Hello! As you may have guessed from the name of this blog, my name is Liz and I am fascinated by song lyrics. I hope you enjoy my waxing lyrical about lyrics and about music generally. I also review albums and gigs and have interviewed several wonderful musicians. Enjoy!
Part of my birthday message to Miracle - we are now two years old!
Hi, everyone!
I'm just letting you know that I recently set up a blog for Miracle Magazine, the literary magazine for which I am Fiction Editor - and now Blog Editor!
It is a great honour to be trusted with the task of looking after the blog, and I would love it if you could check it out.
Firstly, a quick bit of news on the writing front: I have had a poem published in Ink, Sweat and Tears! It's a great honour.
Now to the real purpose of this post which is to tell you about the concert I attended in Southport on Wednesday night. You may remember I went to a Southport gig last September, and in many ways this one was similar, yet it was also completely different.
The venue was The Atkinson; the show was Nanci Griffith tribute show Trouble in the Fields, starring Pete and Maura Kennedy and Edwina Hayes - so far, so similar to September's show. However, this evening we also had the great pleasure of the company of Grateful Fred's House Band - Grateful Fred's also organised the evening.
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My mother and I arrived in Southport by train and spent an interesting while searching for the venue - last time we came by car and it was a labyrinth reaching it from the station! However, we eventually found the beautiful place with its lovely fountains out the front, and climbed the stairs to the Studio.
This was where the show last year was, and I was glad they were there again as it is a nice, cosy little space; very nicely lit and with a real ambience.
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The show opened with a set from Grateful Fred's House Band which I greatly enjoyed. Their haunting rendition of Ride On was certainly my highlight; it was sublime, especially the guitar work.
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The Kennedys then came on stage (and Maura very nicely gave me a shout-out) to play a short set of their own songs. I was pleased to hear Midnight Ghost, one of my favourites, as well as some brilliant-as-always guitar and uke work from Pete.
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After a short break, the Kennedys returned for the Nanci Griffith tribute set, and after several songs were joined by Edwina Hayes.
Having two such stunning voices as Edwina's and Maura's on the same stage was always going to be very special, and they also work incredibly well together - they harmonise beautifully.
The trio just worked so well, and I am glad someone had the idea of them performing together - it really is something incredible that feels like it was destined to happen.
Every song was a joy, but if I had to choose a few highlights, I would have to include Gulf Coast Highway, which I had been really hoping they would do because I adored it in September. I love the original song but the Kennedys' version may well top that for me.
Also especially memorable were their versions of Lone Star State of Mind, Late Night Grand Hotel and I'm Not Driving These Wheels.
Finally, I was very moved by A Light Beyond These Woods, a song which is special to me and to which they truly did justice, and Across the Great Divide, which I cannot hear and see the Kennedys perform without remembering them doing so twenty years ago with Nanci on Jools Holland.
It is so lovely how the song has stayed around for twenty years, and has continued touching hearts. I have no doubt it will be around for another twenty.
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The show ended with Grateful Fred's House Band joining the trio on stage and everyone playing together, and it was a truly wonderful, joyful and memorable spectacle. They worked brilliantly together - their version of Full Circle made a fabulous finale.
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After the show I ran into Edwina who was absolutely lovely and then I had nice chats with both Kennedys.
I have mentioned many times before how down-to-earth and friendly Pete and Maura are, but I feel I should mention it again. It is very rarely that you come across two people who are so successful and popular, yet are willing to chat and laugh and mingle with their fans - who are not just willing, in fact, but seem to take huge pleasure in doing so.
I came away with Edwina's album Pour Me a Drink, featuring Feels Like Home, a song with great emotional significance for me, as well as the Kennedys' Dance a Little Closer: a live album of them performing Nanci songs. I hope to post reviews of both on this blog in due course.
As my mother and I rushed to the train station through the dark night with its light, misty rain and cool wind, I felt very, very happy - and I felt even more so when, sitting on the train, I discovered the lovely things the Kennedys and Edwina had written on my signed albums.
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Thank you to everyone involved in this night, it really was a night in a million.
Thanks for reading,
Liz x
PS. If you like the Kennedys or want to learn more about them, I have done an interview with them, an album review and a write-up of a show of their own songs they did in the UK last June.
Song: Across the Great Divide - Nanci Griffith - 1993
For a while I have been intending to do a Joni Mitchell post, but have only just got around to it. I've been pretty busy recently. Anyway, here is what I have to say about a very talented singer and songwriter.
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The first Joni song I will have heard is Blue, because it is on Girls and Guitars, a compilation album I listened to a lot when I was younger. I wasn't a fan of the song, however, and years later when I properly discovered Joni, I didn't remember it being her song; ie, I probably never knew the name of the singer of Blue.
So my real first Joni song was Coyote - the version from The Last Waltz.
My family obtained a copy of the famous concert film when I was about eight and since then it was a fixture in my childhood. We watched it many times; one particularly memorable occasion was when we were on holiday in the Lake District and watched it in our little cabin overlooking beautiful countryside.
After watching the film through, each family member would pick our favourite act to watch again, and my request was always Joni. I liked the song, but what I loved was the presentation: it was so simple, yet mesmerising.
A few years ago I heard the recorded version of Coyote, and I much prefer the Last Waltz one - it's much more fluid and organic. But then, the Last Waltz seemed to have that effect on songs: I also much prefer the Last Waltz version of Bob Dylan's Forever Young to the album version.
I used to vow that if I ever learned to play guitar well enough I would perform this song. Sadly, my knowledge of guitar is still quite basic. One day...
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When I was fourteen I did some work experience at my local hospital. I heard Amy Grant's version of Big Yellow Taxi on the radio in the cardiology unit. It annoyed me because I knew I knew the song, but couldn't place it.
I eventually got it, and remembered hearing it for the first time not long before, on the radio in the car on the way to school. My dad was driving me, and he challenged me to identify the singer and the writer. I didn't get either.
When he told me, the name Amy Grant meant nothing to me, but I wasn't surprised to hear Joni's name - although I had only heard a couple of her songs, I could easily envisage her singing this one.
So when I worked out what the song I heard in the hospital was, I looked up both Amy's and Joni's versions and enjoyed them both (and observed that Amy looked like Elaine from Seinfeld). I later became a big fan of Amy's song Baby, Baby, and blogged about it.
Here they are, the two versions:
I still bop along to this song in my head: it has a good beat, despite having such sad lyrics.
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The final Joni song I want to share is This Flight Tonight. I first heard the Nazareth version and somehow found out that Joni had written the original.
I found her version and on the first listening I observed that it was quite dark and strange, and very Joni-ish, and that I wasn't too keen on it, yet I also somehow knew that it would grow on me.
Now I never listen to the Nazareth version - not that I don't like it; I just don't have any strong feelings towards it - and I often listen to the Joni one.
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So, there you have it: three Joni Mitchell songs. I have listened to others, but this trio remain my favourites, because they are great songs, and also because of the memories they evoke.
