Sometimes, just sometimes, a bit of melancholia is all that will hit the spot. (OK, then, quite often.) I have always felt a good dirge enough to raise any flagging spirits.What is your go to low key misericord? I heard this for the first time a couple of days ago and I am smitten with it, it worming through my higher centres incessantly.
Uptempo is so last week
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From my favourite Stephen Duffy album
….apart from all the others.
Bleaktastic! One of my favourite albums too.
Kule..
Two melancholy chaps from Scotland.
Exit Wound – Jackie Leven
Hurt in your Heart – John Martyn (from his masterpiece Grace an Danger)
Pour me a pint of 80 Shillings, , barman, I need a beer to sob into!
Another slice of celtic melancholy from Johnny-boy…maybe his best song from the 80s?
Catnip both to my tears.
One of my favourite songs, from possibly my favourite LP…still hits the spot, after nearly 45 years…
…and an unusually melancholic performance from Wire…
…and finally, something to melt the hardest of hearts…
Superb choice.
Lovely! Love me a minor chord.
Hmm, never found a VdG to appeal: maybe time to revisit that prejudice.
I can’t resist putting this on… you could be falling and try to resist, but never know love at all…
A melancholy lost classic…in a parallel universe, these songs are being considered alongside Nick Drake and John Martyn…
Touch of the Murray Head there
Get your dictionaries out! A fine Spanish song coming up.
Luis Eduardo Aute’s splendid Sin tu latido (Without your heartbeat)
The video is of Pride and Prejudice! An eccentric choice but it works somehow.
Ooops! Here’s the song and the vid
Always good to have an excuse to link a Chris Mills track.
Delightfully mis, and new to me.
Melancholy tune, bolted to a bright chorus – there’s almost redemption at the end.
Streets Of London updated for the mid-Eighties?
Arlington House is a homeless hostel in Camden.
“ Arlington House is the last and largest of the Rowton Houses to be built and is the only one to remain in use as a hostel. For its first 80 years since opening in 1905, it had a capacity for 1,200 tenants, later reduced to 400. It was refurbished in 2009 and opened as a conference centre, plus accommodation for 150 homeless, vulnerable, and low-income tenants. It has been described as the biggest homeless hostel in Europe, and home to more Irish men than any other building outside Ireland.” From Wiki
Glasgows Great Eastern Hotel must surely have touched on that sort of size.
A dream that came badly unstuck…
One of Was (not Was)’s finest songs: Somewhere in America there’s a street named after my dad.
“No showbiz beginners making global decisions”. They predicted that rather well!
And now a cheery toe-tapping number from The Triffids: Property is condemned.
What magnificently dark, menacing music they made!
Yikes, rid me of that shrill shill.
well, you did ask. The band is even called Sadness.
The normally jaunty Comsat Angels describing a disintegrating relationship.
That’s downtempo?
Country tinged songs are my go-to source of musical melancholia – amongst many, Bruce, Lucinda, Emmylou, Cowboy Junkies, and The Delines with this gorgeous song from a few years ago…
That’s far and away my favourite Delines song.
And mine….
https://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2019/09/power-oil-rigs-at-nightthe-delines.html?m=1
No Shipbuilding?
Good call
The Swedish King of the Melancholy Drama is Emil Svanängen, AKA Loney Dear. Here’s my favourite track from his latest album, A Lantern and a Bell: “Trifles”:
And this is one of the best tracks from his previous album:
Possibly not big around these parts, but this gets the old ducts working for me.
https://youtu.be/2xqKXhUmWjw
Oh, well, Antony/Anohni gets a free pass. Found this only yesterday on a YouTube random ride:
Most beautiful song I ever heard
If we’re talking absolutely beautiful it’s gonna be hard to top this…
The obvious pick is River Man, but you all know that, so I’ll offer this, on the small matter of evolution and Darwin suffering the loss of his daughter, Annie.
Do you like this version, Chesh? There’s a nice live version out there as well…
PS: what was your tune – I got the video unavailable message…
Cheshire’ Choice was We’re all leaving by Karine Polwart, Fitter.
Here’s some magnificent melancholy Lllod Cole’s best album: Don’t get weird on me.
It’s Norway’s national day, and to celebrate here are some gloomy nogs
‘
Radka Toneff – The Moon’s a harsh mistress.
Kings of Convenience getting gloomy with Feist
I can’t see the Lloyd Cole link @Kaisfatdad
Was it Margo’s Waltz? I love that album too and would rank it with Rattlesnakes were it not for the aberration that is Butterfly.
Crikey @Bamber! You are a mind-reader. It was indeed Margo’s Waltz.
And what a fine song it is!
Blimey, and me the so called covers man: I have loads of versions of River Man, but not that one. And I’m a big Natacha fan too, so quite how I’ve misssd it, lord knows.
Not really my style, but I can still find it remarkable. I know this may seem like a dry response, but the vocal control and ornamentation, which was key to the reinterpreting, was outstanding.
It’s an ambitious concept for a song, but that is beautifully crafted. Thanks for alerting me to it @thecheshirecat.
Seconded. Love that @thecheshirecat
My favourite slowie and the first dance at my wedding 8 years ago today…
Well Happy Anniversary. Are you sure that cruising the Afterword is quite the way to celebrate?
Thanks @thecheshirecat
I was at work when I joined this discussion. It’s bathtime for our youngest now so I get to browse while supervising. My wife declared early today that all she wanted for her anniversary was sleep! Our children aged 2, 4 and 6 are the reasons for that. Living the dream! I might have to celebrate later by playing this tune with a whiskey in hand.
Thanks for that lovely reminder of a song not heard by me for a while.
Love this song.
.
And this one too.
You will find a great weight lifting:
I actually bought some new music for about the first time this year at the weekend and I’ve only heard the first track from this album as of yet, but it is really beautiful. From the album Midnight Shelter by Sachal Vasandani and Romain Collin.
I like that, and could see if working in the Baptist chapel stroke gig venue I do sound in.
But, on behalf of every gig booker/promoter anywhere ever, artists please include in your website’s Bio page, where you ruddy well live.
@carolina, good to hear from you and to see you back, hoping that a good omen. A lovely mournful song right up my proverbial.
Thanks a lot Retro. Lots been going on, relative been seriously ill in hosp, now slowly recovering, I’ve been rough esp after 1st vaccine, and also doing a Big Sort Out v gradually of possessions, trying to go through decades of paperwork and mountains of cassettes. So not much headspace for anything else, but thankfully April scan showed things stable. Glad you enjoyed song. I see you are reviewing on Folk Radio website – terrific!
I can tell you that Sachal and Romain are based in New York so they may not be coming over for a while yet…..Still at some stage they will want to promote their album!
Air with added Beck.