This song was written by the Irish singer, Sinead Lohan, and recorded by her on her album ‘No Mermaid’. She sings it there with her characteristic dreamy innocence and charm. Unfortunately the album is infected with the virus of an overactive producer who seems to have insisted on adding extraneous effects to the musical background and filtering the sound through a coke-lined sieve. For a few hearings this is exhilarating but thereafter starts to tire the ear. Here is the song sung straight, and very good it is. It is performed by the American country group, Nickel Creek.
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Posted in Country Music, Rock on Aug 31st, 2008 No Comments »
Here’s another version of a Lennon and McCartney song that I offer in confirmation of my thesis that their best versions are not by the Beatles. This is Emmy Lou Harris.
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Posted in Country Music on Aug 11th, 2008 No Comments »
Jo-el Sonnier is a Cajun accordeon player and country singer who made several albums in the eighties. This is his best song. It was written by Tony Romeo. It’s a summer night and, six pack high, he’s waiting for her to come. But Come on Joe, buck up, she’s not worth it.
Joe Brown (and his Bruvvers) did a good version of this song when I saw him in concert at Bournemouth, there on holiday fifteen years ago
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Posted in Country Music on Aug 10th, 2008 No Comments »
The O’Kanes (Keiran Kane and Jamie O’Hara) were a country group that made three fine albums in the late 80s and early 90s. They were a close harmony duo, modelled on the Everly Brothers, updated. This song, of male anguish at failure as a father, couldn’t have been written when the Everly Brothers started out, but matches the sentiments of the 1980s when it was released. There’s something genuine and honest about it, a man recognising his failure as a father and wanting to do something about it.
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Posted in Country Music on Jul 11th, 2008 No Comments »
Craig Bickhardt’s song “This Old House” deals with leaving home for the last time. In the chorus the house itself speaks, of its regret that it will no longer be able to shelter us, who are leaving. It’s one of the great strengths of Country music that it deals with feelings and emotions that aren’t the standard themes of adolescent love or rebellion. It’s grown up. It captures perfectly feelings of shared family life, now past, that leaving the house, for the last time, makes more acute.
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Posted in Country Music on Jun 30th, 2008 No Comments »
My appreciation of this touching, artless and heartfelt song, written about the death of her mother, is here.
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Posted in Country Music on Jun 30th, 2008 No Comments »
In my other blog, I have done a number of posts of appreciation of singers and musicians from all genres of music. My appreciation of this Patty Griffin song is here.
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