Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot...
Jan. 15th, 2007 01:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silversolitaireReferring to my little entry two days ago I thought I talk about a couple of songs by Joshua Kadison that I found especially inspiring and lovely. Maybe some of you guys are interested in them...
I'm actually a little unsure about how to proceed now. Part of me wants to ramble on about the songs. But the other part wants you to check them out yourself and have your own opinion on them before you get influenced by me. I guess I'll just do the rambling and put it under a cut.
The first songs are from his debut album, Painted Desert Serenade. For starters, here's the eponymous song, Painted Desert Serenade. Like I said in my little essay, that's the song that won me over. It's the second track and it's just so lovely. The music just spoke to me, it was so light-hearted and good-natured, but the thing that really won my heart were the lyrics.
I could see the images appear in front of my eyes, those two old people sitting on a couch in a light-flooded room with tall windows and white window frames. He's wearing a white suit and has small nickle spectacles perched on his nose, his white hair is combed and parted to the side and curling a little at the ends. He has this amused twinkle in his eyes and half-smile on his lips that people probably found very attractive already when he was a young man. She is wearing a flowing light-blue dress, rings with large gems adorning her boney fingers, has an elegant, long neck and wrinkled, slightly translucent skin. Her blue eyes are large and sparkling with memories like diamonds. Her short hair is put into graceful curls and held in place with a glittering clip.
*feels a bit silly* Those are just images that have popped into my head whenever I've listened to the song. I'm sure other people see other things. And that's the beauty of it. Anyway, moving on.
The third track is Beau's All Night Radio Love Line. I've always liked the quiet melancholy about it. Slight touches of country, slow and wistful. The lyrics are lovely, as usual, telling a multi-layered story of different characters, all listening to the same call-in show. Like in most of his songs, you get the feeling Joshua is telling you one of his many experiences of his exciting life, but for his benefit I'm going to assume this is the narrator, and not him personally.
Either way, in this case the narrator is a young man who has an older lover. Again, this is my personal interpretation of the song. He's having a loose thing going on with this woman called Samantha who appreciates his attention and she offers him her wisdom and experience in return. But she knows that sooner or later she won't be able to hold his attention anymore and it makes her sad. They both listen to this call-in show together during on of their quiet nights and muse about how strange it is that in the end everybody's sad story of a love gone by is the same, including theirs.
Going a bit out of order now, Picture Postcards From L.A. is another one of my favorites. Again, it's heavy with a story waiting to be told. Here, our hero is a pianist in a bar who knows a waitress called Rachel, an aspiring actress who of course doesn't stand a chance in this small godforsaken town they're in. So her biggest dream is to earn enough money to go to L.A. one day. The narrator listens to her going on about her plans every night as they lay in bed together and he doesn't really encourage or discourage her, just hears her out and tells her to send him a postcard when she gets there. Of course, she never actually goes.
Just like many other of Joshua's songs, this one deals with hopes and dreams that stay unfulfilled. Like in this other song from the same album which I'm not presenting here, called Georgia Rain. It features Jessie again and the trailer that is mentioned in her own song. One line that moved me especially was, "There's a trailer by the sea, down in Mexico. We dreamt a lot about it, but we never did go. Some dreams a better from afar, but that's just how things are." To me, this speaks of hope in a way, even if your dreams stay dreams forever. It's good to dream, even if you might never get it.
This song is especially important to me, because it played a huge part in my life at some point. When I was in L.A. I couldn't stop thinking about exactly that. I prowled through all the stores until I found a picture postcard of L.A. with the California sun and I wrote "I made it! Love, forevermore" on it. It may be silly, but it was important to me. I still have it. Just like Rachel, I never "made it"... Kinda funny, too, that in 1998 I travelled the same track that Jessie did. From Las Vegas over L.A. to Mexico. That was... amazing.
Since I just mentioned Jessie I guess I should present the song, too. It's the first track and probably the song most people would know by Joshua. It was in the charts for a while in the mid-90s. I'm only mentioning it now for that reason and because it's not necessarily my most favorite one. I still like it, of course, and it basically was what made me fall in love with Joshua, but still. It's a bit worn out I guess.
What struck me the most about this song was this fascinating relationship it described about this guy who keeps getting called by this girl. He can't really resist her spirit and joy of life, so he keeps meeting her even though she'll end up breaking his heart again. But he doesn't care because it's worth it, every time. His adventures with her are the much needed break from reality that give him strength to go on again. Incidentally, it's also pretty much the first "long-ish" short story I wrote! Well, wrote and actually finished, haha. I wrote it about this song, imagining them meeting, going on a trip together for one crazy weekend. Then she runs off again, like she always does, and he stays behind, happy and hopeful, knowing that sooner or later she'll swing by again eventually.
Last from this album I give you two songs which pretty much speak for themselves. They don't so much tell a story than illustrate sentiments everyone of us has felt at some point. At least that's true for Invisible Man. The other song, Mama's Arms might be autobiographical. I'm saying "might" because I can't really confirm it. Somehow this is what I remember from my heavy fandom days when I read each and every article and interview. But since I can't make sure, I'm going to be cautious. Either way, it's heartbreaking.
You know, in a way it's a bit frustrating that most songs who made it into the charts by Josh were those really smarmy love songs that don't really have any meaning, such as Beautiful in My Eyes. It's a nice song and all, but it's really just one of many love songs and doesn't carry a message or meaning. Yet, this seems to be the only glimpse the public got of his work. Same thing happened with Delilah Blue where the only actual single was Take it on Faith which is just as boring a love song as the other one. *shakes head*
Now wasn't that just the perfect lead-in to the next album? Delilah Blue!
I really had to force myself to stop here. Otherwise I probably would have covered the entire album. Somehow, all songs grow on you so much at some point that you just can't imagine not showing them to everyone you meet. When you're a little blues-y/gospel-y inclined (which I am), some of those tunes just make your heart thud in your chest and make you want to shout out loud with joy. Listen to the Lambs and The Gospel According To My Ol' Man are songs like that. I'm going to talk a bit about them.
The first one is just plain gospel, so it's not really worth a lot of words. The second talks about the narrator's father and how they both used to hang out outside of church and listen to the music drifting over to them. Our hero wonders about the questions of life and God, but he's never received a religious education from his father and yet he's given him the most important lesson imagineable: "Love's the only thing worth a damn".
Not that deep, but with the music, it's just awesome.
Now let's move on to a very special song, Delilah Blue. I've already covered what it means to me in the other post, so I'm not going to get into that again, but I'm just going to say that it's all kinds of awesome. It's incredibly long, almost ten minutes, and it just goes on and on telling you the story of these two people in magnificent detail until you feel like they're your best friends. Adding to that is this slow, sentimental piano with strings and drums that just tears the emotion right out of you.
The song details the story of Delilah Blue, an aging drag queen who's sitting in his motel room, wondering about how life has slipped through his fingers without him even noticing it. He's feeling sobered by life and his dreams that have all faded away like a drawing left out in the sun. Now he's only got his friend Susan, also a drag queen, to listen to his reflective ramble, his only remaining companion after all of his other friends have long gone.
If you've got your own ideas about the song, please share them with me, because I'd love to know them! ^^
Next is Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot. The beautiful thing about Joshua's albums is that you always have the feeling you're kinda listening to an ongoing story, illustrated song by song. In this song we learn about Neffertiti in all its beautiful gospel glory.
It's another one of the women along the path of our narrator who had an influence on him. In this case, our hero is a young lad who's left home and is now trying to get by, keeping up his own weight by sweeping warehouse floors at night. He meets Neffertiti as she moves into his building and they quickly form a friendship. They spend a lot of time together and she shares her philosophy of life with him. She makes him keep in touch with his family and just tries to tell him that life is nothing but loneliness and sadness when you don't keep people who love you close to you.
Again, it's one of those songs that just make the images pop right into my head. I don't know why but I've always imagined Nefferiti to be this gorgeous woman with ebony skin and dark eyes, round hips, lush figure. I can see them sitting at her kitchen table with this 70s flowers print that's peeling off at the sides... maybe there's a burn mark on it too, where someone's put down a hot pan carelessly once. She's leaning against the kitchen sink, rambling about life while he's sitting there, trying to pen a letter to his folks back at home...
Now, onto the final song I'm going to cover here, Waiting In Green Velvet. Very similar instrumentation as Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot or The Gospel and many other songs which is probably the reason why I get the impression they're somehow connected. The story is quickly told, about a woman waiting for her bus, full of hopes and dreams, and somehow I always thought this was Neffertiti. Might just be me of course.
Hm, maybe I should mention for completeness' sake that on the album there's also a song called The Song on Neffertiti's Radio, just to illustrate you they all tie up nicely and build one well-rounded piece.
Phew... I'm kinda powered out now. I guess I'll just go ahead and post it now and see if the music touches you guys as it touched me! :)
I'm actually a little unsure about how to proceed now. Part of me wants to ramble on about the songs. But the other part wants you to check them out yourself and have your own opinion on them before you get influenced by me. I guess I'll just do the rambling and put it under a cut.
The first songs are from his debut album, Painted Desert Serenade. For starters, here's the eponymous song, Painted Desert Serenade. Like I said in my little essay, that's the song that won me over. It's the second track and it's just so lovely. The music just spoke to me, it was so light-hearted and good-natured, but the thing that really won my heart were the lyrics.
I could see the images appear in front of my eyes, those two old people sitting on a couch in a light-flooded room with tall windows and white window frames. He's wearing a white suit and has small nickle spectacles perched on his nose, his white hair is combed and parted to the side and curling a little at the ends. He has this amused twinkle in his eyes and half-smile on his lips that people probably found very attractive already when he was a young man. She is wearing a flowing light-blue dress, rings with large gems adorning her boney fingers, has an elegant, long neck and wrinkled, slightly translucent skin. Her blue eyes are large and sparkling with memories like diamonds. Her short hair is put into graceful curls and held in place with a glittering clip.
*feels a bit silly* Those are just images that have popped into my head whenever I've listened to the song. I'm sure other people see other things. And that's the beauty of it. Anyway, moving on.
The third track is Beau's All Night Radio Love Line. I've always liked the quiet melancholy about it. Slight touches of country, slow and wistful. The lyrics are lovely, as usual, telling a multi-layered story of different characters, all listening to the same call-in show. Like in most of his songs, you get the feeling Joshua is telling you one of his many experiences of his exciting life, but for his benefit I'm going to assume this is the narrator, and not him personally.
Either way, in this case the narrator is a young man who has an older lover. Again, this is my personal interpretation of the song. He's having a loose thing going on with this woman called Samantha who appreciates his attention and she offers him her wisdom and experience in return. But she knows that sooner or later she won't be able to hold his attention anymore and it makes her sad. They both listen to this call-in show together during on of their quiet nights and muse about how strange it is that in the end everybody's sad story of a love gone by is the same, including theirs.
Going a bit out of order now, Picture Postcards From L.A. is another one of my favorites. Again, it's heavy with a story waiting to be told. Here, our hero is a pianist in a bar who knows a waitress called Rachel, an aspiring actress who of course doesn't stand a chance in this small godforsaken town they're in. So her biggest dream is to earn enough money to go to L.A. one day. The narrator listens to her going on about her plans every night as they lay in bed together and he doesn't really encourage or discourage her, just hears her out and tells her to send him a postcard when she gets there. Of course, she never actually goes.
Just like many other of Joshua's songs, this one deals with hopes and dreams that stay unfulfilled. Like in this other song from the same album which I'm not presenting here, called Georgia Rain. It features Jessie again and the trailer that is mentioned in her own song. One line that moved me especially was, "There's a trailer by the sea, down in Mexico. We dreamt a lot about it, but we never did go. Some dreams a better from afar, but that's just how things are." To me, this speaks of hope in a way, even if your dreams stay dreams forever. It's good to dream, even if you might never get it.
This song is especially important to me, because it played a huge part in my life at some point. When I was in L.A. I couldn't stop thinking about exactly that. I prowled through all the stores until I found a picture postcard of L.A. with the California sun and I wrote "I made it! Love, forevermore" on it. It may be silly, but it was important to me. I still have it. Just like Rachel, I never "made it"... Kinda funny, too, that in 1998 I travelled the same track that Jessie did. From Las Vegas over L.A. to Mexico. That was... amazing.
Since I just mentioned Jessie I guess I should present the song, too. It's the first track and probably the song most people would know by Joshua. It was in the charts for a while in the mid-90s. I'm only mentioning it now for that reason and because it's not necessarily my most favorite one. I still like it, of course, and it basically was what made me fall in love with Joshua, but still. It's a bit worn out I guess.
What struck me the most about this song was this fascinating relationship it described about this guy who keeps getting called by this girl. He can't really resist her spirit and joy of life, so he keeps meeting her even though she'll end up breaking his heart again. But he doesn't care because it's worth it, every time. His adventures with her are the much needed break from reality that give him strength to go on again. Incidentally, it's also pretty much the first "long-ish" short story I wrote! Well, wrote and actually finished, haha. I wrote it about this song, imagining them meeting, going on a trip together for one crazy weekend. Then she runs off again, like she always does, and he stays behind, happy and hopeful, knowing that sooner or later she'll swing by again eventually.
Last from this album I give you two songs which pretty much speak for themselves. They don't so much tell a story than illustrate sentiments everyone of us has felt at some point. At least that's true for Invisible Man. The other song, Mama's Arms might be autobiographical. I'm saying "might" because I can't really confirm it. Somehow this is what I remember from my heavy fandom days when I read each and every article and interview. But since I can't make sure, I'm going to be cautious. Either way, it's heartbreaking.
You know, in a way it's a bit frustrating that most songs who made it into the charts by Josh were those really smarmy love songs that don't really have any meaning, such as Beautiful in My Eyes. It's a nice song and all, but it's really just one of many love songs and doesn't carry a message or meaning. Yet, this seems to be the only glimpse the public got of his work. Same thing happened with Delilah Blue where the only actual single was Take it on Faith which is just as boring a love song as the other one. *shakes head*
Now wasn't that just the perfect lead-in to the next album? Delilah Blue!
I really had to force myself to stop here. Otherwise I probably would have covered the entire album. Somehow, all songs grow on you so much at some point that you just can't imagine not showing them to everyone you meet. When you're a little blues-y/gospel-y inclined (which I am), some of those tunes just make your heart thud in your chest and make you want to shout out loud with joy. Listen to the Lambs and The Gospel According To My Ol' Man are songs like that. I'm going to talk a bit about them.
The first one is just plain gospel, so it's not really worth a lot of words. The second talks about the narrator's father and how they both used to hang out outside of church and listen to the music drifting over to them. Our hero wonders about the questions of life and God, but he's never received a religious education from his father and yet he's given him the most important lesson imagineable: "Love's the only thing worth a damn".
Not that deep, but with the music, it's just awesome.
Now let's move on to a very special song, Delilah Blue. I've already covered what it means to me in the other post, so I'm not going to get into that again, but I'm just going to say that it's all kinds of awesome. It's incredibly long, almost ten minutes, and it just goes on and on telling you the story of these two people in magnificent detail until you feel like they're your best friends. Adding to that is this slow, sentimental piano with strings and drums that just tears the emotion right out of you.
The song details the story of Delilah Blue, an aging drag queen who's sitting in his motel room, wondering about how life has slipped through his fingers without him even noticing it. He's feeling sobered by life and his dreams that have all faded away like a drawing left out in the sun. Now he's only got his friend Susan, also a drag queen, to listen to his reflective ramble, his only remaining companion after all of his other friends have long gone.
If you've got your own ideas about the song, please share them with me, because I'd love to know them! ^^
Next is Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot. The beautiful thing about Joshua's albums is that you always have the feeling you're kinda listening to an ongoing story, illustrated song by song. In this song we learn about Neffertiti in all its beautiful gospel glory.
It's another one of the women along the path of our narrator who had an influence on him. In this case, our hero is a young lad who's left home and is now trying to get by, keeping up his own weight by sweeping warehouse floors at night. He meets Neffertiti as she moves into his building and they quickly form a friendship. They spend a lot of time together and she shares her philosophy of life with him. She makes him keep in touch with his family and just tries to tell him that life is nothing but loneliness and sadness when you don't keep people who love you close to you.
Again, it's one of those songs that just make the images pop right into my head. I don't know why but I've always imagined Nefferiti to be this gorgeous woman with ebony skin and dark eyes, round hips, lush figure. I can see them sitting at her kitchen table with this 70s flowers print that's peeling off at the sides... maybe there's a burn mark on it too, where someone's put down a hot pan carelessly once. She's leaning against the kitchen sink, rambling about life while he's sitting there, trying to pen a letter to his folks back at home...
Now, onto the final song I'm going to cover here, Waiting In Green Velvet. Very similar instrumentation as Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot or The Gospel and many other songs which is probably the reason why I get the impression they're somehow connected. The story is quickly told, about a woman waiting for her bus, full of hopes and dreams, and somehow I always thought this was Neffertiti. Might just be me of course.
Hm, maybe I should mention for completeness' sake that on the album there's also a song called The Song on Neffertiti's Radio, just to illustrate you they all tie up nicely and build one well-rounded piece.
Phew... I'm kinda powered out now. I guess I'll just go ahead and post it now and see if the music touches you guys as it touched me! :)
