Baker's Dozen

Last weekend marked the end of daylight savings, which inevitably means that it’s time to prepare for shorter days, colder temperatures, and a lot less sunshine. Initially I thought I’d compile a bright playlist of songs about the sun to help combat the blahs that’s sure to inflict many of us this fall and winter. But, as I started plucking tracks from my collection, I discovered that a majority of the songs avoid using the sun as a symbol of positivity, or of they do, it’s to bemoan the lack of it. So much for trying to cheer you up!

“Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning”

Cowboy Junkies

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This song perfectly captures that period after a break-up when you teeter between soul crushing loneliness (“I sure do miss the smell of black coffee in the morning/the sound of water splashing all over the bathroom…”) and empowerment (“I’d rather listen to Coltrane than go through all that shit again”). It’s really a remarkable piece of writing, both lyrically and musically. While the song probably won’t brighten your day with a sweet melody and a toe-tapping beat, there’s little doubt that it finds the narrator on the sunny side of this painful journey. You can take comfort in knowing that the malaise will soon pass and the warmth of spring will eventually dawn.

“The Sun is Bored”

Bill Fay

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

From the opening strains of ominous strings and trilling woodwinds you know you’re in for quite a psychedelic trip. Boasting an orchestral arrangement that would make the Beatles blush, Bill Fay’s “The Sun Is Bored” is a little-heard gem from his self-titled 1971 album that features apocalyptic lyrics that are sure to mirror the feelings you have as the carefree days of summer give way to the dreary fall and winter seasons: “And the sun goes down/Never to rise again/It was getting bored/With the same old faces.” Fay would go on to release only one more record, the rawer, but equally thrilling, Time of the Last Persecution, a song cycle based on 19th century commentaries on the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelations. Heady stuff for sure, but it makes a for a nice fireside soundtrack.

“The Sun Must Go Down”

Mandrill

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mandrill was a fierce funk band from the early 1970s with a refreshing progressive streak and an underlying Latin jazz groove that set them apart from their contemporaries. While never finding widespread commercial success, the band remains a favorite among crate diggers and sample surfers. One listen to “The Sun Must Go Down” and it’s easy to hear why this band is so special. Killer organ fills, a searing guitar solo, soaring harmonies, nasty horn charts, and some grooving percussion frames the ultimately positive message of the song, which states that “The sun must go down and so we are bound to give way to inevitable changes.” In other words, there must be darkness before there can be light. So very wise and so very funky.

“Lay Back in the Sun”

Spiritualized

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Bliss out to the swirling cacophony of Spiritualized’s “Lay Back in the Sun.” It’s a great song for those freak warm spells that shatter the monotony of winter weather like a shot of adrenaline to a slowly dying heart. Sure, Jason Pierce probably feels more heat from the dope coursing through his veins than rays from the sun, but you don’t have to indulge to get high from this track. Just turn it loud and let the music go to work.

“Come Feel the Sun”

Tindersticks

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

A lilting piano motif and a weepy cello are all the accompaniment needed for Stuart Staples’ desperate baritone in this chilling track from the Tinderstick’s Hungry Saw album. The song finds Staples coaxing a friend to “come feel the sun” and exact revenge on “the liars and wasters/that call themselves friends/for to forgive is overrated.”

“I Was A Sunny Rainphase”

Stereolab

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As is usual with Stereolab’s cryptic lyrics, I have absolutely no clue what “I Was A Sunny Rainphase” is about. Maybe you can shed some light: “Made myself a sandwich/Put it in my hatchback/A ‘psychoanalyst’/'So we try’ empty heart/I’m so hungry for love.” What I do know is that the musical accompaniment is pure sunshine with the band dispensing its trademark futuristic lounge music marked by buzzing vintage synths and motorik beats. It all provides a bubbly bedrock for Lætitia Sadier’s singsong coo, a formula that’s ripe for curing the winter-time blahs.

“Saturday Sun”

Nick Drake

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This jazzy, piano-driven number is a departure from the delicate acoustic fingerpicking that underpins most of the songs from Nick Drake’s sublime debut, Five Leaves Left. Of course you still have Drake’s wistful voice and stellar songwriting so it fits right in with the beauty that surrounds it. “Saturday Sun” is a decidedly melancholy affair, with Drake using the ever-present Sunday blues as a metaphor to illustrate the happiness of times long past: “And Saturday’s sun has turned to Sunday’s rain/So Sunday sat in the Saturday sun/And wept for a day gone by.”

“House of the Punishing Sun”

Giant Sand

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I think Giant Sand’s How Gelb would know a thing or two about a punishing sun. His music wreaks of the dry, treacherous desert landscape from which he hails. One of rock music’s most enigmatic performers (much in the vain of Tom Waits or Nick Cave), Gelb has been going strong, although woefully underappreciated, for more than two decades. The live version of “House of the Punishing Sun” captures Gelb at his most glib, nonchalantly delivering doom-laden one-liners (“The past is never meant to last”) on top of his unique brand of sun-damaged garage rock.

“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”

Pink Floyd

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This track from Pink Floyd’s second album, 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets, is notable for being the only one to feature both David Gilmour and Syd Barrett, although neither of them play a major role – just a little guitar noodling on both accounts. This is Roger Water’s baby, and it’s a psychedelic treasure that stands among the band’s finest work. The lyrics are based on a book of Chinese poems from the Tang Dynasty and they explore the power and mystery of the sun and space: “Morning to birth is born into shadow/Love is the shadow that ripens the wine.”

“Mambo Sun”

T. Rex

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Leave it to T. Rex to deliver a sexy glam-rock ode to the sun. A strutting love song from the band’s 1971 masterpiece, Electric Warrior, “Mambo Sun” is nothing if not persuasive. It’s got an irresistible hook that’s impossible to resist as Marc Bolan makes his plea over a trashy, sex-fueled groove: “Beneath the bebop moon/I’m howling like a loon for you/Beneath the Mambo Sun/I’ve got to be the one for you.”

“Burned by the Sun”

Beulah

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Between ‘99-03, the San Francisco-based indie band, Beulah, released three blissful albums filled with smart, hooky pop songs. Indebted to the Beach Boys and the Byrds, “Burned by the Sun” is this list’s most upbeat track, overflowing with sweet harmonies and a bouncy melody that’ll stick in your brain for hours to come. The song finds the narrator in flight, dreaming of a way to get his love back by his side: “Now I’m sleeping on the sand/of an unfamiliar land/And I’m dreaming up a plan/to get you on the breeze.”

“Ballad of the Sun and Moon”

Alejandro Escovedo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This track is taken from Alejandro Escovedo’s acclaimed By the Hand of the Father, a theatrical work that combines spoken word, music, and video to dramatize the unique 20th century journey of the Mexican-American father. Rosie Flores provides the gorgeous Spanish vocal counterpart. It’s a sad tale that recounts the ravages of war and the toll it takes on the family of the song’s narrator. A bit of hope shines through, however, as the ever-present sun and moon provide at least temporary solace.

“Sunset Song”

Rihcard Thompson

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“Sunset Song” is a dark, seductive track from Richard Thompson’s sublime 2007 record, Sweet Warrior. Ever the master of clever, twisting wordplay, “Sunset Song” finds a restless Thomspon telling his beloved that it’s time to move on: “Wasn’t that a time we had/And bless you for it/But I’m a stranger here/I don’t belong/The band’s down on the jetty/If you cup your ear/You’ll hear the Sunset Song.” Perhaps one of the finest guitarists around (and that’s no hyperbole), Thompson’s thrilling narrative acumen is matched by his brilliant fretwork, all slinky and dark.

No Comments »