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Best tunes of 2020: #19 Doves “Prisoners”

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“Hello, old friend
It’s been a while
It’s me again
We’re just prisoners of these times
But it won’t be for long”

For all the horribleness and traumatic change 2020 handed to us throughout its entirety, there was still some good to come out of it. And I’d have to say that somewhere near the top of the list of positives has to be the release of new material by Doves, one of my favourite ever bands.

The Manchester-based trio had just completed a successful run of live dates in the summer of 2019 after eight long years on hiatus. Things were going so well that they pooled together material that frontman Jimi Goodwin had been working on* with the Williams brothers’ as yet unreleased work as Black Rivers, along with some ideas that were leftover from their last album together as a band**, and then, tied it all up with a magical bow. “The universal want” was released in the fall, just in time for yours truly’s birthday, but not before justifiably teasing us all with a couple of excellent advanced singles, one of which is the focus of today’s post.

“Prisoners” and its lyrics may sound like it fits in perfectly with everything that was going on at the time but Goodwin and his bandmates have vehemently denied any connection with the song to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that were happening all around the world attempting to temper the virus’s spread. They haven’t said if it was one of the songs that had been written beforehand but as they tell it, it follows the same conversation the band has always been having with itself in their songs. “Just over the horizon, there’s always something better. Sometimes we get trapped by our own behaviour. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts. They can take you to some pretty dark and unexpected places if you let them. It’s a song about checking yourself.”

This song (and the rest of Doves’ newest album) has the group picking up practically where they left off. It’s beautiful and atmospheric and set apart in its own world. It all begins with a light strumming on the guitar and a sprinkling of sunlight and wisps of haze and then that driving drum beat kicks in and the bopping bassline falls in step not far behind. There’s plenty alien and new, but it’s not strange at all. It’s familiar and comforting and fluid and when the guitar starts a-wailing amidst all the glow, you just have to soak it all in, bask in the glory of it all.***

*Which, of course, was supposed to be his sophomore release, the follow up to 2014’s “Odludek”.

**The absolutely incredible “Kingdom of rust”, which was released in 2008.

***These last few sentences are some self-plagiarizing from a post I wrote back in 2020 praising “The universal want” as my favourite album of the year.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #94 Echo & The Bunnymen “Lips like sugar” (1987)

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Echo and the Bunnymen originally formed as the trio of Ian McCulloch, Will Sargent, and Les Pattinson in Liverpool in 1978. Drummer Pete de Freitas would eventually replace the band’s drum machine as the fourth member in 1980. It was this lineup that recorded and released the band’s first five and best-loved albums: “Crocodiles” (1980), “Heaven up here” (1981), “Porcupine” (1983), “Ocean rain” (1984), and “Echo and the Bunnymen” (1987). After McCulloch left to pursue a solo career in 1988 and de Freitas died a year later, the remaining two members carried on with new recruits and released a mostly forgettable album in 1990 before dissolving a few years later. The name and band was revived in 1997 after McCulloch and Sargent successfully worked together again as Electrafixion on one album and then, Pattinson returned to work with them.

I original got into the group with a cover. I was super haunted by their version of The Doors’ “People are strange”* that appeared on the “Lost boys” soundtrack, a film that I watched despite my parents warnings as a teen and then, watched and rewatched many times over. I came upon this very song, “Lips like sugar”, on an 80s compilation, a bunch of years later, and from there, it was an easy hop, skip, and jump to the rest of their singles.

“Lips like sugar” was originally released as the second single off Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1987, eponymously-named fifth record, the group’s most commercially successful album in North America. In fact, frontman Ian McCulloch initially disliked the song because he thought it sounded too commercial. His view towards it has softened considerably over the years, likely because he was right. Money does have a way of changing views towards the positive.

Regardless of its commercial activity, it’s a great song. Evoking fantastical imagery and that magical feeling of early love and longing, in that time when the object of your affection is near perfection. Pounding drums echoing that of a racing heartbeat, guitars jangle and ring and chirp and roll off into the distance, and all the while, McCulloch wavers between croons and howls, all bouncing and reverberating off of prison walls of his own making. This definitely wasn’t what mainstream sounded like back then, but it certainly paved the way for what was to come.

Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a

Favourite lyric: “She floats like a swan / grace on the water” It’s a great image and it so completely sets the tone and gives you a clear image of who McCulloch is pining over.

Where are they now?: Echo and the Bunnymen is still very much a going concern, though these days the only remaining original members are Ian McCulloch and Will Sargent. They last released an album of new material in 2014 (“Meteorites”) and back in 2018, released an album called “The stars, the oceans, and the moon”, which was mostly reworked versions of earlier tunes.

*This very cover of The Doors’ classic appeared at number sixty-eight on my ongoing list of 100 favourite cover songs.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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100 best covers: #47 The Decemberists “Human behaviour”

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You can mark this down in the column of cover songs that shouldn’t work on paper but in reality, are quite splendid.

I have written before in these pages about how I discovered Portland, Oregon-based indie folk band, The Decemberists, at some point circa 2004 after reading about them in Under the Radar. I fell hard for them upon first listen and immediately consumed their first two albums in rapid succession. Then, hearing that a third album was still in the works, went on the hunt for anything else I could find, which included a five song EP (called “5 songs”), a close to 20 minute prog-folk interpretation of a Celtic myth (“The Tain”), and then, this, a cover of Björk’s early solo career single, “Human behaviour”.

It was included on a compilation called “Read: Interpreting Björk” that was put together by Portland indie label Hush Records. The idea was floated and most of the recordings happened in 2001 but then they shelved the project because they were worried folks might think they were trying to capitalize on the success of one of their heroes. They ended up releasing it a few years later, after plenty of interest was shown just based on word of mouth. The Decemberists’ cover was one of the late additions to compilation track list and in my own humble opinion, the best of the bunch, though there are some other interesting interpretations worth exploring.

Björk’s original version is actually one of my favourites of her tunes. It appeared at number fourteen on my list of favourite tunes from 1993 and like many of the tunes from “Debut”, it’s an industrial dance party, very “synth, sample, and percussion heavy”. Inspired by wildlife documentaries, Björk explores and exploits the human condition and looks at it from an outsider’s vantage point.

In The Decemberists’ capable hands, it’s a very different sounding beast. Obviously, it’s more organic in feel. With their expansive instrumentation palette, however, they do a great job of replicating the tempo and energy of the original. Of course, Colin Meloy sounds nothing like Björk but he certainly sounds like he’s having fun trying.

Ir’s a great cover of a great tune that only made me love both artists more. Don’t make me choose between them.

Cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.