Secretly Wishing For Rain

September – David Sylvian
From Secrets of the Beehive (1987)

This song is appropriate for obvious reasons, but it’s also a very personal favorite. For me, this is the ultimate in “atmosphere over melody.” I mean, there’s really no tune to speak of in this song, just clever vocal twists and turns. Normally, mood alone isn’t enough for me to really sink my teeth into.

But what a mood! Everything is so perfectly placed – Sylvian’s voice, crooning and mysterious and playful and uneasy; lyrics that feel like a haiku; the piano, like brown leaves gently falling from the trees; those strings creeping in, so wonderfully inobtrusive, like a memory slowly remembered. My favorite bit – those last piano notes. They’re a musical semicolon, like pressing pause on the vcr, turning that movie into a photograph for just a little while. This is all in 78 seconds!

Note: This has to be the most pretentious thing I’ve ever written. I’ll try harder, I promise.