Album: The Lion and the Cobra (1987)
Lyrics excerpt:
But I will rise
And I will return
The Phoenix from the flame
I have learned
I will rise and you'll see me return
Being what I am
There is no other Troy for me to burn
Reasons to love this song:
Sinéad O'Connor's voice is heartbreakingly emotional, capable of switching from soft and gentle to furious in a moment, and this song shows it perfectly. She starts softly: I'll remember it and Dublin in a rainstorm..., but I'll slay a dragon for you, I'll die is already sung in a different voice, and the accompanying strings create tension, bringing to mind tiny flickering flames. After the first there is no other Troy for you to burn, both her voice and the strings turn wild with emotion.
This is one of those songs I can't listen to without getting at least a little teary-eyed. The music might be a little bit too emotional -- nothing too dramatic actually happens in the song, after all: the lyrics are about being in love with someone and then discovering he was a liar, something that probably happened to everyone in the world at some point. But that's understandable, because O'Connor was only 20 when she was recording The Lion and the Cobra, and the passion in her singing is the reason this song is so irresistible.
In the lyrics O'Connor paraphrases the poem No Second Troy by William Butler Yeats:
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
YouTube link:
The official video
utorak, 24. kolovoza 2010.
nedjelja, 22. kolovoza 2010.
#5 Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
Album: Ladies of the Canyon, 1970
Lyrics excerpt:
They took all the trees,
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Reasons to love this song:
The extremely catchy tune and humorous last verse of this song ("a big yellow taxi took away my old man", with laughter audible in her voice) are in contrast with the serious warning contained in the lyrics. Joni Mitchell was inspired to write this song while visiting Hawaii; according to JoniMitchell.com (see the footnotes to the lyrics here), the "pink hotel" she is singing about is likely to be the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach, and the "tree museum" is the Foster Botanical Garden.
Big Yellow Taxi is one of Joni Mitchell's most covered songs. Artists who have covered it include Bob Dylan, Melanie Safka, Maire Brennan and Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton.
Link to Amazon Preview:
Big Yellow Taxi (Remastered LP Version)
YouTube links:
Joni Mitchell performing Big Yellow Taxi live in 1970. After the "a big yellow taxi took away my old man" verse, she sings an additional one:
Late last night I heard that screen door slam
And a big yellow tractor come and took away my house, it took away my land
One of many artists who have covered this song: Tracy Chapman live in Rome on July 27th, 2009.
Lyrics excerpt:
They took all the trees,
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Reasons to love this song:
The extremely catchy tune and humorous last verse of this song ("a big yellow taxi took away my old man", with laughter audible in her voice) are in contrast with the serious warning contained in the lyrics. Joni Mitchell was inspired to write this song while visiting Hawaii; according to JoniMitchell.com (see the footnotes to the lyrics here), the "pink hotel" she is singing about is likely to be the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach, and the "tree museum" is the Foster Botanical Garden.
Big Yellow Taxi is one of Joni Mitchell's most covered songs. Artists who have covered it include Bob Dylan, Melanie Safka, Maire Brennan and Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton.
Link to Amazon Preview:
Big Yellow Taxi (Remastered LP Version)
YouTube links:
Joni Mitchell performing Big Yellow Taxi live in 1970. After the "a big yellow taxi took away my old man" verse, she sings an additional one:
Late last night I heard that screen door slam
And a big yellow tractor come and took away my house, it took away my land
One of many artists who have covered this song: Tracy Chapman live in Rome on July 27th, 2009.
ponedjeljak, 16. kolovoza 2010.
#4 Natalie Merchant - Ophelia
Album: Ophelia, 1998.
Lyrics excerpt:
Ophelia was the circus queen,
The female cannonball
Projected through five flaming hoops
To wild and shocked applause
Ophelia was a tempest cyclone,
A goddamn hurricane
Your common sense, your best defense
They wasted, and in vain
Reasons to love this song:
Ophelia seems to be a character who has inspired many songs. This is my personal favourite. The song may or may not be about Shakespeare's Ophelia, but it is about a woman who certainly shared Ophelia's fate. Natalie Merchant tells us Ophelia has been various women throughout history -- a Carmelite nun, a sufragette, a "sweetheart to the nation", a "demigoddess", a mafia courtesan and a circus artist. Natalie Merchant plays all this women in the official video and, in the end, when she sings "Ophelia's mind went wandering, you'd wonder where she'd gone", we see her in a white nightgown, crying in a place that could be a sanatorium but looks more like a dungeon. We see images of the six women again, and this time the girl in white blends in with all of them. At the end of the song hear the voices of the women speaking in different languages, and we are not sure if all the women mentioned were a product of a madwoman's imagination, or if she had really lived all those lives and the intensity proved too much for her.
Link to the official video on Natalie Merchant's website:
http://www.nataliemerchant.com/w/ophelia/ophelia-music-video
Excerpts from the short film Ophelia, in which all the characters speak about themselves, can also be seen on the website. The women are all played by Natalie Merchant, and voiced by Natalie Merchant, Rocio Paez (Spanish), Camille Labro (French), Carmen Consoli (Italian), Suzanna Schmitz (German).
YouTube Link:
Live performance in New York City, 1999
Lyrics excerpt:
Ophelia was the circus queen,
The female cannonball
Projected through five flaming hoops
To wild and shocked applause
Ophelia was a tempest cyclone,
A goddamn hurricane
Your common sense, your best defense
They wasted, and in vain
Reasons to love this song:
Ophelia seems to be a character who has inspired many songs. This is my personal favourite. The song may or may not be about Shakespeare's Ophelia, but it is about a woman who certainly shared Ophelia's fate. Natalie Merchant tells us Ophelia has been various women throughout history -- a Carmelite nun, a sufragette, a "sweetheart to the nation", a "demigoddess", a mafia courtesan and a circus artist. Natalie Merchant plays all this women in the official video and, in the end, when she sings "Ophelia's mind went wandering, you'd wonder where she'd gone", we see her in a white nightgown, crying in a place that could be a sanatorium but looks more like a dungeon. We see images of the six women again, and this time the girl in white blends in with all of them. At the end of the song hear the voices of the women speaking in different languages, and we are not sure if all the women mentioned were a product of a madwoman's imagination, or if she had really lived all those lives and the intensity proved too much for her.
Link to the official video on Natalie Merchant's website:
http://www.nataliemerchant.com/w/ophelia/ophelia-music-video
Excerpts from the short film Ophelia, in which all the characters speak about themselves, can also be seen on the website. The women are all played by Natalie Merchant, and voiced by Natalie Merchant, Rocio Paez (Spanish), Camille Labro (French), Carmen Consoli (Italian), Suzanna Schmitz (German).
YouTube Link:
Live performance in New York City, 1999
subota, 14. kolovoza 2010.
#3 Kate Bush - Jig Of Life
Album:
Hounds of Love (1985)
Lyrics excerpt:
This moment in time,
It doesn't belong to you,
It belongs to me,
And to your little boy and to your little girl,
And the one hand clapping:
Where on your palm is my little line,
When you're written in mine
As an old memory?
Reasons to love this song:
The second side of Kate Bush's album Hounds of Love, entitled The Ninth Wave, tells the story of a woman drowning in the sea, struggling to keep awake and alive. In Jig of Life, she is in danger of giving in to sleep (and death), but her future self appears to her and angrily demands that she stays alive -- she is to live a long life, give birth two two children and grow old. The music is lively and fast-paced, in strong contrast to the melancholic Watching You Without Me which precedes it. It is as if the old woman was using the energy of the folk dance to shake her younger self awake.
The song features a spoken poem, written and performed by Kate's brother John Carder Bush. This is my favourite use of spoken word in a song.
YouTube Link:
The album version
Hounds of Love (1985)
Lyrics excerpt:
This moment in time,
It doesn't belong to you,
It belongs to me,
And to your little boy and to your little girl,
And the one hand clapping:
Where on your palm is my little line,
When you're written in mine
As an old memory?
Reasons to love this song:
The second side of Kate Bush's album Hounds of Love, entitled The Ninth Wave, tells the story of a woman drowning in the sea, struggling to keep awake and alive. In Jig of Life, she is in danger of giving in to sleep (and death), but her future self appears to her and angrily demands that she stays alive -- she is to live a long life, give birth two two children and grow old. The music is lively and fast-paced, in strong contrast to the melancholic Watching You Without Me which precedes it. It is as if the old woman was using the energy of the folk dance to shake her younger self awake.
The song features a spoken poem, written and performed by Kate's brother John Carder Bush. This is my favourite use of spoken word in a song.
YouTube Link:
The album version
utorak, 10. kolovoza 2010.
#2 Joanna Newsom - Emily
Album: Ys (2006)
Lyrics excerpt:
And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror
Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
Link to Amazon preview:
Emily
Reasons to love this song:
As it was for many other fans, Joanna Newsom's voice was an acquired taste for me. When I first heard her -- especially the songs from her first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender -- I thought she sounded like a cartoon character. But I heard people praise her second album, Ys, and mention that she was a great lyricist. I decided to give her a try and I read the lyrics for the five songs on Ys.
It didn't take long. Emily, the first song, was the turning point. The lyrics were touching and fascinating, and with all the references to nature and stars they seemed as if they had been written... not exactly in the past, but in a place beyond space and time. I listened to the song again, and this time her voice sounded lovely: still unusual, but lovely, the only voice I could imagine singing those lyrics. With her harp and with word combinations like hydrocephalitic listlessness, she seemed like a bard from another dimension.
YouTube link:
Joanna Newsom performing Emily in the First Unitarian Church Sanctuary in Philadelphia on November 16th, 2006
Part One
Part Two
Lyrics excerpt:
And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror
Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
Link to Amazon preview:
Emily
Reasons to love this song:
As it was for many other fans, Joanna Newsom's voice was an acquired taste for me. When I first heard her -- especially the songs from her first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender -- I thought she sounded like a cartoon character. But I heard people praise her second album, Ys, and mention that she was a great lyricist. I decided to give her a try and I read the lyrics for the five songs on Ys.
It didn't take long. Emily, the first song, was the turning point. The lyrics were touching and fascinating, and with all the references to nature and stars they seemed as if they had been written... not exactly in the past, but in a place beyond space and time. I listened to the song again, and this time her voice sounded lovely: still unusual, but lovely, the only voice I could imagine singing those lyrics. With her harp and with word combinations like hydrocephalitic listlessness, she seemed like a bard from another dimension.
YouTube link:
Joanna Newsom performing Emily in the First Unitarian Church Sanctuary in Philadelphia on November 16th, 2006
Part One
Part Two
subota, 7. kolovoza 2010.
#1 Tori Amos - Liquid Diamonds
Album: From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
Lyrics excerpt:
I guess I'm an underwater thing
I'm liquid running
There's a sea secret in me
It's plain to see it is rising
But I must be flowing
Liquid diamonds
Calling for my soul
At the corners of the world
I know she's playing poker
With the rest of the stragglers
Link to Amazon preview:
Liquid Diamonds (LP Version)
Reasons to love this song:
Although the order of these songs is random, I wanted the first song on the list to be one with a special meaning for me. Liquid Diamonds is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite artists, Tori Amos (who will be mentioned a lot in this blog).
The imagery this song evokes is so powerful -- a snowy landscape with dog sleds, a dark ocean, a lost soul playing poker somewhere beyond the four corners of the world. The melody flows in a way that evokes the waves of the ocean. The line I guess I'm an underwater thing reminds me strongly of the image on the cover of From The Choirgirl Hotel, one of a series of color photocopies of Tori Amos made by photographer Katerina Jebb for the album art. The resulting images are eerie -- Tori seems to be trapped under the surface of a dark sea, a perfect illustration for the lyrics of Liquid Diamonds (and perhaps also Pandora's Aquarium.)
YouTube link:
A live performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles
Lyrics excerpt:
I guess I'm an underwater thing
I'm liquid running
There's a sea secret in me
It's plain to see it is rising
But I must be flowing
Liquid diamonds
Calling for my soul
At the corners of the world
I know she's playing poker
With the rest of the stragglers
Link to Amazon preview:
Liquid Diamonds (LP Version)
Reasons to love this song:
Although the order of these songs is random, I wanted the first song on the list to be one with a special meaning for me. Liquid Diamonds is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite artists, Tori Amos (who will be mentioned a lot in this blog).
The imagery this song evokes is so powerful -- a snowy landscape with dog sleds, a dark ocean, a lost soul playing poker somewhere beyond the four corners of the world. The melody flows in a way that evokes the waves of the ocean. The line I guess I'm an underwater thing reminds me strongly of the image on the cover of From The Choirgirl Hotel, one of a series of color photocopies of Tori Amos made by photographer Katerina Jebb for the album art. The resulting images are eerie -- Tori seems to be trapped under the surface of a dark sea, a perfect illustration for the lyrics of Liquid Diamonds (and perhaps also Pandora's Aquarium.)
YouTube link:
A live performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles
About this blog
In this blog I will attempt to list and review a thousand great songs by female artists.
I'm not using any objective criteria to measure the greatness of these songs. I doubt that such criteria exist. This is a purely personal choice by the author of the blog.
Most of the artists featured here will be female singer-songwriters, but there will be occasional exceptions -- female vocalists performing songs written by someone else or traditional songs; bands; duets with male artists.
The order of the songs has no particular meaning. I'm not saying #1 is the best and #1000 is the worst, or vice versa. I love them all.
(Can I just note how amusing it is that the spell-checking software used by Blogger marks "blog" as a mistake?)
I'm not using any objective criteria to measure the greatness of these songs. I doubt that such criteria exist. This is a purely personal choice by the author of the blog.
Most of the artists featured here will be female singer-songwriters, but there will be occasional exceptions -- female vocalists performing songs written by someone else or traditional songs; bands; duets with male artists.
The order of the songs has no particular meaning. I'm not saying #1 is the best and #1000 is the worst, or vice versa. I love them all.
(Can I just note how amusing it is that the spell-checking software used by Blogger marks "blog" as a mistake?)
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