In this (remastered) show I indulge you once more with a nice blend of music genres from music history. A selection of epic songs from the past with lyrics touching on our lives.
| TITLE | ARTIST | COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|
| Black Man in a White World | Michael Kiwanuka | Michael Kiwanuka’s song is about his lack of self-esteem because he never really felt fitted in with the stereotypes of black culture. |
| Going Back To My Roots | Odyssey | “Going Back to My Roots” is a 1977 song by Lamont Dozier, a member of Holland–Dozier–Holland, the songwriting and production team responsible for much of the Motown sound. The song was written for the African-American market and touches on the matters of self-identity, family, and soul fulfilment. |
| Alors on danse (ft. Erik Hassle) | Stromae | “Alors On Danse” or “So we dance” the breakthrough single from Stromae in 2009. Wonder-boy Stromae was born as Paul van Haver in Etterbeek, Belgium as son of a Flemish mother and Rwandan Tutsi father. Stromae established himself as sort of a vocal activist and more songs about existential angst and personal trauma’s would follow. Recently, he was awarded as best male artist in France at the “Victoire de la music” for his latest album “Multitude” after a nine year career break. |
| Fade To Grey | Visage | British band Visage and “Fade to grey” released in 1980. Frontman Steve Strange was assisted by the Belgian French spoken Brigitte Arens. Chris Payne wrote this song along with Visage band members Billy Currie and Midge Ure. Family is the key to staying colourful. If you lost the “joix de vivre” without human touch…you eventually may lose your purpose and fade to grey. |
| Human Nature | Michael Jackson | The song demo was initiated by Toto band members. Steve Porcaro was inspired by bringing comfort to his daughter’s bad experience at school. His fellow keyboard player David Paich added some synthesizer strings to it. The demo got into the hands of producer Quincy Jones and the rest is history. |
| Don’t Look Back In Anger | Oasis | “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by OASIS in which the Gallagher brothers recall St Patrick’s Day when their Mum would take their picture beside the fireplace to send it to Grandma in Ireland. Noel looked grumpy in these photos, so she told him to take that look from off his face. As stated once by Noel Gallagher, his alcoholic father “beat the talent into him”. The song became an anthem of solidarity after the Manchester terrorist attack. Three days after the suicide bomber killed 22 people at the Manchester arena, people gathered in the city centre to observe a minute of silence in honor of the victims. Following the silence, the crowd started singing this tune in an act of camaraderie. |
| My Father’s Eyes | Eric Clapton | Eric Clapton was raised by his grandparents and lost his son Conor in 1991 at age 4. In his song “My Father’s Eyes” of 1998 he tried to describe the parallel between looking into the eyes of his son and seeing the eyes of the father he had never met. |
| Father & Son | Cat Stevens | Stevens’ father, Stavros Georgiou, owned a restaurant in London, hoping his son Steven would join his family business. But Steven Georgiou pursued a music career. In 1965 he changed his name to “Steve Adams” then to Cat Stevens and adopted the name “Yusuf” when he converted to Islam in December 1977. |
| Seven Seconds (ft. Neneh Cherry) | Youssou N’Dour | “‘7 Seconds’ is about the first positive 7 seconds in the life of a child just born not knowing about the problems and violence in our world.” Three different languages were used in this song: English, French and Wolof, which is a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania. |
| Born Under a Bad Sign | Richard Hawley | Richard Hawley was born in January 1967, in Sheffield, England. “Born Under A Bad Sign” is one of the lovely retro sounds that Hawley, as the crooner, masters. He tells the story of someone who has had an eventful life and who’s partner needs reassurance, commitment. |
| Why | Annie Lennox | This was the first single Annie Lennox released after the 1990 breakup of Eurythmics, (her duo with Dave Stewart). She had recently become a mother, her father had died, and she was just getting going as a solo artist. |
| Les Enfants De Mes Enfants | Claude Michel Schonberg | “Les Enfants De Mes Enfants” a song from French singer and musical composer Claude-Michel Schönberg. The lyrics go “The children of my children, running in the fields in the middle of the Milky Way, will tell of me while mocking, our grandfather was a singer in a wild and lying World”. |
| Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) | Pink Floyd | Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) taken from Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera The Wall. Bassist and songwriter Roger Waters reflected on how schooling had been playing a part in his life and ended up with this protest song (against corporal punishment, and rigid and abusive schooling). |
| Gangsta’s Paradise | Coolio | Coolio and “Gangsta’s Paradise” of 1995 with a sample of Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” and why it has no profanity in it. The song is linked with the autobiographical picture “Dangerous Minds” where Michelle Pfeifer plays the role of LouAnne Johnson, a former marine, teaching a high school class of tough, sullen teenagers. |
| Games People Play (ft. Marc Almond) | Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra | “Games People Play” is the bestselling book published in 1964 by Psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne which uncovered the dynamics of human relationships. The song “Games People Play” written, composed, and originally performed by American singer-songwriter Joe South in August 1968 is a protest song against various forms of hatred, hypocrisy, inhumanity, intolerance, and irresponsibility, in both interpersonal and social interactions between people. Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra with vocals by Marc Almond (known from Soft Cell) released this version on their album “Moving Out to the Country” in 2006. |
| Everybody Wants To Rule The World | Tears For Fears | Tears For Fears’ band member Curt Smith explained that “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” is about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes. |
| We Did’nt Start The Fire | Billy Joel | “We Didn’t Start The Fire” from Billy Joel in 1989 is a stream-of-consciousness list of events that Billy Joel felt his generation, the baby boomers, was not responsible for. A lot of the references are to the Cold War (US vs. Russia), a problem his generation, the baby boomers, inherited. |
| Golden Years | David Bowie | The song utilises elements of 1950s doo-wop and the multi-tracked vocal refrain resembles the Diamonds’ 1958 single “Happy Years”. The main guitar riff is based on the 1968 Cliff Nobles and Company song “The Horse”. Rumour has it that David Bowie wrote the song for Elvis Presley, who just returned a note wishing Bowie good luck. |
| Superstition | Stevie Wonder | “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, playing Hohner clavinet, drums and Moog Synth Bass. The track was intended for Jeff Beck, who was brought in to play some guitar parts on the album in exchange for a song. Wonder wrote this about the dangers of believing in superstitions. Some of the bad luck superstitions he alludes to include walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror (said to bring seven years of bad luck), and the number 13. |
| Nothing Rhymed | Gilbert O’Sullivan | According to Irish singer-songwriter O’Sullivan, he wrote the song after seeing film footage of starving children in Africa (during the Nigerian Civil War) on television for the first time. He started as a drummer in a band called Rick’s Blues, founded by Rick Davies who later founded Supertramp and who taught O’Sullivan how to play both drums and piano. Hence his style of piano-playing, which often utilises a distinct, percussive piano pattern. O’Sullivan has explained “My left hand is hitting the high hat and the right hand is the snare. |
| Dreamer | Supertramp | This song was composed by Supertramp’s singer Roger Hodgson on his mother’s Wurlitzer piano at 19. “Dreamer” appeared on British band Supertramp successful album of 1974 “Crime of the Century”. This song is about a guy with big dreams who is incapable of acting on them, so they never come true. |
| Blame | Gabriels | Gabriels and “Blame” from 2021. The band is named after St. Gabriels Avenue, the street in Sunderland, England that producer Ryan Hope grew up on. They fuse musical styles such as gospel, doo-wop and jazz. Their special recording technique creates a vintage sound with the stunning gospel vocals of Compton’s Jacob Lusk. When examining our life’s problems, we hastily assign blame. ‘This happened because of this…’ The song ‘Blame’ seeks to examine the construct of not only fault and shame, but take a deep dive into the world of addiction, and indulgence”. |
| Heaven Is a Place on Earth | Belinda Carlisle | The song is about peace of mind and the hopeful idea you can make your own heaven on your own patch (in your comfort zone). Belinda Carlisle was the lead singer of the all female band the Go-Go’s. The song features Thomas Dolby on keyboards, and among the backing singers were Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) and the song’s writers, Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley. |
| To My Father’s House | Les Humphries Singers | Englishman Les Humpries lived and worked in Hamburg, Germany, and formed ‘The Les Humphries Singers’ in 1970. “To My Father’s House”, a passage from the Bible set to a snappy tune, was their biggest hit in 1970. |
| Who’ll Come With Me (David’s Song) | The Kelly Family | The Kelly Family is an Irish-American family music group. In 1965 they settled in Spain and in the seventies the Kelly Kids popularity increased in Spain. They play a repertoire of rock, pop, and folk music, and sing fluently in English, Spanish, German, and Basque. After signing a record contract in Germany their first major chart hit came in 1980, with the song “Who’ll Come With Me (David’s Song). Family father Dan Kelly, wrote the lyrics for the instrumental composed by Vladimir Cosma. His twelve year old son John Kelly performed as lead singer. |
| Beautiful People | Melanie | Melanie Safka (Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk), an American singer and songwriter, born 3 February 1947 in Astoria, New York City, USA. She was a flower child of the Flower Power era and had her breakthrough at 18 during the Woodstock festival. The inspiration for “Beautiful People” came during a New York City blackout that happened in Melanie’s childhood. “It was dark,” Melanie said. “There were old people in the building. (OK, maybe they were in their 40s, but they seemed old at the time.)” Melanie handed candles out during the emergency. “The evening was magical,” she recalls. “It was anything but cold and uncaring, which was New York’s reputation. Days after the blackout, on the subway, I was thinking, ‘beautiful people caring from the heart.’” |
| In My Life | The Beatles | “In my Life” a masterpiece by Lennon–McCartney with George Martin delivering the piano solo bridge. Autobiographical lyrics talking about people from Lennon’s childhood and younger years. |
| One Day Like This | Elbow | Elbow’s lead singer Guy Garvey had the chorus line lyric for several years in his diary: “one day like this a year would see me right”. The band’s 2009 BRIT Award and 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony appearance gave the single an extra boost into the charts. |
| The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan | Marianne Faithfull | “The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan” was originally recorded by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show in 1975. Shel Silverstein wrote this song, which is about a woman who lives a comfortable, middle class lifestyle, but goes crazy. In 1979 English singer Marianne Faithfull released her version with a happy end interpretation of the song. The woman gets taken away by “the man who reached and offered her his hand” and in a “long white car” (an ambulance) rides along to a psychiatric hospital. |
| Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes | The Korgis | Korgis’ member James Warren on vocals and bass, at the time, was very into Buddhist philosophy. Back in 1980 he pleaded in this song to break away from your social conditioning (oops how is this possible today) and to look at the world as if you were looking at it for the first time without any preconceptions. The lyrics are about changing fundamentally the way we look at life, the way we look at other people. Change your heart and look at the world with completely fresh eyes, not with the eyes of our social conditioning. |
| I Shall Be Released | Nina Simone | With “I Shall Be Released” Bob Dylan wrote his very own ‘prison song’. In 1967 he recorded it first in collaboration with the Band during the Basement Tapes sessions. Four years later in 1971 Dylan recorded an new version with altered arrangement and lyrics. Nick Cave once told he thinks Nina Simone sings other artist’s tracks better than her own. Indeed, in her version of Dylan’s song she is again moving like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. |
| Green Green Grass Of Home | Tom Jones | Nashville songwriter Claude “Curly” Putman Jr. wrote in 1964 this song that was inspired by a crime scene in John Huston’s film noir “The Asphalt Jungle” of 1950. “Green Green Grass Of Home” was Tom Jones’ biggest hit in the UK. Welshman Tom Jones learned the song from Jerry Lee Lewis, while staying in New York in 1965. But there exist of course many other cover versions and interpretations in different languages: Afrikaans (“Groene Velde Van My Land”), Czech, Danish (“Det grønne græs”), French, German (‘Der Weg zurück nach Haus’), Portuguese (“Os Verdes Campos Da Minha Terra”), Serbian (“Zelena trava doma mog”), Swedish (“En sång en gång för länge sen”) and so on, and so on. I couldn’t find a Spanish version though … In 1967 Dalida called it “Les grilles de ma maison” (the gates or bars of my house) while Nana Mouskouri (and Les Compagnons de la Chanson) called it “Le toit de ma maison” (the roof of my house). Maybe Dalida felt more imprisoned after attempting to take her life. |
| New World In The Morning | Roger Whittaker | On the album with the same name, Whittaker seems to be obsessed by mornings. He’s got four consecutive titles: “Early One Morning”, “Morning Please Don’t Come”, “New World in the Morning” and “Good Morning Starshine”. |
| What A Difference A Day Makes | Esther Phillips | “What a Diff’rence a Day Made”, also recorded as “What a Difference a Day Makes” is a song with a long history. It was originally written in Spanish by María Joaquina Grever, a Mexican songwriter, in 1934 with the title “Cuando vuelva a tu lado”. American songwriter Stanley Adams translated the song into “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes”. Orquesta Pedro Vía first recorded it in 1934. Thirty years later in 1964 it was recorded by the Trio Los Panchos with Eydie Gormé. Meanwhile, in 1959, Dinah Washington won a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance with her version of the song. It was Esther Phillips that made her comeback in 1975 with this disco version. |
Sources
The information sources of the song facts include, but are not limited to, Wikipedia, songfacts.com, discogs.com, secondhandsongs.com, YouTube and artists’ related websites.
