Richard Thompson can transport you to places in his songs like no-one else. Drawing his inspiration from folk songs, oral tales, tattered history books, half remembered stories, bizarre websites and advertising catalogues, Thompson is a master of time and space. Many of his best songs place you in a specific historical context, then move...
Category: Music
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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Magic: A Review
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: MAGIC: A REVIEW BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: MAGIC Bruce Springsteen’s Magic is a journey into the darkness of the ‘American night’; a portrait of a country mired in confusion, its value-systems broken down, its soul in torment. As a writer, Springsteen is often misunderstood. This is partly because he often casts his narratives in...
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BOB DYLAN: Ain’t Talkin’
BOB DYLAN’S AIN’T TALKIN’ There’s no-one here, the gardener has gone… The hooded pilgrim advances along a thin, dusty dirt track. There is no moon. All along the skyline the fires rage. His hidden face contorts in shaded darkness. He burns inside. In front of him he seems to see the whole world, billions of...
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BOB DYLAN: Nettie Moore
Chris looks at Bob Dylan's inscrutable 'murder ballad' METTIE MOORE from MODERN TIMES
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More Extract Four : Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane (Part Two)
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER AND PENNY LANE Strawberry Fields Forever begins with what sounds like a distorted, distant flute (actually a mellotron) playing an evocative, yearning intro which sets up the melancholic tone of the song. There is a single bass note, and then we hear John’s voice, doctored to sound rather high, emotionally detached, ethereal....
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THE BEATLES: Who Could Ask For More Extract Three: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane (Part One)
An extract from Chris' book WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE: RECLAIMING THE BEATLES
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BOB DYLAN: Workingman’s Blues # 2
.Sleep is like a temporary death… . “You will perceive that in the breast The germs of many virtues rest, Which, ere they feel a lover’s breath, Lie in a temporary death” Henry Timrod, Two Portraits Workingman’s Blues No. 2 is already the most celebrated, though perhaps the most misunderstood, track on Modern Times....
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THE BEATLES: Extract from ‘Who Could Ask For More’ Two: Hey Jude
HEY JUDE This is the second extract from my forthcoming book Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles. This extract features what may well be their finest hour, and explores how it focuses on the relationship between Paul and John In 1968 The Beatles, along with the youth culture that they spoke for and...