When the Sun Hits

A music blog with the tagline: Your resource for all things shoegaze and dream pop

I still love dinosaurs!

Rhone said it better than I was going to:

“Today will birth legends”

If you are Minnesotan, you will nod knowingly.

@patrickrhone

Lumiere Brothers footage of Paris, late 19th century

Did we ever deserve them? Did we love them enough?

I listened to the Purple Rain soundtrack, watched the video of Prince’s Superbowl halftime performance, then spent at least an hour listening to the song Purple Rain on repeat.

Joy. Awe. Sadness.

Tears.

Awash.

There is no end to discovery in music.

I have been listening to Pink Moon by Nick Drake on repeat for about the last two hours. Just the one song, which is something I rarely do.

I watched The Lake House on TV last night, and it was featured in the soundtrack. And I remembered that it was in Volkswagen convertible commercials a long time ago. Maybe ten years ago? I had assumed at that time that it was a current song by a current commercial artist. You know, because Volkswagen and Mitsubishi had been using Crystal Method, Dirty Vegas and Propellerheads tracks. I won’t lie: I have purchased albums on the basis of television commercials.

But hearing it again made it fresh and I was determined this time to find it and download it.

It’s not on the soundtrack album for The Lake House. Fortunately, IMDB lists the songs in the movie, in what I’m guessing is order of appearance.

I made a lot of wrong guesses as to which song it might be, because I didn’t think through the lyrics as they related to the song title. And I assumed incorrectly the song was from the late 90s.

SO. If he was still alive, I would owe Nick Drake an apology. And I find myself wondering what the rest of his œuvre is like. Pink Moon is the title track of his third album, released in 1972. He didn’t live long enough to produce a fourth.

It’s a sweet, stripped down, two-minute song. Two guitars and a few notes on a piano, and a few lines of poetry repeated twice:

See also: Nick Drake Pink Moon 1972 Full Album

Kim and Jessie is a song that I can easily put on repeat.

M83’s last two albums have been trending toward a sound that is very nostalgic for me, and this particular song is a stand out example.

Though the song was released in 2008, it is heavily evocative of mid-1980s groups like ’Til Tuesday, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears for Fears. If you played a string of Top 40 hits from 1985 or 1986, and slipped in Kim and Jessie, I think a lot of people would think it sounds similar and familiar. Whether that makes you die inside a little or makes you a little giddy is personal, of course.

The lyric is simple, and most of the song is repetition of the chorus:

Somebody lurks in the shadows
Somebody whispers
Somebody lurks in the shadows
Yeah, yeah, yeah

But the repetition of the lyric in the last part of the song really works for me, because it gives me a chance to notice the additional vocal parts and the simultaneous guitar solo which are layered subtly, not detracting from the melody but awaiting your attention.

I had not seen the video until just before writing this piece. While it doesn’t sync to the lyric, I think it tells a similar story that is equally open to interpretation.

Album information at M83’s official site
Video at Last.fm
Video at YouTube
Lyrics Sites