By ajostu
O field as grey as the buried bog-man’s cloak.
And island floating darkly in the fog.
It’s quiet, as when the radar turns
And turns its arc in hopelessness.
– From Elegy, by Tomas Tranströmer (translation: Robin Fulton)
When I first saw that the topic this week was “grey” I thought, great, it’ll be all old age and bad weather. How wrong I was: there was also grief and loss, mental illness, urban blight, mordant self-reflection and various forms of emotional self-imprisonment, peppered with occasional moments of wilful optimism.
In nature, grey may be the colour of uncertainty, of mist and fog. In the modern world, grey is the colour of one of the great cultural and geographic anonymisers – concrete, a material which, when over-used, conveys an almost malicious sense of mediocrity and blandness.
So as a mood, or a concept, how is a songwriter to engage with the idea of grey? I am reminded of the words of Laurie Anderson’s meditation teacher, as quoted in Heart of a Dog: "You should try to learn how to feel sad, without being sad." So in the A-list I hope I have selected songs that feel grey without being grey.
The GrAy-List
Before we start: do not adjust your set. Five seconds of silence to appease the region blocking and playlist algorithm gods.
There are loads of ways to seek inspiration for a song. Allegedly, for Rufus Wainwright, consciousness-altering drugs may have been involved. Once in an appropriate mental state, mash together two utterly different films: Death in Venice and Grey Gardens. The song starts with a voice from latter film, the voice of a woman lost in the past. A song of hearts caught in a whirlpool of grey, yearning for unrequitable love or an unrecoverable history.
Leadbelly finds out the hard way that his Grey Goose is not only inedible but damn near indestructable. The harder he tries, the harder it gets, and the more the vocals build.
Urban conformity as a tool of oppression popped up in several noms this week. Paranoid Visions are sick of living in a Grey Town and have the aggro to show for it.
In Grey Goes, it seems Kathryn Williams and Neill MacColl are chasing hues every which way. As Suzi says: “'Catching colours' seems to be a metaphor for trying to make sense of a breakup. But where does the grey go?”
Saint Etienne’s protagonist feels she leads a grey old life- grey, Like A Motorway – until someone comes along to make her happy. But now, he’s gone – and there’s a lyrical punch, right at the end: "I wish that he just left me- he'd be alive, alive tonight."
New Young Pony Club have an opinion when it comes to Grey: they’re not for it. I suppose you’d say: for them it’s not OK.
More underwhelming urban architecture for Felt in Grey Streets. Things aren’t so bad though, two people have found each other.
For Stella Donnelly, feeling constrained by the demands of another, Grey is a state of being, a sense of being trapped in an unwanted continuous present.
For Lior, it’s not so much a feeling of constraint, but maybe more confusion and helplessness, his feelings echoed in the ebb and swirl of Grey Oceans.
For U2, a band sometimes accused of being too clever by three-quarters, it’s time for a simple, brief trip to The Ocean. Bono still manages to squeeze in a little lyrical trick, and almost seems to be looking prophetically to his future persona.
Things are altogether more serious for Sophie Allison, performing as Soccer Mommy. I found a quote from her: “The song is about watching someone else be sick, and wondering if that’s going to be you in the blink of an eye.” SA’s mother battled with cancer, and “inside the Gray Light of my room” she is trying to come to grips with her fears.
It’s hard driving and very bleak. Richard Thompson does not hold back in Grey Walls, While the song title is used both directly and metaphorically, the lyrics are blunt and brutal, and the driving pace gives a sense of frantic, angry despair.
Several songs nominated this week played with the contrast between the multicoloured and the monochromatic. But, as is always the case with XTC, Andy Partridge makes rich use of the lyrical possibilities. Give that man a metaphor. Wrapped in Grey is both a song of admiration and exhortation, but AP is nothing if not sardonic, so there’s an odd little epiloguic twist to close things out.
But as we come towards the end of the A-list, time to look past the moody, melancholy and monochrome as Charlotte Hatherly implores us to cheer up and promises us that Grey Will Fade.
The clouds and fog may not yet have cleared but the optimism carries on as Moderate Rebels tell us all that there’s no time like now. Don’t look downcast at the gloom and bad weather- it’s the Perfect Grey Day to escape. And at the end, a women’s voice, looking to the future.
The Grey/GrAy-List Playlist:
Rufus Wainwright - Grey Gardens (ParaMhor)
Leadbelly - Grey Goose (Nicko)
Paranoid Visions - Grey Town (Carpgate)
Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl - Grey Goes (Suzi)
Saint Etienne - Like A Motorway (happyclapper)
New Young Pony Club - Grey (Vikingchild)
Felt - Grey Streets (vanwolf2)
Stella Donnelly - Grey (vanwolf2)
Lior - Grey Ocean (Nicko)
U2 - The Ocean (Altra Ego)
Soccer Mommy - Gray Light (TarquinSpodd)
Richard Thompson - Grey Walls (Suzi)
XTC - Wrapped In Grey (ShivSideCar)
Charlotte Hatherlay - Grey Will Fade (happyclapper)
Moderate Rebels - Perfect Grey Day (Uncleben)
The B-List Playlist:
I try and let the combination of topic and nominations drive how the lists come together, but one of my favourite fall-back positions is “A- list for the mind, B-list for the car” and that’s what I’ve done here. While the words still matter, it’s less about the lyrics and more about the vibe.
YMO - Gradated Grey (Bobby Legwarmer)
Abyssanctum - Grise Romance (Sara van O.)
VNV Nation - Beloved (@tincanman2010)
Endorphin - Grey (Nicko)
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (happyclapper)
When - grey part ii (TraktorAlbatrost)
Spirit - Fog (ShivSideCar)
Anouar Brahem - Ashen Sky (Nilpferd)
Guru’s Wild Grey Picks:
We start with Tokiko Kato and Kiyoshi Hasegawa singing Haiiro no hitomi (Those Grey Eyes). The original tune was called Aquellos Ojos Grises and was written by Uña Ramos and Tito Veliz. I don’t know if the original version had lyrics- I can only find instrumentals- but at very least Kato translated the lyrics into Japanese. She must have discovered the original not long after its release: both versions came out in 1974.
Kenshi Yonezu is one of the most successful contemporary musicians in Japan, though this duet with Masaki Suda is arguably one of his more obscure tracks, with only a quarter of a billion streams. One lyrical theme that popped up from time to time this week was the lyrical pairing of grey and blue- not so surprising I guess. Haiiro to ao is the the song of two singers pining for- someone? Each other? Anyway, they’re a bit down about the whole thing.
It's a grey old day for Ichiko Aoba, so in Haiiro no hi she’s got nothing to do but examine the minutiae in her room.
It’s OK to listen to the grey voice is the title track of a classic (to me at least) ECM album from the Jan Garbarek Group. Every track on the album is named after a line from a Tomas Tranströmer poem, so I’d like to end with Robin Fulton’s translation of After A Long Drought from the New Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books). I’m intrigued by the difference in sense betewen “it’s OK” and “it’s possible.” Which is better? Which is more correct? In any case the whole thing feels undeniably… grey.
The summer evening is grey.
The rain steals down from the sky
and lands quietly as if
it had to overpower someone sleeping.
The water-rings jostle on the bay’s surface
and that is the only surface there is-
the other is height and depth
soar and sink.
Two pine-stems
shoot up and end in long hollow signal-drums.
Gone are the cities and the sun.
The thunder’s in the tall grass.
It’s possible to ring up the mirage island.
It’s possible to hear the grey voice.
Iron-ore is honey for the thunder.
It’s possible to live with one’s code.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: A shade more interesting: songs about the colour grey. The next topic will launch on Thursday after 1pm UK time.
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