Special Songs Pt 2

Well, just three days before the end of February we come to the last post of the month! I hope you all have had fun here during these few days, reading the little musings that I drop here and there (as if - I know I'm a disaster, you don't need to say it!). Anyway, to accompany the ever shorter and gradually less obscure and mysterious nights of late February, and give you hope in the future, I have uploaded two songs I simply love: Black's understated masterpiece Wonderful Life and the 2000 hit Shackles (Praise You), from the awesome Gospel duo Mary Mary!



Both songs are meant to be desperate cries for help that express the need of a better life and the willingness to do whatever necessary to achieve it. Only, the ways in which each song does it are very different. Black's cold, alluring atmosphere is built upon the constant repetition of the same chord and light, airy layers of synthesizer effects that manage to express exactly the opposite: a secret warmth that lies hidden to a hostile world, but requires close human contact and emotional reciprocity to keep existing. It was written in 1985 by a then saddened and impoverished unknown songwriter called Colin Vearncombe, who had recently been dropped by his record company due to the dismal reception of his work, and believed that he had no professional prospects. Ironically, what was some sort of ‘cathartic’ musical exercise to express his hopelessness, got him signed to A&M Records just two months later, and would provide him (who was the only real member of Black – the rest were session musicians who were hired when need for their services arose) three platinum-selling albums between 1987 and 1991, as well as turning his reposed, seemingly distant delivery into a classic that exemplifies the true depths that emotional restraint can hide.



Fortunately, Vearncombe has kept recording and touring as front man of Black and a soloist, and has quite a faithful public in the UK and the Netherlands.



Mary Mary (named in honour of the Virgin and Magdalene), is composed of singing and songwriting sisters Erica and Trecina Campbell/Atkins, and was a work in progress that provided an endless source of material to the likes of Shirley Caesar and Yolanda Adams. In 1998, they finally decided to take a chance and record their own songs, and with the intercession of the Holy Ghost (;-P) they finally released their debut in 2000. It was a huge hit for a Gospel album, and managed to sell 3 million copies worldwide. The group has followed with two other very successful albums, but the song I’m posting today is the one that has immortalized them as icons of contemporary religious music. In reality a sorrowful prayer set to a cheerful funk beat and a wonderful melody, this song is highlighted by the Campbell sisters’ spectacular voices and very delicate vocoder distortions, which manage to make the essence of the song even more poignant in its sugar-coated ornamentation. Like a flame imprisoned in a glass, what the lyrics represent seems to be magnified by the frivolous beauty of its exterior, and I think that this is what makes the song so special (at least in my eyes! ;-) ).



Without further ado, I present you both songs. I hope you like them! :-). But before you listen to any of both songs, please go to buy Black's or Mar Mary's albums to Amazon or HMV.

Wonderful Life

Praise You (Shackles)