Magic is still possible, Bowie’s
Heroes proves that.
- Emotion enriches a song's complexity. This song is a sustained emotional note.
- The song is Berlin. A scene, an atmosphere, a braveness, a flame.
- Yes, when it comes to such naked emotion as
Heroes, one can wield words like 'flame' without sounding arch or Romantic or insincere.
- The song makes believers. Music should be the trajectory of strong emotions.
I wonder, when working on Miles’
Someday My Prince Will Come, how did Hank Mobley feel to be upstaged so dramatically by Coltrane? On the same song? It’s no wonder he sounds slightly intimidated and resorts to laid-back bop-isms. Next to the furnace of Coltrane he (Mobley) sounds like a pilot-light, small and isolated and not likely to be taken up by the rest of the band. Somewhere in the background Miles looks with bemused eyes at the contrast, letting him dangle.
But lordy lordy, I love ballads. There’s some amazing balladeering on this album. A real contemplative muse.
I had an insight of sorts about
happiness recently. (And on a related note I read a very interesting article about positive psychology on Edge.org which is well worth a
read). It is this: the reason why many people don’t achieve happiness is because they expect to experience it exclusively — when in reality it’s often cut with other, less positive factors like suffering, work, loss and other drags. Or: that happiness is far milder than we’ve come to picture it. We imagine pure and total satisfaction on that account, but happiness deals exclusively in small change. Or: that even a little quantum of happiness comes at the cost of much labour and mildly unhappy hours at the desk. But at least, by knowing this, we can somewhat control and build up on it. Build on potential and strengths.
