One song to the tune of another: One More Night.

Time for episode 4…this time One More Night.

Aaron: Yet another in a long line of song titles that everyone seems to use.

Tony: But before we take a look at a couple, may I be so egocentric as to quote myself in terms of this song by Dylan.  Here’s a little bit from the original review on this site:

“…what makes it interesting is just how completely Dylan does that country music thing of utterly detaching the meaning of the lyrics from the music – something he never did in any of his earlier years of writing.  Compare and contrast for example with “Like a Rolling Stone” where you just feel the meaning of the lyrics via the music from the very start.

“But for this approach Dylan needs country music.  Although it is possible, of course, that Dylan is making fun of country music which so often seems to deliver lyrics that revolve around appalling and awful situations (being in prison, death, suicide, losing a lover…) with that same inevitable happy spring in the musical accompaniment, I don’t think this was in his mind at all.  I think he wanted to write a standard country song.”

So now to move on

Aaron: This first couldn’t be farther from Dylan’s use of the title. It’s German experimental rock band CAN.   (We have another of those situations where the link that Aaron can use in the United States, doesn’t work for Tony in England.  So two links are on offer…)

 

Aaron: This comes from the hugely influential 1972 album Ege Bamyasi. The track has a decent groove but, for me, it goes on too long and becomes monotonous. Maybe that’s the point, maybe I just don’t understand the genre, but it’s not for me!

Tony: For once I am the positive one out of the two of us.  Immediately I hear a track like this I can lose myself in it, sometimes by imagining how I might choreograph it, sometimes by thinking of an additional musical accompaniment I might find.  That’s not to say that it would be a brilliant dance routine, or that my extra line of music would add that much (or indeed anything), but I find the whole thing stimulating and engaging, I guess because I can get “inside” the music.  I want to be part of it.  And I think that is what the band (who I don’t know at all) were doing.

Aaron’s score : 1 out of 5

Tony’s score : 4 out of 5

Next we have the Phil Collins’ US number 1 hit.

 

It’s a surprisingly restrained performance from Phil, very soulful vocal and minimalist backing track, using just a shaker and a synth. Thematically it covers much the same ground as Bob’s track. I love it, and I don’t care who knows it!

Tony: Phil Collins has a very special place in my life, and I have always loved the fact that his brother and sister have made such a contribution to life, one being an ice skater the other a cartoonist.   Collins himself was an actor playing in Oliver! in the West End.  Quite a talented bunch.  And he worked with Brian Eno on Taking Tiger Mountain which is as good as it gets in my wider musical world.

I still have all the Genesis albums, and even play some of them occasionally… so yes I am hopelessly biased.  Except… although the guy has been a part of my life through all the ups and downs, the later solo career didn’t do so much for me, and it seems to do even less now.

But that is probably me just moving on.  But sitting here playing a few tracks while I write this really does give me a little lift in what are difficult times (you may have heard we have something of a lockdown in Britain at the moment – when you live on your own and are hardly allowed out, music is rather important I find.)

Going back to Phil Collins this morning I must admit it doesn’t give me the same buzz any more, which is probably just me getting old.  Or being old.  But still, it’s nice to look back and it really does make me want to dig out those Genesis tracks again.

Aaron’s score : 5 out of five

Tony’s score : 3 out of five.

Tony’s PS

I love that.

Untold Dylan

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