17/05/2020

10/20 - We Can All Pull On Through

Some oldies goldies, some newbies:


Mohammed Rafi, Shamshad Begum - O Gaadiwale

I watched Mother India (1957) the other week, and now I feel like doing a deepdive into classic bollywood films. How can you make an epic tragedy about poverty, debt and tilling the earth and then have the main characters and a bunch of dancers suddenly break into this song in a field of wheat, without it being corny? I don't know, but they did.


U.S. Girls - Pearly Gates

OMG what a song! Where has this been all my life? In a way it feels like it's always been there; it's that instantly unevadable. Angry, sacrilegious, witty and catchy. This verse about St Peter's sexual misdeeds is just something else:
Peter bragged he was good at pulling out 
He always knew the right time to take a bow 
He practiced it every single night 
It hadn't failed him yet 
He'd been doing it a long, long time 
And Peter just does whatever Peter likes


David Bowie - It Ain't Easy

Nothing should go back to normal.
When you climb to the top of the mountain 
Look out over the sea 
Think about the places perhaps, where a young man could be 
Then you jump back down to the rooftops 
Look out over the town 
Think about all of the strange things circulating round




The White Stripes - Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine

Don't drink bleach. Fill in the waiting time for a vaccine with some Jack White guitarwork.


Nick Drake - Magic

When a tune makes me cry, it ends up on the list. Such are the rules. I've listened to this so many times, but suddenly there comes a time of extra receptiveness. I had just finished one of the last chapters of Selma Lagerlöf's gorgeous debut novel, and was already welling up a bit when Nick's melancholy tale of wonder ambushed me and pushed me over. The world is gorgeous.





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