By Nicko
"Very well, then, we'll be off to Shangri-La. Wherever and whatever it is, we'll try it.” – James Hilton, Lost Horizon
Shangri-La just being one expression of paradise. A utopian, Garden of Eden place, an idea that has quite a hold. But like Eden after the snake, paradise can be lost or spoiled.
Paradise is here if you’re lucky, or over the mountains, or the rainbow or up above the clouds. While you are living or after you are dead. A promised paradise of pie in the sky or more earthly concerns. Lots of people want to find it, some say they have found it, some have lost it.
So, let’s begin the search…
B.W. Stevenson – Shambala (BanazirGalbasi)
Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind
On the road to Shambala.
Paradise or Heaven or Shangri-La or the like have to be reached. Lots on attention on this. Including when there was a utopian Age of Aquarius thing. Shambhala was perhaps the model for Shangri-La. It’s a kingdom ruled by the future Buddha Maitreya in Tibetan Buddhism.
Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain
With the rain in Shambala.
The Flames – Zion (Uncleben)
Zion is a place and idea in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Bahá’I religions. Not the same way, as they slice it all up as they will. For Rastafarians it either means a promised land in Africa or a utopian state of mind of peace and unity. The counter to Babylon where they are stuck. There are many, many reggae songs on this theme (several excellent noms) and on Africa as the promised land. Let’s go with The Flames because they are not well known, and this is a sweet Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry production.
Sundae Times – Adam And Eve (ShivSidecar)
Not many overtly religious songs nommed. Here is your Bible story. Not quite like Sunday School, which if it was Sundae School might get more kids along. The Eden idea really has endured.
Jesca Hoop – Havoc Of Heaven (Shoegazer)
Ohhh, ohhh
Begun the havoc in heaven.
Of course, ‘Heaven’ doesn’t just have to be Christian. Chinese heavens aren’t staid. Mischief, demons, intrigue and havoc rather than angels sitting around playing harps. Jesca’s lyrics are inspired by the books ‘Havoc In Heaven’ (Tang Cheng) and ‘Monkey Subdues The White Bone Demon’ (Hsu Kwang-Jung & Pan Tsai-Ying). Best known character in all this? Monkey or Sun Wukong from the ‘Journey To The West’ story as seen and loved by me in the late 1970s on the telly. Genius.com lyric site has helpful annotations.
The 13th Floor Elevators – Kingdom Of Heaven (TarquinSpodd)
And I'm bringing you this message 'cause I think it's time you knew
That the kingdom of heaven is within you.
Paradise doesn’t have to be up in the clouds, some say. Heaven can be within. Seems it was in the ‘60s as evidenced by this psych swirler. And Traffic had the same thought, locating heaven in the mind.
The O’Jays – Paradise (Fred Erickson)
Whether we live in heaven or hell
Well, it’s up to me
And it’s up to you.
The O’Jays are happy where they are, a meeting of minds, it seems, not just bodies, but muse on earthly personal paradise and its attainment. As they say:
Aldous Harding – Heaven Is Empty (megadom)
Of course, not everyone is convinced about this heaven guff. In fact, Aldous went to heaven and it was empty. She took her camera and it stayed in her bag. The non-paradise song for this paradise week.
Edwyn Collins – North Of Heaven (Shoegazer)
Things can only get better
What's around the corner, who can tell?
I'll build a little place just north of heaven
I'm kinda tired of living south of hell.
There are abundant songs yearning for earthly heaven. Edwyn wants a little place. Oh, and he doesn’t like Guns ‘n’ Roses. Aldous might point in the right direction.
Ethel Waters – Cabin In The Sky (Marconius7)
Perhaps Edwyn can compare notes with Ethel who has firm plans for a cabin in the sky. This is from a 1943 movie of the same name. It’s a bit complicated in the movie. But suffice to say she is singing to her hubby to bring him back to the fold.
Buzzcocks – Paradise (vanwolf2)
Where in the world are we?
Everything's fake, nothing's real
I guess it just depends on how you feel
Why are you wasting my time?
With questions when everything's fine?
Why are things so nice?
Is this the place that they call paradise?
Oh, it's paradise.
The Buzzcocks are getting frustrated with this slow stuff and want to ramp it up. And their ‘paradise’ isn’t some idyll either. Only paradise song this week to mention knife fights.
Gregory Isaacs – Sacrifice (Uncleben)
I was given as a sacrifice
To build a black man’s hell
And a white man’s paradise.
One person’s earthly paradise can be another person’s hell. Plantation owners and slaves being one grievous example of many instances. Moving on seems so painful and so slow-slow-slow. But he won’t take hate with him.
Sade – Paradise (swawilg)
Lots of ‘paradise in the arms of someone’ songs, including great ones nommed this week. Some are yearning, but let’s be positive like Sade who has found it. And hopefully it will last because often it doesn’t. But she isn’t thinking of any of that. What a life, she says.
Billy Fury – Wondrous Place (ParaMhor)
This feeling is so nice I am including another one which doesn’t mention paradise at all.
A desert island disc: Seaman Dan
Seaman Dan – Somewhere There's An Island (Jamesowen475)
Another type of ‘wondrous place’ are tropical paradises – real or the mind. Palm trees and golden sand, natch. Anywhere tropical can get called ‘paradise’, but a beach…well, who can argue. Lots of people dream of those.
Sweet Dan likely just wants home. He is a Torres Strait islander born on Thursday Island (Waiben) but had great-grandparents from New Caledonia and Jamaica and a grandfather from Niue, so more island ‘paradises’ are in his genes than just TI. I can feel the trade winds from here.
Charlie Parker – Bird Of Paradise (magicman)
Bird flies in from 1947 with the birds from the island of New Guinea (and nearby islands) and Australia, not too far from Dan at all. Of course, flamboyant and (mostly) colourful and from ‘paradise’. I trekked across the Owen Stanley Range on the famous wartime Kokoda Trail in PNG when I was 20. Leeches, rain, very steep hills with false crests that fool you into thinking you can see the top. No, it was great in the rainforest, but it wouldn’t be ‘paradise’ to many.
This is riffing on Jerome Kern’s ‘All The Things You Are’ but a contrafact defenders make clear, not plagiarism. Charlie liked to name tunes for birds after his nickname. Nothing to do with birds in the family Paradisaeidae really.
Slapp Happy - Paradise Express (megadom)
Sho’ is nice
Riding the rails to paradise.
We started on the road to Shambala and finish by taking the train to paradise. Gabriel, give me some horn!
The Paradise or Bust A-List Playlist:
B.W. Stevenson – Shambala (BanazirGalbasi)
The Flames – Zion (Uncleben)
Sundae Times – Adam And Eve (ShivSidecar)
Jesca Hoop – Havoc Of Heaven (Shoegazer)
The 13th Floor Elevators – Kingdom Of Heaven (TarquinSpodd)
The O’Jays – Paradise (Fred Erickson)
Aldous Harding – Heaven Is Empty (megadom)
Edwyn Collins – North Of Heaven (Shoegazer)
Ethel Waters – Cabin In The Sky (Marconius7)
Buzzcocks – Paradise (vanwolf2)
Gregory Isaacs – Sacrifice (Uncleben)
Sade – Paradise (swawilg)
Billy Fury – Wondrous Place (ParaMhor)
Seaman Dan – Somewhere There's An Island (Jamesowen475)
Charlie Parker – Bird Of Paradise (magicman)
Slapp Happy - Paradise Express (megadom)
Heaven Knows B-List Playlist:
Not much order…
Gene Austin – My Blue Heaven (ParaMhor)
Associated with Fats Domino, this is the original. Molly, me and baby makes three in their blue heaven. A toss-up with Ethel Waters.
Shawn Phillips – Lost Horizon (BanazirGalbasi)
Bacharach and David, from a “monumentally bad’ 1973 movie, as noted by BG. A toss-up with B.W. Stevenson.
Eden Abhez – Eden’s Island (megadom)
Fabulous from proto-hippy and Mr Nature Boy. Only pipped by Seaman Dan.
Lorraine Bowen – Paradise (TatankaYotanka)
Paradise is where you find it. Even Bognor Regis.
Frente! – Accidentally Kelly Street (nilpferd)
Wacky sharehouse paradise. A bit of a curse for the band though, especially with the video looking like the Wiggles. They were more serious, really. I still like it though.
The Eagles – The Last Resort (Paradise) (severin)
And they called it paradise
I don't know why.
Hard to leave this one out for those lines and the intent of the song. Ruin the land and call it paradise? No thanks. And the craft of it.
Mischief Brew – The Preacher and The Slave (EnglishOutlaw)
A rollicking take on Joe Hill’s atheist, humanist anthem. Fantastic song where the phrase ‘pie in the sky’ comes from.
Bob Dylan – Gates Of Eden (George Boyland)
Surreal and intense even for Bob. Endless ‘what’s it about’ since but these gates of Eden aren’t Sunday School ones. Compelling.
Suzanne Vega – Crack In The Wall (Suzi)
A song about glimpsing the spiritual realm. Heavenly? Perhaps. Perception is the key.
ELO – Shangri-La (Marconius7)
They are getting out of love. Paradise lost. I thought of this for a closer but thought I wouldn’t go negative to end.
Missy Higgins – Strange Utopia (Fred Erickson)
Somehow ‘utopia’ didn’t feature as much as I might have thought. This is a how did we get to where we are ‘strange utopia’, so reality not ideals from the excellent and committed Missy.
The Undertones – Forever Paradise (ParaMhor)
Seventh heaven with a different face
Another time in a difficult place.
Liked this one!
The Pretenders – Birds Of Paradise (megadom)
She looks back to a childhood paradise – that world of their own. Wanting to go away to the birds of paradise Not sure who it is addressed to. A friend from that time?
Spinetta y Los Socios Del Desierto – Paradaíso (Maki)
Questioning conventional views of paradise and happiness and not being taken in by them according to Maki.
Trio Matamoros – Guajira Ven A Gozar (pejepeine)
And everyone who sees it swears
That paradise begins there.
Rural paradise.
El Gran Combo – Sin Salsa No Hay Paraiso (magicman)
Great sauce and who can argue? It’s no paradise without music.
William Onyeabor – Heaven Or Hell (TarquinSpodd)
The wonderfully eccentric and devout William. A coercive element here, saying if she is nice he will pray for her entry to heaven. If not… The Stylistics were nommed for similar.
Rufus and Chaka Khan – Fool’s Paradise (magicman)
I would have liked to include a fool’s paradise song and Chaka rips this one (as usual). Buddy Holly’s one of the same name would have done the job too.
Coolio – Gangsta's Paradise (Loud Atlas)
Not every paradise is an idyll. It includes Stevie Wonder’s ‘Pastime Paradise’ for a double shot. I felt sure this would make it, but no…
Icehouse – Paradise (Fred Erickson)
Serious face 80s. Danceable from the Aussie band.
Fiction Factory – (Feels Like) Heaven (Maki).
Serious face 80s. Danceable from the Scottish band.
The Space Negros – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Traktor Albatrost)
Love it. All done in 2:28.
The Already in Paradise Z–List Playlist:
Lots of great tunes mentioned are zedded. I’ve taken the liberty of adding The Kinks’ Shangri-La because it was a possible guru’s pick.
Tony Bennett – Stranger in Paradise
Harry McClintock – The Big Rock Candy Mountains (the original, even though recordings always omit the original filthy last verse)
Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi
The Kinks – Shangri-La
Amen Corner – (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice As This
The Last Shadow Puppets – Wondrous Place
The Staple Singers – I’ll Take You There
Stevie Wonder – Pastime Paradise
Chuck Berry – Promised Land
Talking Heads – Heaven
Talking Heads – (Nothing But) Flowers
Joe Smooth – Promised Land
Cocteau Twins – Heaven Or Las Vegas
The Cure – Just Like Heaven
Seal – Future Love Paradise
OPM – Heaven Is A Halfpipe
Meatloaf – Paradise By The Dashboard Light
Gabriel Fauré – Requiem: ‘In Paradisum’
The Searching Elsewhere For Paradise Guru’s Wildcard Picks:
Sorry for the indulgence of the long list. Easy to skip if needed.
Judy Garland – Somewhere Over The Rainbow
In which Dot longs to fly over the rainbow to some paradise where troubles melt like lemon drops. Only to find that it isn’t quite as she thought. Grass isn’t always greener when there’s no place like home. Right, Toto?
Mississippi Fred McDowell – Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down
One thing I like about the blues is the unschooled turn of phrase. A weary sounding Fred here says so much about hard life of labour and prejudice in the phrase ‘wish I was in heaven sitting down’. Gospel with an edge. An R.L. Burnside version is zedded. I did manage to see R.L. live once. He was rough as guts excellent.
Manecas Costa – Paraiso di Gumbe
From Guinea-Bissau, resident in Lisbon. From the first album ever recorded in G-B at a time (2003) after the civil war when there was no electricity in the country. The BBC organised it and made a ‘World Routes’ show about it. Noting the traditional musical style of ‘gumbe’ and the lyrical themes in other songs. Loss, corruption etc, but all I can gather about this title track is that there is paradise in the music of gumbe. He sings in Crioulo (creole based on Portuguese), so perhaps pejepeine has an inkling.
Eurogliders - Heaven (Must Be There)
80s pop interlude. Tired of living in the sand, searching for a better land. Aussie hit from 1984. Has some chime action.
War – The World Is A Ghetto
Wonder when I'll find paradise
Somewhere there's a home sweet and nice
Wonder if I'll find happiness
Never give it up now, I guess.
War is in a place where you walk down the street smoggy-eyed, looking at the sky starry-eyed. They dream of something better, as have legions before them. Not all of them extend it to a slow groove over 10:18 though.
Johnnie Taylor – Soul Heaven
Johnnie’s tribute to those on the bill of a 1999 one night only show in soul heaven. Jimi Hendrix included, which is interesting because he wasn’t really embraced by the black community when alive. Elvis too.
Deep Sensation - Somehow, Somewhere (There's A Soul Heaven)
Because somewhere, somewhere
There's a soul heaven.
A House soul heaven this time from Deep Sensation. Vocal samples from E Rodney Jones & Friends’ 1971 tribute to those in Soul Heaven, years before Johnnie Taylor, and then Syl Johnson’s ‘Is It Because I’m Black?’.
Gwen Guthrie – Seventh Heaven
Sly & Robbie provide the riddim, Gwen is in seventh heaven with his love. A monster with the Larry Levan mix elevating it to paradise. I was going to choose between this and the one above, but just couldn’t…
Les Djibos – Paradis
From Cote D’Ivoire AKA Les Djigbos. This is zouglou music. Jolie au paradis. Dancé avec moi.
Konono No. 1 – Paradiso
Still in Africa, this time the DRC for some handmade congotronics. Tradi-moderne music with traditional rhythms electrified by home-made gear for volume, not effect but is the effect that exercises outside fans. This uses the traditional mbira instrument locally called a likembé. It’s a riot.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Lost or found? Songs about paradise. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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