1. Hello friends. Bring yourselves closer and lets get communal as it's that time of the week where I serve up seven songs for you to soak up like a sponge. Someone once told me the great thing about a sponge is that it doesn't care if it soaks up champagne or piss. I am still puzzling over the context of this and I feel it should make some kind of sense by now but lets not worry about that. Disconnect yourself from all other distractions. Turn off the television, unplug the kids etc etc. The Horse & Feather Barfly Session 47 is here like your favourite comfort blanket. This week marks the first decade since the Japanese Tsunami in 2011. The photographs of loss and devastation were widespread but there was one photograph I saw printed in a newspaper that hurt me to the core. The picture was of two infant school kids sat on a kerb waiting to be collected by their parents. Unbeknownst to those two children, their parents had been swept away and would not be coming to pick them up. Not then. Not ever. Man, that photograph really got to me. Never forgotten it. Just this week I was reading about how the people affected by the tragedy managed to recover. Can you recover? I read of a man who had lost a close family member who used a disconnected phone box to contact them. It was his solace. This pristine white phone box is remotely situated in the town of Ĺtsuchi. Somehow word spread and it is said that 1000's of people have now used the phone box to talk to those who are no longer with them. It helps them grieve. They call it a wind phone. I read that and thought about this song and that's where we'll begin.
1. Labi Siffre
Bless The Telephone
2. In a similar vein to the above, I thought of this song and thought "yeah, why not?" This is just great. Perhaps you haven't heard of County Line Runner (AKA Adam Day) but you should. You really should. This might make you squint a little but he is like a British Bruce Springsteen. Have a listen. Hopefully you'll see what I mean and it will make some semblance of sense. "I thought the morning/Would come out and kill it/Like the sunlight/And burn right through it."
2. County Line Runner
Saw You In A Dream
3. Absolutely and one hundred percent honestly, I did not set out for this weeks Barfly Session to have any theme at all but it would seem we're in the midst of something here. Alienation, loss, healing. All of that. Difficult to be exact about it but there is an undercurrent growing here and I've learnt to let it be. If that's the way it's gonna go, so be it. See where the river bends and all that malarkey. Sometimes the songs almost choose themselves in the way that they present themselves. For instance, I heard this amazing song on the radio just last night and I wouldn't have heard it if I hadn't missed my turn off the M62 motorway (what a numpty) thus making my journey home 25 minutes longer. Back to simple twists of fate again. The urgency and intensity of this record is immense. It has it's own undercurrent. I love that. Have a listen to Francis of Delirium.
3. Francis of Delirium
Let It All Go
4. Now this next track is just a really lovely record and it will nestle perfectly into this session. The band is Before Cars. The singer is Chad Channing, original Nirvana drummer before Dave Grohl. I love this for it's departure from that hard, grunge rock sound he'll forever be associated with. Here we have keyboards and violins... and it's beautiful. So lets play it.
4. Before Cars
Catch You When You Fall
5. You will all know that track 5 on these sessions would normally be reserved for our friend Stelfox but alas, this week we'll have to do without him. No bothers, I've got a song to fill the void. I think this just sounds super cool whether you're a brandy drinker, red wine drinker, white wine drinker or whether you're just a plain old beer drinking alecan. Get on this.
5. Woods
Weekend Wind
6. "There was a time when false information wasn't so rampant in the sphere/There was a time when you weren't questioning everything you hear/Do you remember?" This next track we'll hear is almost like two tracks in one. You'll see what I mean when this track hits 3 minutes 23 seconds. I cocked a curious ear to this the first time I heard it and since then it's grown and grown on me. This Texan band are called Heartless Bastards and they've got a lead singer (Erika Wennerstrom) that has an almost hypnotic quality to her voice. I'm hooked.
6. Heartless Bastards
Revolution
7. Our last song tonight was written by Irving Berlin but there are many, many covers out there. Many of them from the greats too. This however, is my favourite. A gentle and hopeful way to finish and I feel it's a splendid way to say goodnight... so goodnight to all. Check back in again next week and we'll do it all over again. May your worlds keep turning forward until then. Bye for now folks x.
