Skip to main content

Brand New Day

I see my freedom from across the way ...


One of the most uplifting songs in Van's canon.  Delicate piano and the lightest of touches on the kit is all that sits under Van initially, before horns and gospel voices (featuring Cissy Houston) converge to cleanse the spirit and push away the gloom. So good it should be available on prescription.



A lovely live version from 2002


And my heart is still ...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Burning Ground

Dump the jute ... The struggle to dump the burdens we carry, the crosses we bear, to pare back the layers of aggregated defences and habits, to reveal our true selves, a hard and painful journey through the burning ground. Purification. Van and the band turned this into meditative revelation live.   Witness And I lift the veil ...

Troubadours

"Can you hear that sound?" Mark Isham's ringing trumpet lifts us away from mundane matters as Toni Marcus' strings elevate to the realms of dreamt romantic love. The clarity of the playing by the musicians on this track amplifies the purity of Van's own declaration told through this tale from the "days of yore." The three part solo section seems to echo the early stages of  romance, the initial heart skipping swoon before the excitement of reciprocity and finally seduction itself to the sound of Pee Wee's tenor saxophone but all of this virtuosity only leads to the true climax of the song.   The moment when it is transformed from fantasy to reality as Van changes from outwardly describing the troubadours, to setting himself in their place "lift your window high, turn your lamp down low, oh baby don't you know? I love you so." and the questioning of whether she hears that sound, "Do you hear that sound? Do you dig that sound...

Thanks For The Information

Every time I take two steps forward ... Sarcastic, exasperated, down right pissed off. Van turns it into an atmospheric classic.  And if you liked the original, the guitar heavy Neil Young infused live version from 2013 is utterly spectacular. I end up having to take three back ...