Once again, I'm a week late...someday I'll get caught up (or not).
As I've gotten older there seems to be a number of artists--like this week's featured artist--that as I listen to them it seems as if I should have devoted more of my time to their talents, especially artists who are a little after my formative years musically (Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and Jack Johnson also come to mind). Perhaps it's a lack of time--raising a family and working to provide for them take up a good bit of mine--or maybe it's just a generational bias, but each of the artists I've listed above have all had a tune that I loved, much like this week's tune....
Sarah McLachlan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1968 and was placed with a family who later adopted her. She began playing music at the age of four (ukulele), and studied classical piano, classical guitar, and voice while in High School. She formed her first band while still a teenager, and after one performance was offered a contract. Her parents made her a) finish high school, and b) a year of college before accepting the offer and moving to Vancouver--and the rest, as they say, is history. McLachlan released her first album at the ripe old age of nineteen in 1987, and in the thirty-six years since then has gone one to sell over forty million albums, win twelve Juno Awards, three Grammys, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. For her career, she has released nine studio albums (with four #1's in her native Canada and five top ten albums in the U.S.), and fifty-three singles (with one number one and nine top tens in Canada as well as five hitting the top ten here in the States). McLachlan was also one of the founders of the immensely popular Lilith Fair tours of the nineties and has been quite active with numerous charities. She continues to record and tour.
"Ice Cream" was released as the tenth song on McLachlan's 1993 album, the rather fallibly named Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. The song was not originally released as a single, but a live version of it reached #9 in her native Canada (so many cool kids north of the border!). The album hit #5 in the Great White North, and #50 on the Billboard 200.
Not really sure I know fuck all of what this song is about, but I suspect it has something to do with the highs and lows of love. Still, McLachlan delivers a virtuoso performance--her vocals are spot on and her piano gives the song a wistful ambiance, but with just enough of the marvel that is love to keep it honest. I never really noticed until I was reading some comments about the song, but as you listen give careful attention to the drums--just a magnificent rhythmic display. In the end, though, the wonder of the song is how so much is said with so little--the feelings it evokes in its sparseness, both lyrically and musically, is amazing.
Lyric Sheet: "Your love is better than ice cream/Better than anything else that I've tried/Your love is better than ice cream/Everyone here knows how to fight..."
Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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