Almanac Music: Six Songs for St Cecilia’s Day

 

Six Songs for St Cecilia’s Day

 

 

In the Christian tradition, St Cecilia is the patron saint of music and musicians; her feast day is on November 22. Over the centuries, this day has been the occasion of music festivals and concerts. Also, the day has served as the inspiration for well-known work by esteemed poets such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope, as well as music by Henry Purcell, G. F. Handel and numerous others.

In the spirit of St Cecilia’s Day, I am putting forward six songs which, for me, possess uplift and, in general, a ‘bright’, celebratory quality appropriate to the occasion – it may be because of the lyrics, the music or, as is more usual, a combination of both; that said, the overall ‘feel’ of the song concerned is the main aspect.

 

‘Slippin’ and Slidin’’ by John Lennon

 

For me, the best straight-out rock ‘n’ roll voice in history belongs to John Lennon. He can sing Chuck Berry classics like ‘Rock and Roll Music’ and ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ better than Chuck, as well as Buddy Holly greats like ‘Words of Love (with Paul McCartney in this instance)’ better than Buddy. Select virtually any fifties or early sixties rock song cover where Lennon sings the lead vocals and it is better than the original (e.g. ‘Twist and Shout’ ‘Bad Boy’, ‘Slow Down’). Beatles fans may recall a recording made in Hamburg in 1961 where Lennon sings ‘Ain’t She Sweet’, and it’s wonderful vocally – he charges the song with an excitement the song doesn’t normally possess (though this Hamburg version is rather pedestrian in terms of musical backing, it must be added). But back to the song at hand … here’s Lennon’s fantastic version, infused with his own brand of vocal charisma and X-factor, of Little Richard’s ‘Slippin’ and Slidin’’ (also a song Buddy Holly recorded). It appeared on his Rock ‘n’ Roll album, released in 1975.

 

 

 

‘Rubberband Girl’ by Kate Bush

 

This mid-career song written and performed by Kate Bush (a single from her album The Red Shoes [1993]), about a woman who wishes to possess more rubberband-like qualities in terms of flexibility and resilience, is typically quirky and inventive. The song is fun, with a highly danceable, vaguely indie feel. The opening lyrics give the context for the content that follows:

See those trees
Bend in the wind
I feel they’ve got a lot more sense than me
You see I try to resist

The chorus spells out of the basic notion of the song explicity:

I’d be a rubberband girl
A rubberband girl, me
A rubberband girl, me
I wanna be a rubberband girl …

The video clip is fun, too, especially because of Kate’s idiosyncratic, distinctive dancing.

 

 

 

‘Summer Rain’ by Belinda Carlisle

 

This pop/rock song, written by Robbie Seidman and Maria Vidal and performed by Belinda Carlisle, was a 1990 single from her 1989 album Runaway Horses. In ‘Summer Rain’ a soldier goes off to war, leaving the singer, his loved one, behind – it is not subject matter laden with potential in terms of joy and uplift. However, its wonderful chorus is precisely made of that stuff and is what compelled me to include the song in this St Cecilia’s Day piece. The recurrent image in the chorus, in which the singer remembers her absent love ‘dancing with [her] in the summer rain’, is a glorious, beautifully poetic one, depicting such a special, magical time in their lives:

Oh, my love, it’s you that I dream of
Oh, my love, since that day
Somewhere in my heart I’m always
Dancing with you in the summer rain

Doesn’t matter what I do now
Doesn’t matter what I say
Somewhere in my heart I’m always
Dancing with you in the summer rain …

 

 

‘Nature Boy’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

 

In this fabulous rocker performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the boy from Warracknabeal channels Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel (listen closely to the chord progressions in the chorus, and compare it to ‘Make Me Smile’), as well as, most importantly, drawing upon his own immense talent as poet and musician. (The overall song is credited to Cave, Ellis, Casey, Sclavunos.) ‘Nature Boy’ is basically a love song, with wonderful poetry in the lyrics – for example:

I was walking ’round the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria

and here’s one of the choruses:

And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
And she moves among the flowers
And she moves something deep inside of me

The song was originally released from the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus in 2004.

 

 

‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ by Björk

 

The eccentric, hugely talented Icelandic woman, Björk, had her biggest international hit with her big band jazz version of ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’, first performed in English, as far as I can ascertain, by Betty Hutton in 1951, based upon a German original. Bjork’s take on the song, released in 1995 from her album Post, is typically unique, with soft gentle sections alternating with loud big band backed sequences. The Spike Jonze directed film clip is well worth mentioning, too, for its heady mix of Busby Berkeley style choreography and influences from Jacques Demy’s visual feast of a feature film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

 

 

‘Penny Lane’ by The Beatles

 

This classic song, performed by The Beatles and written by Paul McCartney – although attributed to him and John Lennon – was first released in early 1967 as a double-A side single with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. It also on the USA version of the Magical Mystery Tour album later that year. ‘Penny Lane’ is just about the perfect pop song – it’s bright, uplifting and beautifully, whimsically drawn, presenting a series of wonderfully sketched vignettes of Liverpudlian life, with a exuberant piccolo trumpet solo just to top it all off. What joy! What a superb, celebratory, melodic way to round off a set of six songs in celebration of St Cecilia’s Day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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