good enough (Good enough) For me, it’s good enough (Good enough) It’s good enough for me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[Verse 2] Now you’ll say you’re startin’ to feel the push and pull Of what could be and never can You mirror me, stumblin’ through those
[Pre-Chorus] Old fashioned superstitions I find it too hard to break Oh, maybe you’re out of place
[Chorus] What’s good enough (Good enough) For you, it’s good enough (Good enough) For me, it’s good enough (Good enough) It’s good enough for me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Good enough (good enough) For you, it’s good enough (Good enough) For me, it’s good enough (Good enough) It’s good enough for me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
In music and art I’m interested in minimalism, space and subtlety – creating a lot with a little. I’m interested to find big emotions by using minimal techniques which is maybe more direct…I’m attracted to things that makes you want to be drawn in, pull you in slowly, rather than being bombarded with something.
There’s really nothing more satisfying than stumbling upon beautiful music at the exact moment your senses are yearning for it. I first heard today’s featured piece Opus 23 during a cool-down Pilates class at the gym a month ago. You see timing is everything, since it lofted in just as my body was easing into stillness and my mind was calm and settled. As soon as the first few bars of Opus 23 played, I shot my arm up to ask what it was – and funny enough, the lady next to me was just as curious. Thankfully, the instructor shared the title with us and it went straight into my quick memo app.
What’s curious is how my connection to Opus 23 seems to shift depending on how tuned in I am. If my mind’s racing or I’m caught up in distractions, it barely lands. But when I’m in a peaceful, open state – like early in the morning, my favourite time to listen to music it hits completely differently. That’s when it truly sinks in and I find myself swept up in it.
The following was mostly extracted from the Wikipedia article below:
The composer is American pianist Dustin O’Halloran. Aside from releasing music as a recording artist, O’Halloran is a film and TV composer. He is as well as one half of ambient act A Winged Victory for the Sullen which is an American ambient music duo composed of himself and Adam Wiltzie. O’Halloran was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and spent most of his childhood in Hawaii and Los Angeles. While studying art at Santa Monica College, he met singer Sara Lov, with whom he founded indie rock band Dévics in 1998. When the group signed with Bella Union in 2001, they relocated to Romagna, Italy, where O’Halloran lived for seven years.
Today’s featured piece Opus 23 was first released on his Piano Solos Volume 2 (2004) and appeared on the soundtrack of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette. O’Halloran discusses in the 200% interview below his penchant for playing the lower register of the piano and the emergence of neo-classical ambient music. For more information on O’Halloran’s extensive musical career, I point you the references below.
The video for Opus 23 below was beautifully animated by Italian director Marco Morandi.
The Ghost Of Tom Joad is a folk rock song by Bruce Springsteen and is the title track from his eleventh studio album released in 1995. It is the second song to feature here from the sessions after Dead Man Walkin’ although that song was not used on the album. The Ghost Of Tom Joad is a haunting and desolate track that grapples with the fractures of American capitalism and the human toll of economic displacement. It shines a light on America’s “rust belt,” regions once pulsing with industrial prosperity now left hollow by deindustrialization, joblessness, and social abandonment.
The song uses the character of Tom Joad from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath as a symbol of resilience amid decay. Yet the speaker is trapped between crippling poverty and a crushing realization that they have no place in this changing America however The Ghost Of Tom Joad ultimately ends not in despair but in defiance: Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free / Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”.
The following was extracted from the Wikipedia reference below: The song also takes inspiration from The Ballad of Tom Joad by Woody Guthrie, which in turn was inspired by John Ford’s film adaptation of Steinbeck’s novel. Springsteen had in fact read the book, watched the film, and listened to the song, before writing The Ghost of Tom Joad. Springsteen identified with 1930s-style social activism, and sought to give voice to the invisible and unheard, the destitute and the disenfranchised. Like the rest of the album, The Ghost of Tom Joad is set in the early-to-mid-1990s, with contemporary times being likened to Dust Bowl images.
Originally a quiet folk song, has also been covered by Rage Against the Machine and Junip. Springsteen himself has performed the song in a variety of arrangements, including with the E Street Band, and a live recording featuring Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello as guest. In 2013, Springsteen re-recorded the track with Morello for his eighteenth studio album, High Hopes.
The Ghost of Tom Joad album was recorded between April and June 1995, at Springsteen’s Los Angeles home studio. The title track was given limited release as a single in The Netherlands and the UK, wherein the latter it reached number 26 on the UK Singles Chart. It was not released as a single in the U.S., and radio airplay on album-oriented rock stations was practically non-existent.
[Verse 1] Men walking along the railroad tracks Going someplace and there’s no going back Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
[Verse 2] Shelter line stretching around the corner Welcome to the new world order Families sleeping in the cars in the southwest No home, no job, no peace, no rest
[Chorus] Well, the highway is alive tonight But nobody’s kidding nobody about where it goes I’m sitting down here in the campfire light Searching for the ghost of Tom Joad
[Verse 3] He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag Preacher lights up a butt and he takes a drag Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass
[Verse 4] Got a one-way ticket to the promised land You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock Bathing in the city aqueduct
[Verse 5] Now Tom said, “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there
[Verse 6] Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand Or a decent job or a helping hand Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”
“The Future might as easily have been a book: A more troubling, more vexing image of human failure has not been written.”
– Christian Wright (Rolling Stone)
The Future by Leonard Cohen is about as bleak as it gets. And that’s saying a lot for an artist whose final studio album was You Want it Darker (2016). It is certainly one of the songs that has earned Leonard Cohen his reputation for being pessimistic, a prophet of doom. It’s definitely a label I’m well acquainted with, but I prefer ‘romantic pessimist’ which I’m sure he would. The song also featured in the film Natural Born Killers which is certainly not an optimistic look on the world (Quentin Tarantino was a co-writer).
Cohen released The Future at the tail end of the Cold War and the beginning of what would be a new dawn of liberal democracy. But, he predicted the hangover. And a big one at that. “Things are going to slide in all directions / Won’t be nothing you can measure anymore.” What’s chilling is how this feels more akin to what’s happening in the current age than from 1992 especially as far as Post Modernism and Dialectics are concerned – ie banging the thesis and antithesis together and creating a new pseudo reality. But alas there seems to be a tiny door for hope and love in the midst of The Future where Cohen sings:
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall I’ve heard their stories, heard them all But love’s the only engine of survival
Leonard said about the Future in in a 1993 Boston Globe interview (see reference at bottom of this post):
“What I find in writing is that at the beginning of the process you try to support your opinions — about the environment, about politics, about where you stand — and I find that even though that may make you a good citizen, it makes for a very bad songwriter. You may get positions you can applaud, but they’re boring, they’re alibis. If you think by saving the forest, you’re going to redeem your soul, you’ve got another thing coming. There’s something else at stake…”
Later Cohen said, “‘The Future’ is dark and funny. If I’d have nailed that to the church door like Martin Luther it’d be a very sinister document. But it’s married to a hot little dance track so, in a sense, the words melt into the music and the music melts into the words and you’re left with a kind of refreshment, a kind of oxygen.”
Two years after this record, Cohen retreated from the world – quite literally. In 1994, he entered the Mount Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles, where he would spend five years in near-complete solitude. There, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk and given the monastic name Jikan, the “Silent One“.
[Verse 1] Give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life It’s lonely here, there’s no one left to torture Give me absolute control over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, that’s an order!
[Verse 2] Give me crack and anal sex, take the only tree that’s left And stuff it up the hole in your culture Give me back the Berlin Wall, give me Stalin and St. Paul I’ve seen the future, brother, it is murder
[Chorus: Leonard Cohen, Choir, Leonard Cohen & Choir] Things are going to slide (slide) in all directions Won’t be nothing (won’t be nothing), nothing you can measure anymore Theblizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold And it’s overturned the order of the soul When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent (repent) I wonder what they meant When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent (repent) I wonder what they meant When they said (they said) repent (repent), repent (repent) I wonder what they meant
[Verse 3] You don’t know me from the wind, you never will, you never did I’m the little Jew who wrote the Bible I’ve seen the nations rise and fall, I’ve heard their stories, heard them all But love’s the only engine of survival
[Verse 4] Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear, to say it cold It’s over, it ain’t going any further And now the wheels of Heaven stop, you feel the devil’s riding crop Get ready for the future: It is murder
[Chorus: Leonard Cohen, Choir, Leonard Cohen & Choir]
[Verse 5] There’ll be the breaking of the ancient Western code Your private life will suddenly explode There’ll be phantoms, there’ll be fires on the road And the white man dancing
[Verse 6] You’ll see your woman hanging upside down Her features covered by her fallen gown And all the lousy little poets coming round Trying to sound like Charlie Manson Yeah, the white man dancing
[Verse 7] Give me back the Berlin Wall, give me Stalin and St. Paul Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima Destroy another fetus now, we don’t like children anyhow I’ve seen the future, baby: It is murder
[Chorus: Leonard Cohen, Choir, Leonard Cohen & Choir]
From the Wikipedia reference below: The Future made the Top 40 in the UK album charts, went double platinum in Canada, and sold a quarter of a million copies in the U.S., which had previously been unenthusiastic about Cohen’s albums…Cohen also won the Canadian Juno Award for Best Male Vocalist in 1993 for The Future. In his acceptance speech, he quipped, “Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win Vocalist of the Year.”
Seattle indie rock band Band of Horses have been around since 2004. By the time their debut album Everything All the Time appeared in March 2006, they already had seen various line-up changes. Singer-songwriter Ben Bridwell (lead vocals, guitar, pedal steel, keyboards) was the only remaining co-founding member and still is to this day. Here’s The Funeral, which also became the album’s first single. The stunning sound of the song, which is credited to the entire band, drew me in right away.
Thanks to Christian’s Music Musings’ blog, I’ve been introduced to a wealth of great tracks that had somehow eluded my radar. One such gem is today’s featured song – The Funeral by Band of Horses. With its expansive sonic landscape and sweeping, melancholic melody, it delivers an emotional weight that feels cinematic and yet also personal. Its atmosphere and slow-burning intensity reminded me of another track I featured back in July 2023 – Elastic by Chief Springs. Both songs conjure an ethereal, almost otherworldly mood, blending ambient textures with emotional rawness.
The Funeral begins with a deceptively gentle intro, featuring Ben Bridwell’s reverb-laden vocals floating above shimmering guitar lines. But as the track unfolds, it surges into a thunderous crescendo of distorted guitars and pounding drums – an explosive release that feels like a eulogy at full volume. Lyrically, it dances around themes of loss, disillusionment – “At every occasion I’ll be ready for the funeral,” Bridwell sings, repeating it like a mantra of resignation and preparation. The Funeral seems like a defining track of the indie rock surge of the mid-2000s.
The following was extracted from the Wikipedia article below:
The Funeral by the American rock band Band of Horses is taken from their debut studio album, Everything All the Time (image inset). The alternative rock song was released as the lead single from the album. In August 2009, Pitchfork Media named The Funeral the 67th-greatest song of the 2000s.
Singer Ben Bridwell said, “The basis of The Funeral was just really the start of me whining about my aversion to social occasions and holidays. The pressure of say New Year’s being the best party night of your life, or Christmas being this forced togetherness. I was quite the pessimist in those days when I wrote the song.” Bridwell compared this dread to the feeling one gets before attending a funeral.
The video below tells the story of a man whose dog has died. Saddened by his loss, the man drowns his sorrows in alcohol. He then drives under the influence and the end of the video suggests he crashes head-on into a delivery truck. The video shows a sign for the Galway Bay Bar in Chicago and the cars in the video are all 1970s models.
[Verse 1] I’m coming up only to hold you under And coming up only to show you wrong And to know you is hard, we wonder To know you all wrong, we won
[Pre-Chorus] Ooh Ooh
[Verse 2] Really too late to call, so we wait for Morning to wake you is all we got But to know me as hardly golden Is to know me all wrong, they won
[Chorus] At every occasion, I’ll be ready for the funeral At every occasion once more, it’s called the funeral At every occasion, oh, I’m ready for the funeral At every occasion of one billion day funeral
[Bridge] I’m coming up only to show you down for And coming up only to show you wrong To the outside, the dead leaves they own the lawn ‘Fore they died and had trees to hang there upon
This blog is enjoying a welcome refresh today with a spotlight on the spectacular set of four violin concerti by the Italian Baroque master, Antonio Vivaldi. Known collectively as The Four Seasons, these pieces have transcended time and genre, becoming some of the most recognisable works in classical music. Given their enduring popularity in mainstream culture – from regal ceremonies, film soundtracks to coffee shop playlists – it’s likely that most readers have encountered these compositions before. The Four Seasons is Vivaldi’s second music entry after his Concerto For Mandolin In C Major RV425 Allegro (1725).
In particular, this post highlights the vibrant Spring and the evocative Autumn concerti, featured at the end of this post. You see, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons are played in the order of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, reflecting the chronological progression of the seasons. Spring bursts forth with joyful energy, evoking blooming meadows and chirping birds, while Autumn captures the rustic revelry of harvest time, with a surprising dip into the gentle sleep of falling leaves. Together, they not only showcase Vivaldi’s flair for musical storytelling but also stand as pivotal works in the history of programmatic music – a genre where sound vividly paints scenes and emotions. Music with a narrative element, if you like. Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. For example, in the middle section of the Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 — 28 July 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso (“The Red Priest”) because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is of course today’s featured music – The Four Seasons.
Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi worked between 1703 and 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi’s arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income. Though Vivaldi’s music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century.
I wish more songs I had chosen had moved me the way that one did. I’ve loved [most] every song I’ve recorded, but that one (“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”) was pretty special.
— Roberta Flack, The Daily Telegraph, July 16, 2015.
The first time I heard this song, it was love at first listen – and that feeling has never faded. Even now, it still kills me softly with its slow-burning passion and aching sense of yearning. Few songs I’ve encountered are as heartfelt and spellbinding, where love seems to pour from every note and that so completely capture the essence of falling in love as Roberta Flack’s transcendent The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
It’s almost unfair how haunting this song is. With the most delicate of piano chords and Flack’s voice caressing each syllable, time seems to slow down. She barely raises her voice, yet somehow it’s the quietest moments that hit the hardest. It feels like a relationship condensed into a few breaths, each breath carrying the weight of devotion. It’s no surprise that this song became an anthem for weddings. She later explained she sang it very slowly – more slowly than originally intended – because she wanted “the space to think about what the lyrics meant”.
The song was originally written by Scottish folk singer Ewan MacColl in 1957 for his partner Peggy Seeger which you can hear here. Roberta Flack recorded her version in 1969 for her debut album First Take, but it wasn’t until Clint Eastwood selected it for a love scene in his 1971 directorial debut Play Misty for Me that it reached widespread acclaim. Clint had called Flack at home and asked if he could use the song in his film. From there, the song catapulted to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for six weeks in 1972. It won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face became the first of several big hits for Flack over the next few years including of course Killing Me Softly which I was remiss not to have already included here. Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist who was born on February 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she received a degree in music education. I encourage you to read more about her music career in the Wikipedia reference below.
Flack retired from touring and recording in 2019 after she suffered a stroke and was forced to cancel a series of concerts. In 2022, it was announced that Flack had been diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as motor neuron disease (MND). Flack died of cardiac arrest on February 24, 2025, on her way to a hospital in New York City. She was 88 years old.
[Verse 1] The first time, ever I saw your face I thought the sun rose in your eyes And the moon and the stars Were the gifts you gave To the dark, and the endless skies
[Verse 2] And the first time, ever I kissed your mouth I felt the earth move in my hand Like the trembling heart Of a captive bird That was there, at my command My love
[Verse 3] And the first time, ever I lay with you I felt your heart so close to mine And I knew our joy Would fill the earth And last, ’til the end of time My love
[Outro] The first time, ever I saw Your face Your face Your face Your face
Observation Blogger 