*Tom noted in the pub a couple of days ago that a GOOD CRITICAL EXERCISE when discussing a lot of this music is to NOT USE the word “shimmering”. He is right but it is hard.

It must have been about 1994 and we used to, as a matter of course, routinely target flights from Amsterdam. It was our practice to arrest even for “personal use” and porny vids back then and clearly The Dam was a rich source of both. Nowadays, we simply wouldn’t bother with tiny bits of herb, simply take it, and obviously the advent of the internet has seen importation of porn in the shape of tapes and jazz-mags grind to a halt pretty much. This particular day, I had my eye on four scruffy looking guys entering the Green Channel (the Blue EU Exit wasn’t there then). I corralled them up and asked for their passports. All of them were Irish. I questioned them further and their story was that they were “musicians” and were on their way to Brighton to perform in a concert. At this point, I noticed a couple of colleagues looking across at me, which I thought was rather odd, and at this precise moment a smiley female passenger came bounding over to join us at the bench:
“What have you bad boys been up to?” she said, gently chiding them.
“Hello. Are you part of the group?” I asked her.
She was.
It was Clannad. Sans gear.

This was pleasant but nothing more, and it’s unfortunate that Enya was adopted by the Abigail’s Party set of the time, as it rather devalued (in advance) anything she did from then on.

Chase the dog star over the sea
Home where my true love is waiting for me
Rope the south wind, canvas the stars
Harness the moonlight so she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso …

If I should die and water’s my grave
She’ll never know if I’m damned or I’m saved
See the ghost fly over the sea
Under the moonlight, there she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso

Off the beaten track as South American place names go (cf Rio…) Cf also;
“Come fly with me, let’s float down to Peru / In llama land there’s a one man band and he’ll toot his flute for you…”

It’s interesting to think how people like Aphex Twin (who does have a touch of the pizzagogos in some of his more tuneful moments like xtal) kind of solve the problem: witter on if at all about strictly invented alien, indigene-free landscapes with the completely clear understanding that, as it were, listening to AT is really just entering a portal into Richard James’s head (after 30 minutes or so you’re deposited somewhere on the cornish coast).

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2003/09/jo-stafford-you-belong-to-me/

I gotta say I prefer the Bob Dylan version

Rory, that’s not what I said. To Enya, “Orinoco” and “Caribbean” signify on exactly the same sonic level. Like lonepilgrim wrote in post #67, I’m all for getting a place wrong, especially if it grabs me; but Enya doesn’t distinguish between the two “places” or states of mind conjured by Orinoco and Caribbean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia

… Geography geek

http://everybobdylansong.blogspot.com/

*ie it quotes me!

Sally’s one I think picks up where Mike’s ended, just after Rock Around The Clock – his old stuff is still up in an archive on his site I think?

(P.S.: does anyone know whatever happened to Mike Daddino’s Billboard #1 project; did it just fizzle out?)

I’m reorganising the links on the side – in the long run I’m creating a “Similar Blogs To Popular” category to promote Marcello and Lena’s (and Sally O’Rourke’s and Jonathan Bogart’s projects) – for now those two linked ones are up on the “Links For Popular” section and if there’s anything else similar out there I’d love to know about it.