...and we are all impermenant

[glenatron]

So if an artist ( in the musical sense ) is going to find their way to my heart, one surefire route is by being a truly amazing lyricist. I've always been a words person and if someone has great lyrics I will warm to them very quickly, if they have stunning tunes and passable lyrics I'll take a lot longer to get into their work, if the lyrics are bad then no amount of musical genius will entirely persuade me.

For some time now, since I heard The Easter Parade on the radio, I have been keeping an eye out for an album by Emmy The Great and the other day I noticed it had come out.

The lyrics are good, really good. Better than almost anybody in fact. Right up there with the the finest moments of Billy Bragg, with Dar Williams before she was beaten to mediocrity with the MOR stick. Basically, judging by my first couple of listens it seems to me that she is writing songs as good as anyone ever has.

And i am grateful for the things
That you've tried to show to me dear
But there's no arcadia
No Albion and there's no jerusalem here

And underneath your pastures green
There's earth and there's ash
And there's bone
And there are things that disappear
Into it and then they are gone

And there is light that hits the sky
And then it is midnight again
And there is my mother, my father,
And you and we are all impermanent

- The Easter Parade

I wanted to pick out a couple of select lines, but like Dar Williams, these songs reflect in on themselves and fold from verse to verse, so one can't take a corner and do them justice. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that anyone else driven by a love of the sung word among you could click on any song title here and find yourself shopping for the album without making any conscious decision to do so, such is their intensity.

This is of course the first flush of discovering something very special and I don't know how this record will settle with time's regard, but I feel like it is worth the price of entry already.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

That's really nice. Thanks for the tip!

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

It's a pleasure! I love to be able to share this stuff.