Hadnot Creek – Sailor
Writers who spend years trying to come up with a great, colossally innovative idea are just wasting their time, or that of their patrons. All the good ones are taken. But don’t despair. They’ve always been taken.
Indeed, realistically, there are only a few stories ever being told at any one point, and a handful of those that truly deserve the effort of being brought out before a crowd. Travelling songs, used as a metaphor for moving forward and sidestepping troubled times, will always be sung. Hadnot Creek has just written a great one in that tradition.
In particular, songs with a nautical theme have always captured the imagination of songwriters. From “Sail On, Sailor” by the late master Brian Wilson and his Beach Boys, to songs of considerable fame by Gordon Lightfoot, Billy Joel or, yes, even Styx, the clear blue waters have always inspired those seeking freedom.
Why can’t you just sail away into the waters and be done with all the wicked ways of the world? Hadnot Creek’s “Sailor” is a beautifully sentimental folk song about the desire to be unbound once more. It arrives at a difficult period, too. How can you escape your own mind or all of the ideas being pumped into it on a regular basis? A return to basics may be in order, and it’s music like that by Hadnot Creek that helps to make the shift back to what’s vital.
Real Ones – Happy Birthday
It’s not just the Christmas holidays that most people would rather avoid. The majority of folks can’t stand remembering, let alone celebrating, their own birthdays. They leave the phone uncharged, draw the blinds down and wait for the threat of well-wishers to pass.
Now, for most people, this is not a set of habits that they adopt early in their childhood, but behaviours that they adopt as they begin to navigate adulthood. Most of their friends, after a while, get the hint. Most people are not like Bergen’s Real Ones.
Why should you be deprived of a celebration of your life when you have friends capable of setting such an event up for you? Why should you be spared having to think about the decisions that you’ve made during your existence when all the rest of us have to go through it?
“Happy Birthday” by Real Ones is a wonderfully Sunny dedication for your special day. The lyrics are honest and sprinkled with just a little bit of modern, ironic lines. But, to best appreciate it, I suggest that you use your internet connection to glance at a few pictures of the enormously rich and terribly rainy city of Bergen, Norway and put yourself in the shoes of the one for whom the party’s been thrown. Are you surprised? Are you slightly annoyed? Well, this song is for you, then.
