#172) "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters - Seminal to my first glimmers of awareness so many years ago, when sunlight came from all around and adults were just large unknown figures picking me up and putting me down, this was the music my parents listened to, playing in the background and thus shaping my very young life. Sappy? Yes. Cheesy? Maybe. But look (listen) again, and then a third time. Much of The Carpenters' music possessed an unparalleled beauty, a distinctive sound that was unprecedented (dare I say, groundbreaking...?), and for my money, has never been duplicated.
One either gets this or doesn't. One either understands the difference between a throwaway love song filling dead air on Adult/Contemporary radio, throwing up either bombastic, overwrought allusions ("It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celene Dion, for instance), or completely sterile affirmations ("Always" by Atlantic Starr), and what The Carpenters were able to accomplish in their best moments. They may have been sappy, but they were not bubble gum.
Nowhere is a Carpenters "best moment" better evidenced than by "We've Only Just Begun", which began life as a jingle for a bank commercial in the late 60s, and was turned into quintessential AM Gold by combining Karen Carpenters' voice with her brother Richard's inspired arrangement and production. The end result was a sound so intimate and organic it could be (and was...and is) trance-inducing, possessing a dream-like melancholy that truly doesn't merely play, instead fills the room.
In a 1997 documentary about The Carpenters, one of the song's composers, Paul Williams, says that he often heard The Carpenters dismissed as being "vanilla".
Maybe they were vanilla, he concedes, but what an exquisite flavor.
Hallelujah.
"And when the evening comes, we smile..."
#173) "I Was Young When I Left Home" by Antony and the Johnsons - Appearing on Dark Was the Night, a 2009 compilation album for AIDS research/awareness, Antony Hegarty flexes his artistic muscle a bit with a moving rendition of Dylan's I Was Young When I Left Home.
Hegarty is an amazing talent, but casual listeners tend to be put off by his unique vocalization (perhaps something else you either get, or don't...). Here, his voice is inserted comfortably, and sturdily, into a folk-oriented arrangement that does Dylan justice, even, I'd venture, lending a new emotional layer to the melody and lyrics.
Which, if you know and appreciate Dylan, is saying something.
"But I can't go home this way..."
