Travelling home

There are many things you can call home, a country, a neighbourhood, a house, a van, a person..... or your local pub.

I am lucky, in that I have all those things to call home.

There are few things that render me such an emotional nostalgic wreck as the idea of coming home, and seeing as this feeling resonates with me in so many aspects, it´s a feeling I am well accustomed to.

Music gives this feeling a partner in sound,  and these to me are the best examples.


Tim Buckley- Happy Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpMyogpnx0U

Sweet and warm and light, the sound of spring......it´s a happy time inside my mind when a melody does find a rhyme, says to me i´m comin home to stay...... It´s beautiful, advising his mama to "let the morning sun warm your bed while i´m away".

John Martyn- Over The Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwjL3ipBAhg

This beautiful little ditty seems as conflicted and baffling as the man himself. On first listen it´s a yearning for a countryside home and his wife, but it seems the touring life isn´t going to let go too easily. It seems more that home seems to him like an easy escape from ´sweet cocaine and mary jane´, as "there´s just one place for a man to be when he´s worried about his life". Not so romantic then, but a charming tune nonetheless.


Bonnie Raitt- Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hmnRg1Q67E

I love this woman and will not rest till she is worshipped for the goddess she is. Her voice to me has a sense of mourning, and is put to great use in this song. "Home sings me of sweet things, my life there has it´s own wings", beautiful stuff, and great imagery.
Travelling at night, the headlights were bright.....


Terry Reid- Faith To Arise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd63GVczu-8

This is such a sweet honest song. He describes being far away, away from his loved one and missing her, and he is on the phone to her and finds he has nothing to say, he just wants to BE THERE. Beautiful lyrics and gorgeous country slide in the mix.


Jethro Tull- Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG71S9VGKqQ

It´s so beautiful! So epic, slightly sad.....yet triumphant. Utterly romantic. Under 3 minutes of grand orchestration. "As the dawn breaks over sleepy gardens, I´ll be here to do all things to comfort you. And though I´ve been away, left you alone this way, why don´t you come awake and let your first smile take me home".

Greetings From L.A.

Tim Buckley

Greetings From L.A.

1. Move With Me

2. Get On Top

3. Sweet Surrender

4. Nighthawkin'

5. Devil Eyes

6. Hong Kong Bar

7. Make It Right

Greetings From L.A. is Tim Buckley's 7th album, and in fairly typical unfortunate Buckley style didn't set commercial fires alight when it was released in 1972. It's a million miles from his early romantic folk albums, and doesn't exactly lead on from the experimental jazz sounds of previous album Starsailor either, so many previously established and recently acquired fans were left a bit baffled......

It is, however an epic, sensual masterpiece of an album, with a confident, strutting Buckley proving his mastery of yet another musical style. Wikipedia calls this his 'Sex Funk' era, which is pretty accurate actually, as you can gather from some of the titles.

The album actually begins with the lyric 'I went down to the meat rack tavern, and I found myself a big ol' healthy girl'. In 'Devil Eyes' he sings about wanting to 'lick all around those stretch marks, lay the tongue between the toes'. In 'Get On Top' he sings that 'When I love you mama I talk in tongues'. 

Glorious.

This is pretty brash stuff, but he pulls it off. In the same sense as 'Foxy Lady'; it's an overtly confident display of male sexuality that just manages to come across as cheeky and playful, not sleazy (which, with lyrics like that, it probably should).

 It feels like a celebration, and Buckley sounds like he's having the time of his life, indulging in random bursts of explosive scatting. The soundtrack is mostly classic piano-based funk with lots of horns and brassy backing vocals, but there's variety too, and gentler tracks 'Sweet Surrender' and 'Hong Kong Bar' offer some time out. 

This is probably a bit of a marmite album. I love it, but I'm sure there are many who find it abrasive and cheesy and all a little bit much.
There's only one way to find out how YOU feel about it.....

'Nighthawkin'' (Wonderful lyrics) and 'Devil Eyes'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Lvlpk6hMU

'Move With Me'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2bBnraTj4

'Sweet Surrender'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-qNBxXjbI4


For more information go to http://www.timbuckley.com/