THE LAND

The Vinyl Records: Mary Margaret O’Hara, Miss America

May 9, 2016

Artist: Mary Margaret O’Hara
Album: Miss America
Label: Virgin Records Ltd.
Year: 1988
Cat.: VL 2559

A while back Judith sent me a link to a video on the internet. It was a live recording of “When you know when you’re happy.” That recording blew my mind. I didn’t know so-called popular music sounded like that back in the 1980s. And by a Canadian, yet! And by the sister of a famous Canadian comedian! Well, I had to know more.

The more I learned, the more I wanted to hear this album. The single solitary LP recorded by Mary Margaret O’Hara in Toronto back in 1984, ’85, ’86, ’87, and who knows maybe ’88 also. There is still a lot of mystery about the making of this album. You can look up the scant details elsewhere on the vast expanse of the internet. I will just talk about how the music sounds to me.

Right off the bat, it becomes clear that this is not a typical 80s pop album. O’Hara’s voice is just so beautiful, so different, so versatile. Her singing is very deep, by which I mean that the notes she sings, and the words she sings them to seem to come from deep inside without any mediating filters – like an artesian well flowing fresh and clear and ready to drink.

The opening track (“To cry about”) features nothing but the spaced out voice of M²O’H, accompanied by three spaced out guitars (one of them is even called an “infinite guitar”). Other highlights from the first side include “Body’s in trouble” and the aforementioned “When you know…”

The B-side runs through a diversity of musical styles – mellow, rocky, some kinda country. Somehow, though, with O’Hara’s voice and her careful arrangements, the whole thing makes sense.

I learned later that Toronto’s avant garde pop music scene was a pretty happenin’ place – with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno hanging out with The Spoons and Michael Brook (and his infinite guitar, which would find its way into the hands of The Edge on “With or without you”). I don’t know – it just seems to me like a pretty exciting time. It’s too bad that other album Mary Margaret O’Hara was supposed to record never was recorded… we can only imagine.

The Vinyl Records: Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms

March 4, 2016

Artist: Dire Straits
Album: Brothers in Arms
Label: Vertigo
Year: 1985
Cat.: VOG 1 3357

I have always known that I liked Dire Straits, and especially Brothers in Arms, but it was in listening today that I realized how excellent the first side is – how it stands out in the great vat of sound known as “popular music”. Each of the five cuts is unique in tone, style, and emotion – and yet when taken together they form a perfect musical arc, beginning with the upbeat guitar of “So Far Away,” moving into the (dare I say it) epic synth intro to “Money for Nothing,” and then drifting down gradually into one of the most beautiful rock ballads (can we call it that?) “Why Worry.”

Those of you who haven’t seen the movie Local Hero should do so. And those who have seen it will know that the soundtrack is great. It is Mark Knopfler’s debut film soundtrack, and you can hear the echoes of his cinematic experience in the space he creates on Brothers in Arms. The use of synth on this album is really quite effective, with straight forward leads on “Walk of Life” and subtle atmosphere on “Why Worry.”

I certainly haven’t created an exhaustive list in my mind yet, but I know that if I had to choose a few excellent “sides”, Side A of Brothers in Arms would sit next to the first three songs of U2’s The Joshua Tree.

“writing” music

February 5, 2016

When I was a child, my family had a vegetable garden. But the insects and disease always caused our vegetables to suffer, and we (my parents) weren’t that excited about pesticide dusts. So eventually we just took a few packets of wild flower seeds, shook them out around the garden, and let nature take its course.

The garden was beautiful, though we discovered in the following years that the wild flowers were in fact fairly invasive weeds, which slowly took over the lawn surrounding the garden in larger and larger patches each year. Beautiful, though, and it made mowing the lawn an aesthetically pleasing activity for me as a teenager.

I raise this scenario as a metaphor for song writing. I think my approach to song writing is somehow tied up with the familial approach to gardening – let nature take its course, and as much as possible get out of the way. I’ve tried writing songs with more intention – usually starting with a fairly satisfying verse and/or chorus, and trying to stretch it out to a second verse or a bridge. I have to say it’s a rare instance when that second verse isn’t overly sentimental, self-aware, or just bad. Like, my ability to write songs stalled out in its development around grade seven. Likewise for the music to accompany a lyric – as soon as I try in any way, the music immediately suffers, becoming awkward, trite, or boring.

So I am left with only one strategy: spend as much time as possible with my thoughts and my guitar, leaving the door open for nuggets to arrive ready-made, with some paper and a pen handy to remember them by.