Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. That was from that song but the sentiment is probably unrealistic, and you might even say perhaps a little sinister. I might even close my curtains.
There, I’ve done that now so we can get started. As suggested by the misplaced opening line, I have been attempting to better get to know my other salvific go-getters at church. This is not easy because at the moment just as I start to get to know someone, two more people come through the doors and decide to never leave. It’s getting hectic, but this year I propose to be thorough in getting to know people. Getting to know all about them. I’m not starting that again, but I did recently stumble into a brilliant idea to help me along.
What if, I thought, What if I got my church play buddy Simon to play a game of us each inventing criteria to which we must both offer up songs? That’s a good idea, John, I thought further and began to create the rules and the subsequent ways that I might get around them if I fancied crowbarring an incredulous entry. I had already figured that Simon would do the same if he played along and I quickly got the rules down to each of us taking command of the criterion on one day and handing that over the next day, and so on, Monday to Saturday. By the end of the week we might perhaps then be able to say that we each knew something more of the man. Plus I knew that we would muck-about doing it. Totally kosher fellowship.
Let’s get started. Monday was my choice of criteria creation and I went straight for the avant-garde. Obviously I wanted to impress.
‘Imagine you are on a well lit and smooth motorway after midnight,’ I started, remarking that this counts out driving in Britain. ‘You have no passengers and the rhythmic flow of the passing lights has you running at a high cruising speed. What song are you slipping into the diskette?’
Now I should tell you that Simon is a proper musical guy, not just a fan of the sounds music makes like me, and when he gets into a musical question he does so fast and deep. My WhatsApp ting began tinging almost immediately to double check the rules of engagement and then his choice came through.
Bun e Vinul Ghiorghiuliu by Maria Tanase. Romanian folk music. If you are not sure about any of this, this is your last chance to check-out.
So obviously Simon wasn’t going to take the avant-garde thing lying down and when I got home from gardening that day I got that song playing and knew that Simon was taking this seriously. He even sent me a picture with it, and although I am not obliged to show that I will say, an E-Type Jaguar with himself sat in the drivers seat. Cheshire smile in Chrome. He had very specific emotions to go with it about a very specific road journey between Constanta and Bucuresti, listening to this Maria Tanase number, which actually has a bopping folk timbre and thirsty vocal signatures. Now, I do not not speak the Romanian, however, there is an after midnight lustiness to this song which I mention to Simon.
‘How illicit is the sentiment of this song?’ I type.
‘It is a sexy song, John,’ he tells me, but does not elucidate further. He was keeping his mystique close to him over this and good for him. Mystique is one of the deepest of all the shallower pools and my favourite also. A great opening volley from Simon there and I start realising why sharing songs around a common/abstract concept works. You immediately get all sorts. Go team, now my go.
I went with Eminence Front by The Who because I was not thinking about chrome Jaguar’s, I was thinking about hyper cruising down an Autobahn in a fully restored 1999 BMW 7 Series. I don’t even mind if it is just the six cylinder model. Fully restored though, and not diesel. Like Simon I have specific ideas about this musical situation which for me are explored in this song.
Now what would Simon think of either my choice, or what it might say about me? I wouldn’t have long to wait once I sent him a link because I kid not when I say he is a musical guy, so if you send him something, him listen quickly and responds with either praise or execution.
‘The Who were really entering the 80s with courage,’ he begins. ‘Lots of hair that was short but big. Stripped back to the essentials all round and personally makes me think of an armed bank job. I’ll get the transit van.’
I felt as though my choice had survived.
‘I could build a wall to that song, John,’ he followed.
Yeah, I’d survived alright. But now it would be his choice for criteria, and soon enough he settled it down to just one word.
Water. Whatever that might have meant to me. He actually said that. I wondered what it did mean to me, then put the thought down after several failed efforts and let it come when it did, which it did do at about dinner time.
Glistening Glyndebourne by John Martyn. This is a purely summer song to me which would explain why it took time to pluck from my starting point in late February; an instrumental, acoustic track about experiencing the coming of a summer storm before it arrives and passes above you. I find it quite lovely to write to during hot weeks. Would that appeal suit Simon in late winter? I hoped so.
‘Lovely bit of free-form instrumental jazz, John,’ he tells on our chat and I relax a bit. I am working on a large heathland garden at this point on Tuesday and it occurs to me that I really don’t want to send anything to Simon that he might not enjoy. I don’t want to waste his time, not even with John Martyn songs where you do not get to hear that Honey Monster voice.
‘I can feel those spots of summer rain getting larger,’ Simon continues. ‘A sense of that liminal zone between structure and chaos…’
Yeah, I think, You’re listening to some John Martyn alright.
Phew.
‘I haven’t heard some John in a while, John. Refreshing.’
His final sentiment seems just about appropriate so I do not press further and instead await his choosing. By WhatsApp’s measure of time it was seven minutes of awaiting, which meant that between us and our game, it was on. It was really on.
Simon went with Underwater Love from Smoke City. Truth be told I am a youngest brother of three older ones so nineties jazz-funk/acid jazz/fusion were things they made me listen to until I liked it, plus this one was a bit of a hit in the charts I think. It was out there, acid jazz adjacent and even a little lusty.
‘A jazzy day for us both then,’ I tell him. ‘The nineties were really a fruitful time in fusion.’
They really were, and while some (maybe even Simon) might think that I am stretching this song to fit into fusion, but that whole back section, you’re in late era 90’s pop-fusion if you’re anywhere. I actually replayed it immediately and started doing some casual editing to it in the background.
‘It’s great for a song that has just six notes, John!’
I assume he is correct about that and think that’s probably why I like it, which would count as a point to him in our fellowship if we were counting (we’re not). Points all round let’s say. Now onward to my criteria for Wednesday.
‘Cover Version!’ I suggest and prepared for all out audio warfare. Cover songs are two levels of potential problem to recommend; if the receiver doesn’t care for the original then that’s already a wall. Then again, if they do know and like the original then you’ve got your work cut out with a new version. A bigger wall. My answer? Go big or go home.
I go big with a recent cover of The Temptations, Papa was a Rolling Stone by The Black Crowes, my most dearest band. You are most welcome.
‘Oh mother!’ he gets back. ‘That is a righteous version of The Temptations!’
I am happy for him but he isn’t done yet.
‘Love the instrumentation. You really would believe from the chunky bass and depths of the Hammond organ that it was recorded in the mid seventies.’
And so our friendship remained strong, supple, and perfectly juvenile, as Simon was about to prove with his cover entry of Jacques Brel’s Jackie, as performed by Scott Walker (Engel).
‘Appreciate the attitude,’ I say after a couple of listens on Wednesday. ‘A Thunderbirds melody and that Scott Walker (Engel)… I do not know him but that is how you front a sophisti-pop sound.’
‘Haha!’ he returns. ‘Glad that you enjoyed that, brother!’
And I did. Golly this is all going very well. I am literally Fellowship I think to myself and before much time Simon outlines our next choice.
‘So tomorrow,’ he tells me. ‘Something I have played more than twenty times.’
My brain immediately gets stuck as most of the songs that I enjoy I have listened to a lot of times, so I start thinking about music which I might have listened to almost exactly twenty times. I then know what I am going for.
Wagner, baby.
Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. Nothing but the Good Stuff. That’s not the name of the album by the way, just my own flourish. Wagner didn’t really make albums as such. Just clearing that up. Let’s have a listen
‘I think I have listened to this about exactly twenty times,’ I said, imagining it to have been a clever response, although it is probably about true. I used to use it for a certain tone of mind back when I was writing my first novel, and there it has largely stayed in my uses, but there nonetheless remains a swelling joy to its melody and those burgeoning motifs that do always do something for me. But what about Simon?
‘An unexpected transport of the senses,’ he begins and suddenly it becomes clear to me that I have let a muso loose on Wagner. ‘I am Siegfried on his way to Brunhild, or perhaps just a sad old Niebelung.’
It was the sort of deeper sentiment that had attracted it to my use in the first place. Stuff was suddenly running very deep indeed and Simon’s imagination was beginning to get the better of him.
‘Isn’t a pity that you and I never had access to a local opera house?’ he asks.
‘Yes, Simon, although probably not a shame for any opera house that might house us.’
‘Where’s John? Where’s Simon? Oh, they’re off seeing Wagner. We could’ve ended up as different people.’
‘There’s a thought.’
And while I am doing those, I always thought that if I was going to do some undying of people (not a good idea, just a thought game) then I would go for Wagner first. And I wouldn’t just regularly bring him back either; I’d get him up and immediately fill him with espresso’s before sit him in the passenger seat of a Lamborghini, to which I am the driver. No police or cameras exist so I can really wake him up with a thorough exploration of twelve cylinders. Heck of a way to bring a dead guy into modernity. I digress, but that’s Wagner for you.
‘Isn’t music an important part of our imagination?’ Simon asks most sincerely then.
‘Yes it is,’ I respond and leave the classical shenanigans there so that can I get my ears around Simon’s choice, which is no less than some Italian Dub-Ska crossover from collaborators Wicked Dub Division and the East Ska Jazz Orchestra.
Oh no, I thought to myself before listening to this. I do not like Dub music. I have never chosen to listen to it but at least two of my brothers have always enjoyed it so, again, I have been present to much of it growing up. I was bracing for an attempt at kindness towards this one from my end.
It turned out to be rather good.
‘This has a pleasant beat, Simon,’ I say.
‘Good stuff!’ he responds.
‘Got a bit of Thievery Corporation vibe going on here!’
‘Yes there’s some Thievery in there.’
‘And the Ska is pulling all that pointless dub into something musical! Hot take!’
‘I’m not sure that I would enjoy either genre for any length of time but I do particularly like that song.’
And with that we had survived Dub without a fall out and were on to my context for the next day, which turned out to be, music which was not Orthodox but which nonetheless gave good Orthodoxy. In other words the Prog question. Did I need to ban Stairway? I did wonder it, but then Simon had other indulgences in mind. Nearly eighteen minutes worth of it, with a full compliment of orchestration. He had chosen This is Awaken by Jon Anderson, with guests.
Settle in.
In truth, all songs that give good orthodoxy will be of some lofty position for their fan. And Simon doesn’t hold back with the why of this one.
‘Does this give something Orthodox? Surely! It’s close to hymnography;
Master of images,
Songs cast a light on you,
Hark through dark ties,
That tunnel us out,
Of sane existence,
In challenge as direct,
As eyes see young stars assemble.’
I cannot argue with that and so begin to wonder about my choice. Something shallow perhaps, to go with my personality, or maybe go a little deeper to give the impression of character? Choices, choices. In the end I went for something else entirely. Something with grace.
I am not a big one for listing or taxonomies, but were I to be then Van Morrison’s entire Astral Weeks album would be amongst the very top tiers, probably alongside Leftism by Leftfield and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion from The Black Crowes.
But this song…
‘So much ability, Simon. It is as though they just started playing and this is what occurred. Absolute grace, I don’t know what to do with it.’
‘Yes, this is one of my favourites, John. Very clever for what is an effective two-chord song.’
‘But then there is that whole back section of the song, all that uplift with no apparent effort.’
‘I would have said that it was the best thing to come out of Ulster in 1968, but I think it was recorded in the US.’
I want to then ask if Semtex was also a band from Ulster going big at the time but I don’t because I think it would be in bad taste. Best left unsaid but I do apologise to Simon for going outside of prog for my Orthodox choice, which I nonetheless feel rather progressive about. And then with that we are done, and all without a spat or tears. Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. In fact it has been a little infectious, and having so enjoyed my time with Simon my eyes found themselves wondering over other middle aged men at church this Sunday and thinking if they would like a game of Musical Context for a week?
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you…
Fellowship is fast work. Please pray for me.
JW Bowe