Hi, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Music Monday.
(Image found online. Original source unknown.)
I have always swooned for a great singer/songwriter and today’s is no exception. UK artist David Gray’s fourth album, White Ladder, was introduced to the world through a four step process. In November 1998 he released it in Ireland on his own private label. Then in March 1999 it hit the UK and caught the attention of fellow musician Dave Matthews who shared it with US audiences on his own ATO label the same year. Once Warner Brothers East West division got involved in 2000 to release the single, “Babylon”, “the floodgates opened”, per Gray’s website. It went on to report that the single became one of the hits of that summer, the album became a multi-million global phenomenon and Gray’s popularity exploded.
As much as I admire many of his self-penned songs, I also love today’s track which was written and originally released in 1981 by English new wave/pop duo, Soft Cell (on the same album with their big hit, “Tainted Love”). Gray extended his cover by adding lines from two wonderful early Van Morrison songs, “Madame George” and “Into The Mystic”.
Gray’s version is a slowed down, stripped down version free of the synth-pop vibe of Soft Cell’s original. That helped highlight the empowering message of the lyrics sung so beautifully in Gray’s signature laid back reflective style & vibe. It is another example of how a song introduced in one genre can make an even bigger impact in the hands of another artist revisiting a well written tune 20 years later.
“Take your hands off me, hey
I don’t belong to you, you see
And take a look in my face, for the last time
I never knew you, you never knew me“.
David Gray circa 2010. (Image found online. Original source unknown.)
David Gray: “Say Hello Wave Goodbye” (1998, written by Peter Mark Sinclair “Marc” Almond, David Ball and Sir George Ivan “Van” Morrison).
Stay safe & well.
Lilacs & Rust 