SUNDAY! And You Know What That Means. FOOTBALL! But first some Bic Runga for your li...

David Bowie wrote the perfect little addiction parable in "Space Oddity". The oblique humor in the lyric is belied by the tense jittery delivery, couched in an aural fog of warm guitars & ominous blips & beeps.

But he felt a need for a sequel and came up with "Ashes To Ashes". As a stand alone entity its a fine song performed well. The vaguely comforting fog of Space Oddity has been replaced by a rubbery Dali-esque sound, stretchy & rubbery. And the veneer of parable has been ripped away and we're told that Major Tom is a junkie, adrift, cast in his own imagination as the pilot.

I liked the parable more.

Having said all that....Bic Runga hails from New Zealand & captured my attention some time ago. Her cds are not easy for me to find.....(I have yet to buy anything over the internet). She's that rare singer that can sing the torch song & make you cry, or rock out to make you rattle your bones. A gifted songwriter in her own right she's also got that knack for finding different facets of the works of others. Here for instance...."Ashes To Ashes", her voice has an uncharacteristicly worn, nasal quality, plaintive.

I don't know..... I like this, and its just a run-through, a rehearsal.