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Comfort Music

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It’s a complete shitstorm. Our health, our jobs and livelihood, our way of life – it’s all being blown to the winds, at least temporarily and maybe longer and more terminally. And the sheer uncertainty of what’s coming next is exhausting.

In times like this, music can help. I put an old playlist of favourite songs on shuffle today, and this came up first. It’s brilliant, of course. Paul Simon’s bittersweet melody and typically economic lyrics; his beautifully phrased vocals; the arrangement, Michael Brecker’s sax break.

And, yes it worked. I felt just a little bit buoyed up. Partly because it’s a comfort blanket – I’ve known and loved this song and the album it’s from since it came out and it’s seen me through some good times. And partly because all the time there are people on the planet who have the creativity and skill to make something like this, you have to think we still have a fighting chance.

If you’d like to post some examples of music that you turn to at times like this, please be my guest. God knows, we’re going to need all the help we can get.

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Comments

    • Yes, I really like “The Dreaming Jewels” as well.
      How on earth does Greg Foat do it?
      He produces SO MUCH music … and so much of it is excellent.

  3. The new William Doyle album – Your Wilderness Revisited – a swirling and deeply melodic homage to suburbia – is bliss from start to finish. Can’t stop listening to it. This is one of my favourites – Blue Remembered.

      • Ha! Me too!

        I googled them recently to see if there’s any news (sadly not). What I did learn is that an academic I met at a Conference a couple of years ago was one of the band in that performance. Probably best I didn’t know that before, I’d have turned into a drooling fanboy.

        • If you like that kind of thing, try the similarly ‘on hiatus’ Sea Stacks who I had the good fortune of hosting a gig. Having never mic’d up a small orchestra before, I had to* buy myself several more microphones.

          (*) nobody was forcing me, I could have borrowed some, but any excuse.

  5. Great idea Blue!

    There is little rhyme or reason as to why certain songs become a comfort soundtrack for me. Here are a few.

    Lake – Oh! The places we’ll go

    Flo Morrissey and Matthew E. White – Grease

    Pino Daniele – Bella ‘mbriaa

    Jackie Leven – Exit Wound

  6. For some reason The Fall always works for me in difficult times, and you just know Mark E Smith would be taking it all in his stride. So for comfort I don’t want anything moving and emotional, I wanna rock out – so I’m reaching for them and similarly loud, wonky and banging tunes to put a spring in my step and give me some inspiration and energy. Crank it up!

    and how about some Nightingales –

  9. What a remarkably varied thread this is turning out to be. We certainly take comfort in a variety of very different kinds of music. Time for the delicate, exquisite melancholy of The Delines who played one of my favourite gigs of 2019.

  13. I spent a week in Hong Kong doing some client negotiations. It was high pressure, it was hot, crowded, noisy and a bit hysterical and that was only the meetings. Plus we had to do the social thing, added to which the jet lag was horrible. I came back to my hotel room every night, collapsed into the bed and listened to Mary Black to calm my brain, this one especially.

  20. Some great stuff here folks, thank you. If it’s laid back chilled comfort I’m looking for, for a long time it was all about The Cowboy Junkies’ Caution Horses. But in the last couple of years The Delines have come along to rival them. The Colfax album especially is just gorgeous

  22. Sedate jazz takes on old time religious tunes – Charlie Haden and Hank Jones. Now available as part of a tidy five album boxset for a mere six quid from the tax dodgers.

    At least two bona fide jazz classics in “Steal Away” and “Night and the City” included – a languid Cuban influenced set and 1930s thing alongside “The Art of the Song” which will take time – possibly several years – to worm its way into your heart.

  23. You may not yet be familiar with Karen Less. However I’m pretty sure you will feel better after listening to this. It generally does the trick for me: Love is on the Way:

  24. Afterworders will be thrilled and delighted to know that Charlie XCX will be live streaming tonight. Live streaming performances being the gig alternative for a self distancing world. Bounce!

    • In the light of Karine Polwart’s newsletter, posted by Cheshire Cat, I think we will be seeing a lot of this kind of thing in the weeks to come. Much of it will be more AW- friendly than Charlie who co-wrote I love it with Icona Pop.

      “You’re from the ’70s, but I’m a ’90s bitch.”

  25. Jazz lovers might like to note: Kansas Smitty’s house band are doing a ‘Live at 5’ set live on Youtube every day. Tonight’s had a few technical gremlins, such as the Mrs Mills piano sound, which it is hoped will be fixed by tomorrow.

  26. As we all lurch deeper and deeper into lockdown, I hope this thread will continue to meander wildly, unearthing comfort favourites old and new.

    The album that got me through 1980 was Magazine’s The Correct Use of Soap. Which is oddstrangely ironic considering how important using soap properly when washing one’s hands is in 2020.

    Because you’re frightened

    And here is First Aid Dad and his band , Lolita Pop, doing a very acceptable Magazine cover in 1988.

    Soon, he will be First Aid Grandad!

    Finally, here is Howard De Voto and band live in Germany in 1980!!

    Splendid!

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