I love Loreena McKennit’s music and The Mummer’s
Dance is one of my favourites. It’s also serving as part of the inspiration
for the Flash! Friday story I’m busy
with today (no title thus far). It just popped into my head when I saw the end of the story in my mind...
“Stay On These Roads” (1988), by a-ha,
remains one of my favourite songs. I grew up with a-ha and to still love a song
after listening to it hundreds of times over more than twenty years goes to
show what staying power it has. (The lyrics are below the video.)
The cold has a voice
It talks to me
Stillborn, by choice
It airs no need
To hold
Old man feels the cold
Oh baby don’t
‘Cause I’ve been told
Stay on these roads
We shall meet, I know
Stay on – my love
We shall meet, I know
I know
Where joy should reign
These skies restrain
‘Shadow your love’
The voice trails off again
Old man feels the cold
Oh baby don’t
‘Cause I’ve been told
Stay on these roads
We shall meet, I know
Stay on – my love
You feel so weak, be strong
Stay on, stay on
We shall meet, I know
I know
I know, my love, I know
I only recently discovered Radical Face’s
music on Noisetrade and was intrigued by the concept behind the music. On his website, Ben Cooper says:
“I just wanted to
write a family saga. It's something I'd wanted to do for a long time. But I was
timid at first. Family is a big topic from me, being from a large and atypical
one, and I was hesitant to start for fear I'd do a shitty job of it. But once I
started writing for it, it all kinda poured out. I started writing for it in
2007. I came up with a fictional family tree -- a Frankenstein of random
genealogy charts, my own family history, some of my personal experiences and
plain old fiction -- and used that as the basis for the songs. When I started
organizing the record in 2009, I had over 45 songs to work with, even after
ditching the ones I wasn't so sure of.”
The songs Ben Cooper
wrote, are poignant, bittersweet, dark and sometimes very sad. But there is
such a quality to them that I can’t stop listening.
