There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment. ~Elvis Costello
Released in 1995, Fool’s Garden’s “Lemon Tree” hit number one not only in the band’s native Germany but in Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway.
Although it also peaked at #26 in the UK pop charts, it was never a hit in the U.S.
This song is familiar enough around the world to have spawned several cover versions and even a Christmas parody (“Christmas Tree”) but if you’re American you’re likely hearing it for the first time.
And that’s what Songs You May Have Missed is all about.
When we last featured Abba in this series of posts, we were wiping a tear away as we listened to the tale of marital disintegration “My Love, My Life” from their aptly-named 1977 stateside breakthrough album Arrival.
Despite the bright, poppy, polyester image these Swedes are sadly saddled with, actually they could serve up heartache like few bands of any era, perhaps because too often the heartache in the writing was of the autobiographical sort.
So here’s a fresh serving of pain–a tune about a mother’s regret in watching her daughter grow up too soon, inspired by band members Bjorn and Agnetha’s (at the time) seven-year-old daughter Linda Ulvaeus.
The song was released as a single only in Japan, as a promo single for the Coca-Cola company. The Visitors, from which it came, was their eighth and–unbeknownst to them at the time–final album.
Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I’m losing her forever And without really entering her world I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter That funny little girl
Slipping through my fingers all the time I try to capture every minute The feeling in it Slipping through my fingers all the time Do I really see what’s in her mind Each time I think I’m close to knowing She keeps on growing Slipping through my fingers all the time
Sleep in our eyes Her and me at the breakfast table Barely awake, I let precious time go by Then when she’s gone There’s that odd melancholy feeling And a sense of guilt I can’t deny
What happened to the wonderful adventures The places I had planned for us to go (Slipping through my fingers all the time) Well, some of that we did but most we didn’t And why, I just don’t know
Slipping through my fingers all the time I try to capture every minute The feeling in it Slipping through my fingers all the time Do I really see what’s in her mind Each time I think I’m close to knowing She keeps on growing Slipping through my fingers all the time
Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture And save it from the funny tricks of time Slipping through my fingers
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
Originally featured on his 2014 four-song EP, then anchoring his full-length debut Dopamine a year later, the psychedelically sweet “10,000 Emerald Pools” helped propel singer-songwriter and Michigan native Garrett Borns onto US rock and alternative charts.
While fans of MGMT and Lana Del Rey will probably take to the trippy, falsetto-driven psych pop sound, those old enough to know who T. Rex is might hear enough glam touches to pique interest too.
That said, an appreciation of melodic pop wrapped in glittery production is your only pre-qualification to take this musical plunge.
From their 1968 sophomore LP The Book of Taliesyn. On later albums Ritchie Blackmore and company would certainly rock harder. But they were arguably most interesting in their progressive rock infancy, as this track attests.
To any fan of classic-era Moody Blues, this one will sound like musical comfort food.
Burt Bacharach & Daniel Tashian: “Bells of St. Augustine” (2020)
The gently seductive music of Daniel Tashian’s band Silver Seas evokes 60’s pop with a combination of sunny harmonies and cloudy, melancholy melodies.
Thus a collaboration with venerable composer Burt Bacharach, whose head would be on a pop Mount Rushmore and whose tunes helped make legends of Dionne Warwick, B.J. Thomas, Jackie DeShannon, The Carpenters, Herb Alpert and Dusty Springfield to mention a few, is not an unnatural pairing.
“Bells of St. Augustine”, like the best work of both men, hits the bittersweet spot.
Instant Vintage is the title of the 2002 solo debut from Tony! Toni! Toné! alumn Raphael Saadiq. And the description fits this cut from his third album perfectly.
The essence of the song–the soul of the song–is sewn from strands of 70’s-80’s masters of the genre. A perfect homage, and a sweet slice of R&B in its own right.
“Everything that is and was will cease to be” is the message of a song that the Irish family band was commissioned to write for an English TV miniseries that touched on the futility of political violence.
It became the first Irish-language song to chart in the UK (#5) won an Igor Novello award and featured in several Hollywood movies, including Patriot Games.
At the peak of the global success the song brought them, singer Moya Brennan related, they were asked what it was like to write a hit song. Their answer: “Oh come on, be serious, if you were trying to write a hit song would you have written it in Gaelic?”
A bouncy, infectious bit of funk pop from a five-piece out of London. As they work on a debut album, it’s tough times to try to book gigs to promote themselves.
But here’s hoping their happy sound finds a place on American radio.
