Jan. 21, 2016
Writer: Stephen Males (severin)
When I first heard The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” I kind of assumed it was a cover of some mid-sixties tune. Maybe by The Kinks or The Troggs or some US garage band. Turns out that was pretty much the effect they were aiming for. The kind of song they used to play at rehearsals and early gigs before they had written much of their own. “Our attempt at writing a classic” as Mick put it. I think they succeeded.
Lord Huron was/is a completely unknown quantity to me. “Ghost on the Shore” is suitably, well, ghostly and ethereal. “A beautiful song sung from the, rather echoing, realm of one man’s limbo.” Can’t put it better than that.
There were three versions of “Sitting (Here) in Limbo” nominated this week. All worth playlisting, all excellent. So perversely I’ve picked the one which wasn’t on Youtube. At least not the plaintive, studio recording which first caught my ear. The Neville Brothers in this YT live version give it a laid back, loping performance, the voice perhaps not quite so smooth but still full of emotional power.
Kirsty MacColl’s deceptively bright and tuneful song is about a couple who should no longer be together. “He said baby don’t go, so she sat down again and they said they’d be friends.” Now she “sleeps like a woman when he wakes like a man”.
The Dears song mentions purgatory, which I’m taking as a close relative of limbo, and laments wasted lives. The accompanying YT video portrays scenes from the film Atonement. One long take of scenes from the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Rachel and Becky Unthank call the cattle home but wait (in vain?) for the beloved child to return. I find this track utterly hypnotic. Is that percussion or a rare occasion of recording-studio clog dancing? Whatever it is, it conjures up a feeling of timelessness, of stasis.
Mississippi John Hurt doesn’t remember how to yodel but after a bit of a chat he finally sings about waiting for the train, far from home. It’s worth the wait for us. I hope it was for him.
“Unreleased Motown” announces the video for The Velvelettes song. Was it? I can’t imagine why. The song is a fantastic slice of Motown pop/soul. A vacillating guy puts them in limbo with his prevaricating ways and they’re not having any.
The Mountain Goats were quite unknown to me until I started listening to the songs nominated on this blog. This one is absolutely irresistible. “I am never ever gonna get away from this place, let the camera track me from the footlights to the wings.” The perils of typecasting and fame, fatal fame. They don’t want me to mention Hotel California so I won’t.
Rainbow provide us with a classic rock song with an unusually vulnerable lyric. “Thoughts fly back to the break-up. These four walls are closing in.” I know the feeling.
I wasn’t initially sure about how to justify including an instrumental piece here but the nominator’s comment – “a slight unease about it, a sense of waiting, a sense of resolution always nearly coming but not quite getting there” – sums up the music so well that, hey, I don’t have to do the heavy lifting! Beautiful, moving and leaves us hanging in mid-air. Ludovico Einaudi, since you ask.
Al Bowlly of course is in heaven. Has been for some time. The injured, destitute soldier recalls the music and the dances and ponders his own fate, stuck in limbo, sentenced to misery by the country he served, and reckons Al had the better deal. This Richard Thompson track has been knocking at the door of the playlists for some time. In it comes. No longer in limbo even if the narrator is.
We are all in limbo but some of us are looking at the stars.
The A List
- The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go
- Lord Huron – Ghost on the Shore
- The Neville Brothers – Sitting in Limbo
- Kirsty MacColl – Dancing in Limbo
- The Dears – Postcard from Purgatory
- Rachel Unthank and the Winterset – Felton Lonnin
- Mississippi John Hurt – Waiting for a Train
- The Velvelettes – Stop Beating Around the Bush
- The Mountain Goats – Liza Forever Minnelli
- Rainbow – Since You Been Gone
- Ludovico Einaudi – Limbo
- Richard Thompson – Al Bowlly’s in Heaven
The B List
- Joni Mitchell – I Don’t Know Where I Stand
- Kate Bush – Suspended in Gaffa
- Little Anthony and the Imperials – On the Outside Looking In
- J. P. Chandrabubu – Onnume Puriyale
- Jacques Brel – Les Désepérés
- Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole – Starting All Over Again
- Snarky Puppy – Amour T’es La
- Billy Bragg – Rotting on Remand
- Alternative TV – Lost in Room
- Joy Division – Dead Souls
- Edward Elgar – The Angel’s Farewell (from The Dream of Gerontius)
The C List
- Liza Minnelli – Losing My Mind
- KT Tunstall – Silent Sea
- The KLF – 3 A.M. Eternal
- London Grammar – Strong
- Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark
- Dusty Springfield – In the Middle of Nowhere
- Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hybrid/Overground
- Robin Trower – Bridge of Sighs
- Elvis Costello – Waiting for the End of the World
- The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma
- Racing Cars – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
- The Kinks – Tired of Waiting for You
- The Supremes – You Keep Me Hangin’ On
- …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – Wasted State of Mind
- Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack – The Time Warp
- John Cooper Clarke – Limbo Baby Limbo
- Jimmy Cliff – Sitting in Limbo
- Garcia and Grisman – Sitting Here in Limbo
- Warren Zevon – Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead
- Bob Dylan – One Too Many Mornings