Skip to main content

The Healing Game

Sing it in your name ...


Shamanic Van. Back on the corner again with call and response. A solo sax which takes you right, right, right up and then falls away leaving you deep down into doo-wop backing vocals and the call and response, up, up and up with gathering intensity as the repetition sets in, the horns swirl and that circular, trance inducing, elevation begins. Round and round, over and over. deeper and deeper, higher and higher.

Healed.

Sing it.


Sublime live version with everyone in blistering form. An incendiary solo from Leo Green.


The official video (different take)


Sing the healing game ...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ancient Highway

"Shining like diamonds in the night ..." I'm not sure there is another song in Van's entire canon that allows such insight into his world as this one.  When he says that his music contains the answers to the questions journalists ask him they could do worse than start here. Solitude and separation.  The fight against the ego.  The untrustworthiness of those who claim friendship.  The struggle between rationalism and the sensual world. A desire for escape and obscurity.  There's a small cafe on the outskirts of town I'll be there when the sun goes down Where the roadside bends And it twists and turns Every new generation And I'll be praying to my higher self Don't let me down, keep my feet on the ground There's a roadside jam playin' on the edge of town In a town called Paradise near the ancient highway When the train whistle blows All the sadness that Hank Williams knows And the river flows Call them pag...
Post a Comment
Read more

Behind The Ritual

Like a whirling dervish ... A wonderful, circular, meditative song concerning function not form.  The song itself exemplifies the meaning of the track. Never more clearly than in the famous "blah, blah, blah ..." section, devoid of form there is only the function of the sound.  Elevation. Layer upon layer.  Round and round. Like a whirling dervish. You'll find the spiritual ... Stretching time ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more