Now, all my life I laid around
While the colors all turned blue
Well, I close my eyes
And I finally found
It brought me back to you
1. A good evening to you, faithful readers and fine people. Seven songs of choice are heading your way and I'm really pleased you're here as we need to pull together and get through this next few days as scientists have proved that the 18th of January er...for want of a better word... peaks as the most depressing day of the year. Well don't panic. We'll get through it. I have songs of bleakness and heartbreak a plenty so we can wallow in it in unison. I would suggest you turn as many other sounds off as possible. Pour yourself something heavy. Candlelight is recommended as tonight we're gonna get deep. We've got readers from Australia to America's West Coast so if we all do this together, it becomes almost a seance around the oceans. Alone, together, in a really good way. Let's start with a song from 1983. I can tell you that the title of the song refers to a quiet street on the seafront of Bridlington on the Yorkshire East Coast. It's very close to where my mum's family are from so I'm always drawn to this area but it's beaches and landscapes are desolate and The North Sea shimmers in uninviting waves of grey and sepia. Ladies and Gentlemen, be still for our first track of the night by Ben Watt.
1. Ben Watt
North Marine Drive
2. What tonight needs now is some dark beat, electronic pop. I have the solution as I've got this from 2011 by the Swedish band Little Dragon. It's crystal clean throughout but the skittering drums and an amazing solo at the two minute mark lift it up and make it work. It doesn't try too hard to knock itself out of the park but it ends up doing just that by being so damn good. Also, I very much like the idea of our weekly meetings being thought of as ritual unions. Yes. I like that a lot.
2. Little Dragon
Ritual Union
3. Something a little more recent for our next track tonight. This comes from Australian Chet Faker (perhaps better known as Nick Murphy.) Some folks like to call this style of music "post dub-step." Well I don't know about that but it's got a real lo-fi stone cold groove to it that instantly appeals to me. I'm playing this now and it sounds just great with whiskey and candlelight. "Just because I feel low right now/It doesn't mean all that I've got has run out." Yeah. That works.
3. Chet Faker
Low
4. "I ask myself a million questions in the dark/I lay in silence, but silence talks/It tells me heaven is no closer than it was." Well that's a line that can easily shimmy it's way into tonight's Barfly Session and it comes from Lykke Li and Mark Ronson's collaboration from a couple of years back. This has a heartbeat like pulse pretty much all the way through it. Swedish singer Lykke Li has been on my radar since the album Wounded Rhymes which came out some 10 years ago or so and she does these dark pop records so very well. Her and Ronson cooked up a classic with this. Late Night Feelings is our next song tonight.
4. Mark Ronson & Lykke Li
Late Night Feelings
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5. As you'll know by now, track 5 on our Barfly Sessions is normally reserved for Andy Stelfox AKA The Fox. I am always intrigued by what he'll send over as he has a broad range to choose from. This week he's sent me this to play by Harry Nilsson. Nilsson and John Lennon were good friends of course (Lennon's famous "lost weekend" was shared with Nilsson) and they got themselves in trouble on both sides of The Atlantic but The Fox told me about a story of how they competed with each other to record the loudest sound they could. Steli said he doesn't know who won that battle but reportedly the next morning they found blood all over the microphone and Mr Nilsson's voice was never the same again. I have a similar kind of story as Stelfox himself knocked me off a fence a few years ago (whilst I was having a drink) and I landed on my elbow. Since then I've had continuous nerve spasms in my left arm and I know I owe that to our bushy tailed friend. Cheers Fox. Anyways, I digress. Here's Nilsson's version of "Everybody's Talking."
5. Harry Nilsson
Everybody's Talking
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6. If you've read these sessions before, you'll know I like to throw in little oddities and bits of information you may not know about. I'd like to tell you about a city in Russia called Norilsk that sits on the arctic circle. It's a closed city and you need to seek permission to visit. It's unique because for almost 2 whole months a year, owing to it's location, it stays in complete polar darkness. I find that hard to imagine but the 175,000 residents of this industrial city have adapted to it's lack of light and it's freezing temperatures. I would like to dedicate this next track to these folks and if anyone in Norilsk is reading this right now please get in touch and I'll send you a Horse & Feather mug for your good taste in blogs.
6. Moby
This Wild Darkness
7. Well we started on an acoustic track and as we push into the dead of night, we'll finish on one. John Martyn was probably one of the few mavericks around who could have given Harry Nilsson a run for his money when it came to having a wild night out. Just like Harry, John Martyn was blessed with a golden voice and a talent for penning the most heartfelt songs imaginable yet he was cursed with a destructive whiskey flash streak. This song from the album London Conversation is what we'll end with. "Although there might be other people in my life/Honey, on my mind/you will always find/there's only you." Goodnight friends. Get through the week and we'll meet again in seven days time. x
7. John Martyn
Back To Stay
