Kevin Caldwell – Spot If I, a Love Song
Songwriters always have to tell themselves that what they’re doing, in the right circumstances, could heal the world. If only the world would properly listen? And, of course, while they’re at it, those songs that all wrestle with life’s big questions could solve a mystery or two that have weighed heavily on the consciousness of mankind for centuries. “What is love, really and is there a God?” “Was the Loch Ness monster merely a hoax and why are people still gathering up evidence?”
Yeah, songwriters are mighty busy putting the world to rights. It’s such a draining, thankless task that, most of the time, they simply don’t have any energy left to tackle the day-to-day woes with which us simple folk must deal. Happily, Kevin Caldwell, despite his undeniable talents and important mission, won’t turn us away when we need him most.
“Spot If I, a Love Song,” is a great song that joyfully sits somewhere in between being a John Prine song and a comedy routine. It’s about Spotify, the music app that rules a good portion of all our lives from fine-looking offices in Stockholm. It’s a great song and one cheekily questions the commitment of the freedom-fighting rockstar and the notion that things were better in a time before Spotify. Frankly, we’re mighty lucky that Caldwell made himself available for this one.
Paddy Kaye – An Unfulfilled Suicide Note
What makes smart, ambitious, potentially even talented people want to pick up a musical instrument and use it to pour their deepest thoughts and strangest fantasies over it? Even worse, and more baffling still, what, considering the uncertain nature of this world, would make them want to pursue this as a professional path?
I think that it’s easy to get some kind of answer by staring, for example, at ageing sports stars who’ve done everything right across their careers and who can still do things well. Ronaldo. Messi. Modric. Why, they must’ve not had a burger or slept past 12 o’clock in over 30 years. And what do they get besides medals and a lot of advertising dough? A lot of boredom and terrible routines.
What do you get when you’ve got all the qualities in the world, but can’t bring yourself up to follow a schedule? The Celtic-named, and every-American sounding Paddy Kaye dreams of life’s consequences while keeping a smile on for “An Unfulfilled Suicide Note.” It’s not all quite as gloomy as the name suggests. Instead, this is the kind of mock execution that John Prine might’ve conceived off. It’s an example of how beautifully terrible, or terribly beautiful, life can get when you’ve got no schedule you need to keep.
