Listening to Solitude
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Some books are familiar to us even though we have never read them. Such is "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." Then there are songs which resonate with us seemingly since time immemorial (to ourself.) Such is "Solitude."
But belief of knowledge is far from being bona fide knowledge. Does any one here really remember "a very odd story" connected with a door? Can any one really recall the muted trumpet introducing the strangely husky vocals?
We all know Lady Day with the magnolia in her hair. We have all seen her standing under the microphone, belting out. But look at the picture above. The simplicity of her robe, her hair flatly combed on her head, the wistful stare.
Billie Holiday's life too is perhaps all too familiar to us. We know of her luckless loves and hushed hearbreaks, of her heyday as well as her jail days, her glory and her fall out of grace. But listen now. Take some time to listen to her voice - powerful and powering - haunting you with a heartening vulnerability, an estranged and slow delivery - a kind of lazy shuffling. Just listen to her until you enter her intimate rhythm and hear her secret reveries.
Despite the weariness of time, despite the excess and abuse or perhaps because of it, the Lady from Baltimore has never sounded so touching and so moving.
Her "Solitude" is a solace to me.
(There is an informed review of this song by Bill Janovitz on allmusic.com)
But belief of knowledge is far from being bona fide knowledge. Does any one here really remember "a very odd story" connected with a door? Can any one really recall the muted trumpet introducing the strangely husky vocals?
We all know Lady Day with the magnolia in her hair. We have all seen her standing under the microphone, belting out. But look at the picture above. The simplicity of her robe, her hair flatly combed on her head, the wistful stare.
Billie Holiday's life too is perhaps all too familiar to us. We know of her luckless loves and hushed hearbreaks, of her heyday as well as her jail days, her glory and her fall out of grace. But listen now. Take some time to listen to her voice - powerful and powering - haunting you with a heartening vulnerability, an estranged and slow delivery - a kind of lazy shuffling. Just listen to her until you enter her intimate rhythm and hear her secret reveries.
Despite the weariness of time, despite the excess and abuse or perhaps because of it, the Lady from Baltimore has never sounded so touching and so moving.
Her "Solitude" is a solace to me.
(There is an informed review of this song by Bill Janovitz on allmusic.com)
Comments (17)
MOG 2.0 and Rhapsody thought it better to take full ownership of the mp3 file I'd uploaded because it was on their catalogue. I've read about it but didn't see with my eyes. Thank you for alerting me to this. PS: Luckily by editing the original post one can still retrieve the mp3 upload and re-attach to the post or comments.