Friday, June 08, 2007

New Musical Landscapes

Last Sunday, George Szirtes invited literary and political bloggers to send him a link for one piece of music in which “the first bar or so of that one track...is the moment of opening that new door or new landscape for you.”

The results are now up (with links to the music) here and here.

I shortlisted six songs and found it hard to choose just one. But in the end, I chose the Patti Smith Group’s Gloria (George’s link to it isn’t working at the moment).

The other five on my list were:

What Goes On by the Velvet Underground
Marquee Moon by Television
Complete Control by The Clash
Suffer Little Children – The Smiths
The State I Am In – Belle and Sebastian

It occurs to me now that I should also have included Simply Thrilled Honey by Orange Juice (I should add that this isn't the original, superior version with James Kirk on guitar - I suspect second generation Orange Juice around 1982? Anyone know?).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, there's a coincidence. While I was reading stuff further up yor blog, 'Simply Thriled Honey' came on my itunes and, hearing that wonderful start, I instantly paused it, grabbed a beer and gave it my attention. Then I read this, two songs later! And I have 9000 songs on there. Mind you, I suppose we are of an age and both Scots. But it's still a great favourite. I love the youtube clip of Blueboy more - a friend from way back (Simone Lahbib, now a sucessful actress) is one of the lovely dancing girls on it - makes me feel old.

Roddy

Anonymous said...

Oops - the Blueboy clip is gone for copyright reasons. The clip you linked to is from Mk II OJ circa 82-83, for a video they made during their brief period of commercial fame.

Rob said...

Blueboy is one of my favourite OJ songs, next to Dying Day.

I was a huge fan and played in a band in Glasgow at the time. We covered Vic Goddard's Holiday Hymn, which OJ had also covered in a John Peel session.