So, those of you who are reading this most probably realised that I was joking about the dubstep. Those who aren't reading this probably thought I was serious ...
It's Valentine's Day, the day each year when my mailbox gets clogged up with love letters and poems from my many admirers from across the UK. I love you all too. The song that I would most want to play on a day like today is 'At Last' by Etta James, which is pretty fitting after her death a couple of weeks ago. My best memory of the song is from it being played over one of the happiest scenes from Pleasantville, in which Tobey Maguire and his girlfriend travel towards 'Lover's Lane' while the previously Oz-like black and white cinematography disappears to reveal their car wading through a scattering of pink blossoms. There's something nostalgic and innocent about both the music and this utopian American dream that in reality wasn't true. After all, James's life was a troubled one, albeit a profoundly creative one.
Aside from their powerful orchestral arrangements there is something profoundly powerful about songs such as 'At Last' and Sam Cooke's 'A Change is Gonna Come'. Both strike powerful first notes (both ascend from dominant to tonic - a powerful vocal jump in a high vocal register) and set the tone from the outset. Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) in her Radio Six Plalyist this week says of Cooke's number, 'when he hits that note ... it seems so desperate and hopeful and triumphant and sad all at once ... And it's absolutely perfect'. I couldn't put it better myself. Happy Valentine's Day, and happy listening.
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