4 posts tagged “70s”

Demis Roussos is one of the reasons I became invulnerable to contemporary romantic or 'sentimental' songs.  Thankfully, I was exposed to Demis,(also Nana Mouskouri) amongst a host of other genres - blues, opera, meditational, classical, Rock & Roll stuff - as a child (owe my elder brother for that).  This helped me appreciate music, and all phenomenon thereafter, from a host of angles. I absolutely love the Greek style of music - which methinks has Arabic elements in it...as illustrated by the instruments used, the way it is played, and the fluidity of the tunes, i.e. the opening part of the song in the following video.

Many of the songs of 'those' times basically spoke of a deeper kind of love that required, or reinforced, a deeper sense of things in the listener - other than the relatively superficial teeny-version of romance and sentimentality today.   It wasn't just in the lyrics, it was in the passion with which they were sung, the emotional depth of the music, the arrangement....- what i call the subconscious intent of the singer/artist/writer/etc which they themselves may not be aware of.  Demis, to me, is a singer of 'the philosopher class', who communicates something deeper via the medium of expressions, tone, vocal fluctuations, etc, etc, where philosophers and thinkers use ideas via the medium of the thesis to incite just as much in another facet of the human persona.  CPR for the soul.  That's what it is.  If I'm allowed one wish in life, it is to die with the soul that it takes to appreciate beauty like this, intact.

I  suppose, as teens became a viable profit-generating market for music from the 50s onwards, the 'old fogies' were gradually pushed out and the sector of the market that promised the most profit - the 'young-uns' - became the arbiters of 'good music'.  Sad. 

But that didn't deter me, a couple of days ago, when I was having a drink at a local coffeeshop, from playing Demis on my portable ipod speakers - whilst dressed as a 'rocker';) - I never gave a hoot about ‘hip’  I always have to have my healthy bout of quality music before entering local pubs(to play pool) where attempts are made to blast my spirit away with their 'boom boom' or contemporary 'RnB' music.

lyrics

My friend the wind will come from the hills
When dawn will rise, he'll wake me again
My friend the wind will tell me a secret
He shares with me, he shares with me

My friend the wind will come from the north
With words of love, she whispered for me
My friend the wind will say she loves me
And me alone, and me alone

I'll hear her voice and the words
That he brings from Helenimou
Sweet as a kiss are the songs of Aghapimou
Soft as the dew is the touch of Manoulamou
Oh oh oh

We'll share a dream where I'm never away from Helenimou
Blue are the days like the eyes of Aghapimou
Far from the world will I live with Manoulamou
Oh oh oh

My friend the wind go back to the hills
And tell my love a day will soon come
Oh friendly wind you tell her a secret
You know so well, oh you know so well

My friend the wind will come from the north
With words of love, she whispered for me
My friend the wind will say she loves me
And me alone, and me alone

I'll hear her voice and the words
That he brings from Helenimou
Sweet as a kiss are the songs of Aghapimou
Soft as the dew is the touch of Manoulamou
Oh oh oh

We'll share a dream where I'm never away from Helenimou
Blue are the days like the eyes of Aghapimou
Far from the world will I live with Manoulamou
Oh oh oh

La la la .... Helenimou
La la la .... Aghapimou
La la la .... Manoulamou

La la la .... Helenimou
La la la .... Aghapimou
La la la .... Manoulamou

If you got down this far, here's a 'bonus' song/video....another one of my favourites from Demis :)

Have a meaningful weekend :)

ed

Why i never got into much contemporary music - from the mid 90s onwards - is that the preceding eras made me associate music with, amongst others, philosophical depth, or, at least, critical vibrancy. 

In brief....

I made an observation the other day whilst talking about music to a mate, that western music moved from 'raw' rebellion/amongst others (50s-mid 60s), to the ideological (mid 60s to mid 70s), and then back to 'raw' again (late 70s to late 80s).  Due to the onslaught of the system on dissenters, and 'fans' mistaking musicians for philosophers instead of just muses,  they were left without a true blueprint on how to move on from these musician philosophers to a concrete formula to answer the questions musicians inevitably leave unanswered - due to the constraints of the tools utilised(brevity in lyrics, etc, etc).  I've always stated that the duty of every 'rocker', 'punk', etc, is to move on, and complement, the muse-ical works of any insightful musician with the relatively 'verbose' works of philosophers and social scientists.  As for the 'pop-sters' out there, they are the lumpen-proletariat of the intellectual world.  Don't mind them for now.

Check out Deep Purple's performance of, Sweet Child in Time.  Simple 'remixed' 'ringtone' follows.  hmmm....miss my 'long hair' days...

Check out the following two music vids. And oh, if you're inclined to say, 'it's not hip because it ain't my time', then you are a victim of your time.  That's where you cease to be an individual and begin to be nothing more than a reflection of a 'trendy' billboard.

 

I may be an ‘80s kid’, but I always viewed ‘preoccupation’ and ‘fixation’ with a particular time and space, race, religion, subject, music, art, etc, to be a problem in itself.  Preoccupation and fixation always makes one quite smart in one, dumb in others, and all-round, not as smart and vibrant as one could potentially be.  Thus, I also went back to the past and spent an appreciable amount of time immersing myself in the culture, films, music, etc, of the 70s, 60s, 50s and 40s.  I realised that they all had other distinguishable ways of experiencing and expressing passion.  Hence, such exposure polished into glimmering existence other parts of what would otherwise be a singularly plateau-d personality.  It gave me other ways to feel passion and sense reality.  That’s what I think should refer to the ‘7^th sense’. 

 

Immerse yourself in the following two exceptional drum-bles by, firstly, the Ventures with ‘wipeout’, performed in Japan in 1966 (before I was born), and Led Zeppelin in their ‘Song Remains the Same’ concert in Madison Square Garden in ’73 (the Americans had good taste in music back then, not its their loins that determine what’s good.  Sheeesh!)  Both are favourite bands of mine of either periods.  I suppose each aspect of my personality has a stomach of its own that needs to be fed in order to contribute to my appreciation of life in their respective ways.  I love the dress-styles of both.  The communitarian-style of the ventures, the individualistic style of Led Zep; the simplicity of the former, the assertiveness of the latter; the humility of the former in their stage movements, the flamboyance of the latter in theirs.....There's more to both cultures of course, but that is quite beyond the scope of this article.  In a clamshell, the former times were simple, relatively innocent, conservative and hopeful, whilst the latter was more philosophical, sceptical in the face of the Establishment and the Corporation, experimental, and not trend-imbibing like the people these days.  Enough from me.  Oh, btw, if you want an unstuttered viewing of the videos, just press play, and once it starts to play, press pause and wait for the video to load - which can be seen by the extending line by the side of the play button.

Cheers!

 

Ed’s perience

 

ventures ledzeppelin 70s 60s culture philosophy music youtube singapore malaysia hong kong india philippines rock uk