Category Archives: Music

My iPod #396: Nick Drake – From the Morning

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“…listening to this album, with headphones to be isolated of all exterior noises, with eyes closed, is a unique experience. Because at the end, the last song you hear is FROM THE MORNING, and this song is so positive! After all an album of a beautiful darkness, you finish on this moving celebration of life, telling you that another day starts after this tormented night, all starts again with a beautiful morning, that everything is possible with the rise of the sun. It’s at the opposite with the whole rest of the album, and it ends like that. I’m telling you, you can’t arrive at the end of PINK MOON with your eyes dry. That’s why this song has a particular saviour. And you need to know that FROM THE MORNING was his parents favourite song, proof that it has a positive reflect, and that’s why they chose a quote of this song as epitaph on his gravestone “Now we rise, and we are everywhere”.

That is a comment under the lyrics of “From the Morning” on songsmeaning.net. And I actually couldn’t put it better myself.

“Pink Moon” is the album to play during the hours of a cold winter night; its bare atmosphere and depressing lyrics matching the dark, silent environment. You walk around wondering where to turn.

But then “From the Morning” begins just as the sun rises, the skies turn a pinkish colour, the birds start to sing and you realise you’ve been bugging out over nothing. Everything will be alright. Another day is here. Time to learn something new.

The track’s presence wipes the sadness and desolation present throughout “Pink Moon” away, and as the last song ends the album on a happy, positive note. Sadly he would pass away only a few years later, but at least his official discography came to a definitive conclusion with this highly-spirited tune.

My iPod #395: Linkin Park – From the Inside

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“From the Inside” is from Linkin Park’s second album “Meteora”. It’s my favourite track on that album, too. It was released as its fourth single in 2004, physically in Australia and the USA whilst it was download only in the UK. It’s a track of the band’s that isn’t really overplayed so I never feel as if I can ever really get tired of it, say like “What I’ve Done” or “In the End” or something. This is an actual track I can really get into when that siren-like keyboard melody begins.

“From the Inside” adapts that quiet verse/loud chorus dynamic that is typically used in grunge music. Chester Bennington softly sings alternating with Mike Shinoda’s raps in the verses, before Bennington lets loose and the trademark Meteora wall of guitars enter for the chorus. Bennington screams a lot during the bridge too, which excites any Linkin Park fan.

Not much else I can say about it. It’s a very heavy tune about being betrayed and not knowing who you can trust anymore, with a waltz time signature. Cool stuff.

My iPod #394: Faith No More – From Out of Nowhere

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I don’t listen to Faith No More. Not because I don’t like the group’s music. More because I’ve never really tried to listen to it. Though the three songs I know by them are ones that are actually very good. The cover of ‘Easy’‘s astoundingly smooth, and “Epic” is the complete opposite. It lives up to its name. Though the video confused me a bit when I first saw it. What did that poor fish do to deserve such treatment?

Though “From Out of Nowhere” is the track that I’ll really go into. It is the opener, and was the first single, from the band’s third album “The Real Thing” in 1989. And what a way to start things off to. Barely a second goes before a charging power chord surrounds your ears and gets the track’s momentum going. Honestly, that introduction feels like a unstoppable train thundering down a track at a tremendous speed which then pummels through a solid brick wall when the drums kick in.

The track seems to be about a brief encounter between Patton and a perfect stranger, though the brevity of the meeting hurts him deeply. The song’s music written by the group’s bassist, Bill Gould, and keyboard player, Roddy Bottum seem to perfectly fit the lyrics’ theme of wonderment and incredulity.

Its booming rhythm section, roaring guitars, glorious synthesizer and not to mention Mike Patton’s passionate vocal delivery  got to me quite a bit when I watched the video on MTV2 a few years ago. It’s easy to understand why it is a popular one amongst Faith No More followers. Great track.

My iPod #393: The Zombies – Friends of Mine

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“Friends of Mine” is a track from The Zombies’ album “Odessey and Oracle”. Unlike every other love song where the narrator tells a listener how happy and lucky they are to be in a relationship themselves, “Friends of Mine” flips the idea around, instead detailing how much joy they feel seeing so many of their friends in love. That is a subject you would rarely come across nowadays in music. Even in real life, you wouldn’t be able to go anywhere with without people seeing you as the ‘third wheel’ of the group. What’s the world coming to?

A pacy track filled with bright guitars, jubilant backing vocal harmonies and general catchy melodies “Friends of Mine” is a song that will get your spirits up when times are bad. Especially if you’re a person who cares a lot about their mates.

My iPod #392: Babyshambles – French Dog Blues

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“French Dog Blues” can be found on Babyshambles’ second album “Shotter’s Nation”, released back in 2007. Although I thought it was a single later released from it, it apparently wasn’t. Weird considering it has its own music video. But whatever.

For all this time I’ve never really wondered what the track was about; I solely liked it because of its sound and random lyricism. Though I’ve just read that Doherty said it is about the dog on the cover of the band’s first album “Down in Albion”. That’s made me even more perplexed because I would never have thought that that little picture was an illustration of a dog. All this time I thought it was a flag or something.

Not much I can say about it. I do enjoy it a lot though, and that’s all that matters.