Thursday 21 November 2013

Music For Being Lost In The City

Another collection of songs with a theme, in this case, London: Soho gets referenced in Pinball, Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty, Belsize Park by Marillion, while Kit Hain never says which city, but since she was London-based, let's assume the Great Wen was her model, and She's Gone is for me forever associated with the sight and smell of roasted chestnuts in winter by Tottenham Court Road underground station. And let's not forget that immortal verse: "Think I'll spend eternity in the city / Let the carbon and monoxide wash my / Thoughts away / And pretty bodies help dissolve the memories / But they can never be / What she was to me". (Today, that's called ONEitis and is a certified psychiatric disorder, but back then it was the natural state of any young man having a hard time with love.)

All of the songs have a mid-tempo beat, three have a saxophone solo, and again for all I know they all feature D minor suspended 6th. All of them are about being in but not of the city, suspended in an emotional state that isn't love or sorrow or despair or anger, but something between all those. These are songs about lost people. Kayleigh, which is a guilty pleasure, is mid-80's, while the others are from the early 1970's.

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