Favoritesong Wednesday #3

Ok, so maybe that Otis song isn't my favorite song. It's great and all, but half of what I enjoy about it is projecting Otis's legacy onto a cross-table discussion between two imaginary figures. There's a lot of me filling in blanks on that one.


Brian Eno - The Big Ship
Another Green World (1975)


This song is probably my favorite song for real. My Brian Eno obsession is well documented. I have a copy of his diary that he published from 1995 by my bedside. I have had a data CD of his pop records in heavy rotation in my car for the past 3 years and I can now sing pretty much every guitar or synth solo. I work at least 2 oblique strategies from this delightful Mac widget into my life every day. I threw a remarkably uncomfortable listening party for Another Green World in the basement of ol' Casa Vista. I forced 35 minutes of bell studies he did for a clock that's supposed to run for 10,000 years onto the unprepared Clementine customers last week until someone complained. I almost even downloaded the new Coldplay album because he produced it.

Nerdiness aside, this song is some epic shit. It's like men building a pyramid. Rolling snares and rimshots keep a marching 6/8 pace as layer after layer of synthesizer and sustained guitar tones spiral into the clouds. Halfway through the track scalpel sharp hi-notes carve into the dense and drawn out bed of textures, but the most beautiful thing about the song is that it never explodes in climax or crumbles into a ruins, it fucking fades out. As if the pyramid workers were pretty close to finishing the damn thing but then were struck with a sudden sense of tranquility and just walked slowly into the desert and forgot about the whole project.


BONUS MATERIAL:

I took a few videos while driving to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado this summer. Aforementioned Eno data disc was in the CD player. They're a bit shaky, but I was operating a motor vehicle at the time of filming.