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.
1 comment:
Speaking of haikus, here's one from tonight:
nobody enjoys
strip clubs except the people
who are not myself.
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