By The Landlord
“Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.” – Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song
“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy – it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” – Jane Austen
As a teenager it was the moment I dreaded, and rarely, if ever, enjoyed or even achieved. You knew it was coming – five to midnight, deadline time - or whenever the last song loomed like a libidinous finger of obligation, the awkward premature manoeuvring, the pairing up. The embarrassment. The failure. Better not even to try. Leave. Get some chips. Go home. Alone. But if you stayed, at that time you could no longer really stand by the dance floor with your pint, nodding along to the beats, chatting to mates, or flailing around the floor to your favourite song. Now came the whole point of it all, the mass pressure that pointed towards mating, the cultural conundrum of kopping off. But if you hadn't planned ahead, or didn’t already have someone to last-dance with, who would it be?
For some girls it would regretfully end up being the biggest, pushiest, grabbiest idiot, and for the lads, probably, as Philip Larkin put it in his poem Wild Oats, not the "bosomy English rose" who was already taken, but "her friend in specs, the one I could talk to". But talk was cheap in that primal environment. It was all about action. The fumbly hands, the shuffling feet, and the horrible moment as the attempted snog ends up in a soggy mess of slightly misfired mouths, four lips and two tongues coming together in chaos, smelling of cheap wine and cherry lipstick, fags, beer and your own sweat. But when it actually happened, probably because both of you were too drunk to know better, it all seemed wonderfully worthwhile, at least for one, unforgettable moment. And was it all down to the music?
So this week, after recently focusing on songs about the evening, but then by contrast, songs about getting brighter, it's time to dim the lights again. And this new topic, while looking mainly to beat-less, slow, sexy, smoochy love songs, doesn't necessarily mean cheesy mirror-ball, naff or soppy. Intimacy in music comes in many forms and some of the finest love songs are indeed slow, perhaps whispered, close-mic, complex and delicate in their apparent simplicity. This week then might help redefine and realign those awkward memories of the last dance, and also open up a whole genre of intimate numbers.
So how might we get it on, or move closer? This is primarily a musical topic, so quite certainly not this number by Lemmy and co (although a YouTube commenter said this was he and his wife’s first dance at their wedding) but we can enjoy its voluminously loud and fast inappropriateness as palate cleanser before we go quiet:
The first key thing this week is that while these songs are designed to increase the heartbeat, in their own pace they have to be slow, ideally below 80 beats per minute. This obvious example could qualify though it still has a heavy beat. It came out in 1985, and I have fond memories of watching it on BBC1's Top of the Pops, because I was mesmerised by the gaps in Phyllis Nelson's big, wonderfully warm, toothy smile.
You may have noticed Phyllis's talky intro. It's been a whole huge topic in the past, but talking sections or half-spoken moments in the middle of a song might also come into play. Who better then for a bit of bringing it on that the big man himself, Barry White?
Barry White. Close up
But instead of supplying further song suggestions, which is the pleasure allotted to your learned selves, here is a small selection of artists who might come into play, known for their musical intimacy, sometimes sexy, sometimes simply tender, but who would certainly qualify. This is another wonderful moment from the Soul Train show, where Marvin Gaye needs his brow mopped, during a fantastic performance.
Intimate moment. Marvin Gaye on Soul Train
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
Al Green
FKA twigs
You might also find inspiration from feature films. For the cheesier moments of dancefloor slow intimacy, the 1980s were a boomtime including the hit of that decade, Dirty Dancing (1987), but then, reaching back to another age, there are scenes such as Harrison Ford putting on the car radio in the car and, in a moment of suppress clandestine love, dancing to Sam Cooke's Wonderful World with the Amish character Kelly McGillis in Witness.
Forbidden moments in Peter Weir’s 1985 film, Witness
But let's take it back to a more intimate age, and to close, a song written by Irving Berlin in 1935 for the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Top Hat (1935). This was one my mum's favourites and I played at her funeral for her, and of course, also my dad:
Heaven, I'm in heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek
So then, wherever and in whatever form you find intimacy in love songs, place them gently in the comment boxes below where they will be tenderly held in consideration by this week's passionate and patient guest playlister, pejepeine! Deadline is Monday at 11pm UK time, for playlists published on Wednesday. Come closer. I think you might have something in your eye …
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