Fever Ray / Karin Dreijer Andersson - Keep The Streets Empty For Me

It is the type of music that sneaks up on me and burrows deeply into my mind to be fully anchored there before I'm even aware of it. Just some song accompanying scenes in a "Bones" episode well prior to the crescendo and yet ... the steady rhythm kept beating in my veins well into the night. It took me a while to identify the song as "Keep the Streets Empty for Me" by "Fever Ray" which is an alias of "Karin Dreijer Andersson". I've since discovered quite a number of other Fever Ray songs with an equally compelling rhythm and melody that, in my mind, speaks of darkness and inevitability ...

Keep The Streets Empty For Me
By Karin Dreijer Andersson

Memory comes when memory's old
I am never the first to know
Following the stream up North
Where do people like us float

Gordon Lightfoot - Whispers of the North

Seven weeks between the old job and the new one. Seven weeks to my own; time to unwind, to relax, to renew, and to take a deep breath. For reasons I wouldn’t know how to put into words Canada always was a land I wanted to visit and finally there was my chance. 

My memory of the first day heading into Canada is fuzzy thanks to an uninvited travel companion: a severe cold no doubt caught on the flight over to Seattle. Surely, my nose then was as big and red as that of Rudolph the Reindeer, dripping remnants of the brain that was being pounded to mush by a headache without equals – ‘nough said … Although the recollection of that first day is spotty at best, two things stand out bright and clear.

Avicii - Hey Brother

Such a soothing song, Avicii's "Hey Brother" ...

... for you
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do ~

R i P


Hey Brother
Avicii

Hey brother! There's an endless road to rediscover
Hey sister! Know the water's sweet but blood is thicker
Oh, if the sky comes falling down, for you
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do

Pentangle - Reflection

Artists have an immense amount of tools at their disposal to paint their mental picture of the world and convey it to their audience. Be it the colors of the rainbow and the texture of the brushstroke used to paint a picture, the words, syntax and possibly the rhyme to tell a story, the melody, the rhythm and instrument to perform music. A song can expand the palette of the artist by adding words.

Reflection by Pentangle to me is a perfect amalgam of words and music, voices and instruments. It is hard to believe that it dates back to 1971 – more than 45 years ago.

Gregorian - Hymn (Barclay James Harvest)

There are days when the music stage in my mind wants to play nothing but angry or sad songs. Sometimes that's just fine with me. Right now, however, considering the root of my anger and sadness, I seek a calming balm to ground myself again. 

One song that has long had the ability to ease my mind is "Hymn", for tonight performed by Gregorian. The song was originally performed by Barclay James Harvest and released in 1977 in the album "Gone to Earth". Reading about it I was astonished to learn that "the song is primarily about the dangers of drug abuse, contrasting their illicit thrill with the spiritual 'high' of Christianity."

Hymn

Valley's deep and the mountain's so high
If you want to see God you've got to move on the other side
You stand up there with your head in the clouds
Don't try to fly you know you might not come down
Don't try to fly, dear God, you might not come down

Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Strolling through the magical forests of the internet I stumbled over an article by Rina Marie Doctor in Tech Times which contemplated establishing a new geological epoch marked by the impact of human activity, the Anthropocene.

Fascinating! Have humanity’s footprints on our planet become so big that the instigated environmental changes exceed the natural development? I’m not a geologist so I’m uncomfortable to comment one way or another on the concept. It just made me wonder –again- about the carbon dioxide emissions which are increased thanks to humanity, and the eventual demise of our world: being swallowed by the sun when it is in its red giant stage.

Humanity will have left the stage long before that time and, perhaps, some alien anthropologists will have had the opportunity to investigate the remnants of our cultures …

Amused to Death
Roger Waters

Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
What is the heart life of a colour TV
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen

Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) - Peace Train

I've been smiling lately dreaming about the world as one and I believe it could be
Something good's bound to come ...

Peace to the world ...