My healing is progressing nicely, thanks for asking! I’m being good, though, following doctor’s orders (mostly) not lifting heavy objects, but that means there’s a delay on my fall decorating, since my hubby has been procrastinating digging out my fall decor boxes from the garage. Once the 6 week mark arrives (only another week-and-a-half), all bets are off, and I’ll finally get to decorate! Hopefully we’ll have some sunny weather at that time like we’ve been enjoying, decorating in the rain is never fun!
Meanwhile, it’s Monday, and Monday means music! For the month of October, our Honorary Conductor and Spotlight Dancer is Michele Truhlik of “Angels Bark“! Her theme choice for this week is “Songs featuring… using unusual instruments!”. Let’s get this party started!
Let’s start with this pulsating rocker that this band has described as the most honest song on that particular album. They were quoted as saying:
“We’re all married. True love is ups and downs. You hit, you miss. You’re fire and ice. But at the end of the day we’re not going anywhere. We feel that way in our personal lives and as a band. We’re going to have our ups and downs. We’ve been through a lot. We just have this long stretch of love. This long view of the group.”
What really makes this song special and different is how they used an uncommon instrument called a Woodrow, which brings an Appalachian feel into this high energy track. That unique sound combined with their vocals – which may be the most powerful the band has ever sounded – it just leaves the listener breathless.
Get ready to dance to Lady Antebellum with “Long Stretch of Love”:
Next up is a song this artist wrote because he was trying to love himself like the others around him loved him. This was a huge Country hit, staying at #1 on the Country charts for 6 weeks.
The artist’s ex-girlfriend appears in the video, the artist admitted that at the time he wrote this he “sucked at relationships.” He was quoted as saying:
“I would write these songs about love and relationships; I remember writing ‘Somebody Like You’ and I remember playing it for my girlfriend at the time and she just looked at me and said, ‘You’re a f—ing hypocrite’ – and I couldn’t argue that. And I realized I was writing from all these place of the kind of person I wished I could be. I wasn’t that person but I wanted to be. It was only a song but my real life was a disaster.”
Nice to see that he learned from his mistakes and ended up being the kind of person he wanted to be in an awesome relationship with an equally awesome person.
As to the ‘unusual instruments’ qualification, the artist played lead guitar, ganjo, EBow and cardboard box on the track.
Give a listen to Keith Urban with “Somebody Like You”:
Next up is a chilling electronic tune that finds this artist collaborating with one of her heroes, the British folktronica singer-songwriter Imogen Heap. She was quoted as saying:
“We did a one take vocal and it was just so inspiring to see a woman do all the technical things in the studio that you usually see men do.”
The lyrics are heavy on metaphors of drowning in addiction until the artist finds she is “finally clean” and ready to move on. She was quoted as saying:
“It’s about comparing getting over a relationship to sobriety; it has a lot of different references between addiction and moving on from a relationship. [This song] is one that I wrote about sort of coming out of a relationship, or trying to move on from some struggle that you had in your life, and feeling kind of tarnished by it. And it kind of talks about how if you really allow yourself to feel pain, I think maybe it’s easier to get past it. For most people that I’ve known who’ve fought through struggle, a lot them who have really just faced the pain head on have come out OK a lot faster than the ones who just pretended to be in denial of it.”
The music incorporates a couple of unusual instruments played by Imogen Heap: a mbira, which is a thumb piano and these things called boomwhackers, which are for the percussion.
Here’s the inimitable Taylor Swift with “Clean”:
Last, but certainly not least, this breezy, jaunty tune is a track from this London-based artist’s debut album. The pop/folk singer-songwriter explained that the song is “about quitting worrying, getting up off your butt and getting on your rollerblades ‘and rolling on.'” It was released as this artist’s first US single, and was the first song she wrote.
The artist was quoted as saying:
“[This song] was a song I wrote because I was on the Tube on my way to the studio. There was a guy on the Tube playing guitar and asking for money, and he must have not gotten a lot of change because he started having a go at everyone at the Tube. He basically got angry at everyone. So when I got to the studio that day, I was just chatting with Craigie [Dodds] and Jonny [Sharp], who I wrote the song with, about him. We just started talking about loads of other people just who kind of don’t know what they want and take it out on everyone around them. The song is just about people like that, and we’re all like that every now and again. We take things out on the people around us. It’s just about realizing we’re all in the same boat and if you can roll on and move on from it.”
The unusual instrument in this song is the artist used a child’s toy drum kit for the song’s percussion.
Without further ado, here’s Eliza Doolittle with “Rollerblades”:
That’s a wrap for this week – have a great Monday, see you on the dance floor!
Now on to the particulars of Monday’s Music Move’s Me: I have the supreme honor and privilege of being a co-host with the inimitable Xmas Dolly and our musical cohort, the awesome Cathy from Curious as a CAThy, and while our beloved Callie of JAmerican Spice is taking a break, our friend Michelle from Musings and Merriments with Michelle is helping out with hostess duties! And, for the month of October, our Honorary Conductor and Spotlight Dancer is Michele Truhlik of “Angels Bark“!
Want to join in the fun? It’s easy – just find a tune that rocks your boat, post it and link up – don’t forget to grab Xmas Dolly…er, um, I mean her button…over at her place here. Check out Xmas Dolly’s sidebar for the random themes we sport each week – and you can always ask for a specific theme of music you like, too. Check out the other music lovahs and let’s jam!
Michele Truhlik from Angels Bark
Stacy,
I enjoyed all of your song selections this morning. I think Lady Antebellum’s song is new-to-me. I like the sound of the Woodrow and the Appalachian feel to this song. I had no idea what a Ebow as used in Keith’s song or the Boomwackers used in Taylor’s song so I asked Google to show me images of these unusual instruments. I recognized the Ebow but not the Boomwackers. Did you spot this YT clip Boomwackers playing the James Bond theme song?
You did a furtastic job with your song picks. Thanks for sharing and for dancing with me!
I copied and pasted the YT clip into my previous comment but it didn’t show for some reason, so here’s the direct link…https://youtu.be/EwK9IvF7N5s
Lady Antebellum continues to prove why they are among the elite of country music and could transition into virtually any genre. Keith Urban…nuff said. Thanks for the Monday morning music Have a blessed week.
Super cool songs. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Good picks and glad healing is coming along.
Shame on your husband for not getting those Halloween decorations out for you. I am glad you are on the mend. Nice choices, especially Somebody Like You. Thanks for hosting.
Wonderful music to accompany my after work time. Thank you!
Hi Stacy.
Great picks here! I especially like Lady Antebellum’s song, The lyrics are fabulous and so relatable. It has a good message. I really need to get more familiar with Lady Antebellum’s music.
My other favorite here is Keith Urban’s. I love how his then-girlfriend called him out on his crap! And equally impressive is that he took it to heart. It’s hard to hear the truth sometimes and often folks just run away from it. He had a double-win: a great song and some successful self-improvement!
I love the word you used to describe Taylor Swift: inimitable. Good word!
Thanks for playing along with my theme this week. Hopefully you had fun finding songs that use unique unusual instruments. It’s really been fun being an honorary co-hostess.
So glad to hear that you are feeling better. I am looking forward to the day that I can write the same about myself!…
Have a good week,
Michele at Angels Bark
I enjoyed Lady Antebellum and Taylor Swift – the talent shines through, and almost all of these songs introduced me to instruments that I had no knowlege of. The Woodrow, especially, is new to me and it reminds me I really need to go back to Asheville, NC one of these days.