'Letter to Hermione'

Not heard this song in a million years... Thanks to the one who shared it.

Because we have to keep on standing strong in this time of things falling apart, we forget how little and alone we are.

And sometimes there is someone out, far far away, who comes to your mind when you think that maybe this is the end. There is a face, a voice, a few words in your mind when you think you won't be able to go any further.

For all the people who inspired us joy, light and love in our life, even if for a few days, a few hours, a few seconds, but seconds that remain suspended in time, in eternity, in their profound beauty, immaculate and unchanged, never ruined by any pettiness or mistakes, seconds of bliss and perfect understanding, when you feel nothing is more beautiful that this other human being...


David Bowie - 'Letter to Hermione' - 1969

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'Letter to Hermione' is a song from David Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity. It contains a mix of folk, balladry, and prog rock. Held to be "the first Bowie album proper", and his first deemed worthy by record companies of regular reissue, Space Oddity featured a notable list of collaborators, including session players Herbie Flowers, Tim Renwick, Terry Cox, and Rick Wakeman, as well as cellist Paul Buckmaster, multi-instrumentalist and producer Tony Visconti, and bassist John Lodge.

This ballad is a love letter to Hermione Farthingale, who Bowie met through Lindsay Kemp. She became Bowie's girlfriend and they lived together for a short while in London in 1968. In early 1969 she left Bowie for Stephen Reinhardt, an American musician and dancer she met on the film Song of Norway.

An early name for the song was "Im Not Quite". Bowie recorded a demo version of the song with this name together with John Hutchinson in February 1969.

Comedian Ricky Gervais has repeatedly expressed his love for this song, going so far as to call it his favourite David Bowie song, indeed, possibly his favourite ever song. He chose it as one of his Desert Island Discs.

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Lyrics, of course:

"Letter To Hermione"

The hand that wrote this letter
Sweeps the pillow clean
So rest your head and 
read a treasured dream
I care for no one else but you
I tear my soul to cease the pain
I think maybe you feel the same
What can we do?
I'm not quite sure what we're supposed to do
So I've been writing just for you

They say your life is going very well
They say you sparkle like a different girl
But something tells me that you hide
When all the world is warm and tired
You cry a little in the dark
Well so do I
I'm not quite sure 
what you're supposed to say
But I can see it's not okay

He makes you laugh
He brings you out in style
He treats you well
And makes you up real fine
And when he's strong
He's strong for you
And when you kiss
It's something new
But did you ever call my name
Just by mistake?
I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do
So I'll just write some love to you

The unbearable lightness of Britpop...

Great article by Tracey Thorn about British Music in the 1990s in the New Statesman. Pretty much the 7th chapter of my book...

Tracey Thorn is a very unique and independent singer and songwriter who came to fame in the UK with the very original band Everything But The Girl. In 1994/95, she collaborated with Massive Attack on two songs for the album Protection, then on a cover of 'The Hunter Gets Hunted By The Game'.

Tracey Thorn: the unbearable whiteness of Britpop

2 MAY 2017

At the 1998 Brit Awards, New Labour’s love affair with Cool Britannia got a drenching when Danbert Nobacon from Chumbawamba tipped a bucket of ice- cold water over the head of John Prescott, the then deputy prime minister. It was such a comedown. Less than a year earlier, in July 1997, shortly after Labour’s general election victory, Tony Blair had triumphantly hosted a glittering music biz reception at No 10, cementing the link between the new government and all things groovy. Although, according to Alastair Campbell’s diaries, Blair was worried even then about rock’n’roll behaviour, and felt that Noel Gallagher “was bound to do something crazy”, the Creation Records boss Alan McGee assured him Noel would behave, saying only that “if we had invited Liam, it might have been different”.

Poor Tony, though, trying so hard to be down with the cool kids and yet so scared of what the cool kids might do. I was at the 1996 Brits, where he gave a speech, and the room had filled with a frisson of both approval and the opposite. The party on the table behind us were heckling and I remember turning to shout at them, “Well, who would you prefer?” feeling some sense of loyalty and gratitude towards Blair for the unexpected optimism he’d introduced into the Labour voter’s life. A row broke out, drunken and par for the course at the Brits, but it was telling that it was about politics rather than drugs or rock’n’roll.
In his ill-fitting Nineties suit and spotted tie, Blair made a speech that was a celebration of the renewed chart dominance of British bands, putting their success down to the inspiration they’d drawn from the past – “from bands like the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks . . . or the later generations, the Clash, the Smiths, the Stone Roses . . .” Well. You don’t need me to tell you the kind of people who are missing from that list. It’s a ­version of music history that sums up precisely what went wrong during the Britpop years.

I’d attended the Brits in 1995, too, and wrote later in Bedsit Disco Queen about how proud I was to be sitting with Massive Attack: “Protection was up for a couple of awards, and though it was the height of the Britpop Oasis v Blur battle, I felt that ours was the table to be on, with Massive and Tricky and Björk. The rock kids seemed to be trapped in a dreary rehash of the past, still repetitively harking back to the yawn-inducing Sixties, while we were with a group of people who were looking forwards.”

By 1996, the two strands of the music scene were in direct competition. Our song “Missing” was up for Best Single and “Protection” the single for Best Video. Massive Attack won Best British Dance Act, while Batman Forever, featuring Massive and me singing a Smokey Robinson cover, won Best Soundtrack. But Oasis won Best Album and Video and Group, beating Blur and Pulp and Radiohead in those categories, and when Massive went up to collect their award, 3D made a sardonic comment, saying, “It’s quite ironic, ’cos none of us can dance.” It was a joke but he wasn’t laughing, and I think he was making a point. He might have said, especially given the most recent album that they’d made: “Why are we in a different category from Blur and Radiohead? Why is Protection a ‘dance’ album? What is ‘dance’ code for?”

It was a classic piece of Othering. The implication of the awards, and of Blair’s speech, was that the white boys with guitars were the Norm, and deviations from that were the Other, and certainly not the main story. How great it would have been if, for instance, in celebrating the successes of British music, Blair had cited the Stones, Dusty Springfield, Sandy Denny, the Sex Pistols, the Smiths, Soul II Soul, the Specials and Sade. That’s a list that reflects the diversity of UK pop brilliance, and it’s just artists beginning with the letter S.

The other event of the 1996 Brits was the Jarvis Cocker/Michael Jackson incident. It was over so quickly that no one knew quite what was going on, and a huge “what just happened?” rumbled round the room. But by next morning it had gone down in pop rebel history – punky Brit sticks two fingers up at superstar narcissist. Looking back now, I’m less comfortable, and can’t help wincing at the thought that in fact Cocker had insulted the only black artist performing on stage that night, winner of the Artist of a Generation Award. In retrospect, it has a whiff of archetypal lad-culture boorishness, another of the worst aspects of the time.
Britpop may have started as a reassertion of home-grown indie over American grunge but it gave comfort to those who wanted to reassert “traditional” songwriting styles and band structures in the face of the recent success of rave and dance culture. The industry, alarmed by collectives and DJs and “anonymous” guest vocalists, leapt to the defence of the new bands that looked just like the bands of yore. They recognised this genre as a type that would sell albums, where the money was. Hooray for Britpop! It presumably came as a relief after the 1994 Brits, where awards had been won by Dina Carroll, Stereo MCs, Gabrielle and M People, and where two women, Björk and P J Harvey, had performed a radically deconstructed version of the Stones’ rock classic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.

There was so much happening. Spectacular releases by Portishead, and Tricky, and the forming of Goldie’s Metalheadz label, and the birth of drum’n’bass. It was a progressive scene, and reminded me of the Eighties, when in the wake of punk the charts filled up with boy/girl duos, multiracial groups, androgynous singers and gay electronic cabaret performers. For some reason, though, in the mid-Nineties a form of nostalgia began to hold sway, and we let it. In 2017, with the arguments about grime at the Brit Awards, I realise that we’re still having the same conversations about how to reflect and respect successful underground scenes, and we’re not much further on. Maybe the rot set in when we let the news lead with an item about two rock bands releasing singles on the same day and pretended that it was a groundbreaking story.

So I kick against the official version of what was important, the reducing of those years to The Story of Britpop. It was a strand of what was happening, not the whole picture. The legacy of mid-Nineties music is apparent in current artists from James Blake and FKA Twigs, through Skepta and Disclosure, to Stormzy and The xx. Who, on the other hand, is claiming to have been inspired by Oasis? And it makes me think that whenever the rock-group stereotype reasserts itself, you need to look elsewhere to find what’s really interesting. 

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Tracey Thorn is a musician and writer, best known as one half of Everything but the Girl. She writes the fortnightly “Off the Record” column for the New Statesman. Her latest book is Naked at the Albert Hall.

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Link to the New Statesman's article:
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2017/05/tracey-thorn-unbearable-whiteness-britpop

Musique britannique : Du punk à Massive Attack... Le 10 mai à la Bellevilloise

(RENCONTRE) Ravie d'annoncer que le journaliste, critique et auteur Christian Eudeline, spécialiste de musique punk, entre autres, sera à mes côtés le mercredi 10 mai à La Bellevilloise pour parler de l'influence du punk sur les musiciens et artistes de Bristol. 

RDV mercredi 10 mai à 18h, 19-21 rue Boyer, Paris 20e. 

La rencontre sera animée par Yaël Hirsch de Toute la culture !

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Les détails ici : 
https://www.facebook.com/massiveattacktobanksy/


Présentation :

 Rendez-vous le mercredi 10 mai pour une discussion sur l'évolution de la musique britannique depuis la fin des années 1970s et son rôle dans le changement social du pays, à la Bellevilloise, Paris 20e. 

Elle réunira également intervenants :

-Mélissa Chemam, journaliste indépendante et auteur du livre En dehors de la zone de confort – De Massive Attack à Bansky, consacré à la scène de la ville anglaise de Bristol,

-et Christian Eudeline, journaliste musique et auteur de plusieurs livres sur l’histoire de la musique punk.

Elle sera animée par Yaël Hirsch, fondatrice et directrice du site Toute La Culture.

Thème de la discussion : les influences punk et reggae sur la ville de Bristol.

Les invités aborderont l'influence du post-punk Grande-Bretagne, et plus particulièrement à Bristol, om l’album Mezzanine de Massive Attack, a en 1998, fait ressortir du passé l’élan post-punk qui a marqué le pays de 1977 à 1985.

Ils parleront de Massive Attack, Tricky et Portishead, mais aussi de leur prédécesseurs à Bristol (Le Pop Group, les Glaxo Babies, Black Roots, le Wild Bunch), de leurs inspirations (Bob Marley, The Specials, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers mais aussi la Motown, David Bowie et les Beatles) et bien d'autres !

Ils reviendront sur le mouvement graffiti britannique, né au début des années 1980 et influencé par l’énergie punk...

La rencontre aura lieu de 18h à 20h.

Save the NHS

The NHS: A Visual Essay from juniordoctorblog.com

Do you know anything about the NHS? Vote wisely. #GE2017 #voteNHS juniordoctorblog.com

Labour Day - Atmosphere...

Paris, 1er mai, Fête du Travail... Ou ce qu'il en reste

Marching again:

Soundtrack of the day...

Arcade Fire presents 

'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)'

"Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"

They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface

'Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They're calling at me, come and find your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the World's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

We rode our bikes to the nearest park
Sat under the swings and kissed in the dark
We shield our eyes from the police lights
We run away, but we don't know why
Black river, your city lights shine
They're screaming at us, we don't need your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
Can we ever get away from the sprawl?
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

'The Night James Brown Saved Boston'

Music and politics have always been linked...
Just one example:

"The Night James Brown Saved Boston"  - Documentary - Trailer:

“The Night James Brown Saved Boston” focuses on one of the most historic moments in Boston and America’s musical, social and political history. The night Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, rioting began to tear at the fabric of America’s cities.  

So, on April 5, 1968, the night after Dr. King was shot and killed, James Brown took the stage at the Boston Garden for a concert that was televised live. The spell-binding performance enthralled the residents of Boston, and prevented the rioting that many had predicted.  

A concert that is still considered legendary forty years later, Bostonians regard it as the greatest  the city every hosted. 

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This film was part of the cinema programmation at the Massive Attack Meltdown Festival in 2008.

Grime for Labour

 My other election... Unfortunately, I cannot vote in the United Kingdom, but it matters as much to me.


Grime stars back Jeremy Corbyn for prime minister


BY ALEX MACPHERSON, APR 24 2017

A progressive alliance, grime style.

A host of grime’s biggest names have declared their support for Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to the snap general election called by prime minister Theresa May for June 8 – and the Labour leader has been returning the love.

Yesterday, Jme combined useful voting registration information and a Corbyn endorsement in a single tweet.

Jme 

✔@JmeBBK

If you want to vote Corbyn.
Step 1: Register https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote …
Step 2: vote Corbyn.
Step 3: press Up, X, Y, B, A
Step 4: press start

12:36 PM - 23 Apr 2017

Jme isn’t alone. Fourteen years, three Labour leaders and three general elections since Dizzee Rascal famously declared “I’m a problem for Anthony Blair” on Boy In Da Corner’s ‘Hold Ya Mouf’, the grime scene in 2017 feels rather more affinity for a man who was a consistent backbench rebel against Blair’s mission to drag Labour to the right – and into overseas wars. Corbyn won the party leadership in 2015 by promising to stand up for disillusioned working-class voters and to defend immigrants, and over the past week AJ Tracey, Novelist – who joined the Labour Party last June – and Akala have all tweeted in support of him.

Thoughtful as ever, Akala went on to explain: “[F]or the first time in my adult life there is a chance to elect someone I would consider a sane and decent human… He has consistently voted/spoken against UK foreign aggression. This alone makes him the most electable politician we have ever had… [A]nti-austerity, pro-NHS and at least being openly ideologically opposed to UK empire is as good as we are ever likely to get… Homie @jeremycorbyn was anti-apartheid back when the Tories had Mandela down as a terrorist. Safe.”

Akala 

✔ @akalamusic

I have not yet had time to do video/article about elections thoughts and probably won't til sunday so here's my basic thoughts...

 Follow

Akala 

✔@akalamusic

I am not and probably never will be a Labour supporter. However I will be voting for the first time and I'll be voting for @jeremycorbyn

9:51 PM - 21 Apr 2017

Stormzy also cited Corbyn’s anti-apartheid stance as a reason for supporting him last May, telling the Guardian: “My man, Jeremy! Young Jeremy, my guy. I dig what he says. I saw some sick picture of him from back in the day when he was campaigning about anti-apartheid and I thought: yeah, I like your energy… I feel like he gets what the ethnic minorities are going through and the homeless and the working class.”

The grime stars’ words haven’t gone unnoticed. Corbyn, who gave a shout-out to Stormzy in March for his openness about his mental health issues, had responded by yesterday evening to Jme:

Jeremy Corbyn MP 

✔@jeremycorbyn

Thanks for the support @jmeBBK - if you haven't already please do what he says and register to vote https://twitter.com/JmeBBK/status/856094352912916480 …

10:38 PM - 23 Apr 2017

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Read on Fact Mag's website: http://www.factmag.com/2017/04/24/grime-stars-back-jeremy-corbyn-for-prime-minister/

'Dear Friend'

Indispensable track too in this times of turmoil.
Latest single released, very limitedly, by Massive Attack in a gorgeous vinyl, in September 2016.
These lyrics are telling it like it is!

Massive Attack feat. James Massiah - 'Dear Friend'

Massive Attack Featuring James Massiah Produced By Euan Dickinson & Robert Del Naja

Lyrics:

Dear friend, look at you now All tied up in knots and starting to rot Thought it was alright in the light but now it's dark and it looks wrong But what'd you expect? That's what you get from worshipping moon gods False deities living off reflected glory, like our colonisers Queens and kings reaping the royalties from someone else's story But let's return to yours, you, the author of your own destiny Escaping the demons and bastards of a past life Arm in arm with your wife, a highland type With a big heart and a wise mind It's gonna help you to escape the long arm of the swine Which helps, seeming as you've been tired of, and trying to escape the wildlife Which now bores the young man with the family from the horn Lands wartorn, new allegiance sworn, you're part of the swarm Survive the storm, now withering Raised with worthy morals by an upright mother And a father who slaved days and days to make a wage Chewing cats will alleviate the pain and pressure That came with the career in a country that saw you as a cancer and a casualty Alienated on the way up to a higher education That you were lucky enough to catch Smart and working hard enough to keep You were caught in criminality The catalyst for your change And plenty of it came from the ketamine, the weed and cocaine for the customer Middle class kids on campus were burdens to bear Each of them facing oppression of their own Victims of a different kind of prejudice Their condition: psychosis, mania, suicidal thoughts, sexual inadequacy Academic underachievement, social separation and a desire to fit in The madness of youth that you've medicated All the while dedicated to serving your god When the deities of this life would allow you to Driving through the town, you approach the road to Damascus Blue lights that flash and leave you blind Bound by a belief that the god of your father set you free Weeds plucked, wife covered, 5 times a day, a proud slave Praying for proof that you picked the right way Seeing that your sister's changed, your brother's enraged, on route to a cage You're gonna need more than faith in this day and age You don't need friends, you need facts Don't need poems, you need raps Don't need peace, you need war, and defeat, and a grave to bury your doubts You've got love and a spouse, now you need space A chance to breathe, and time away In time, you'll remember this day When you're 50 years old, thinking of all the fickle things that you would fret over But you're not 50 yet, so take the right steps Unless you wanna be down when you get there This is my prayer for you, my friend, so fly away Be unbound by the ropes and the chains Be set free and escape The demons of your past become the demons of your present Old habits stick, what you learn as a young gun becomes hard to kick Clutch gets stuck and hard to shift Automatically return to the ways of days gone by A bullet in the mind, a beam in the eye And a bitch, yeah, that's life Ignorance is bliss, but wisdom's nice Hopefully it comes with age, 'cause you don't live twice And then you can't live it again, I'm afraid So fly now, be free, make your own way My dear friend

'Special Cases'

Mood of the day...

So much to say about today...
So much to say about this world too!

This song is a key part of the tenth chapter of my book. Released in 2003 as the first extract from Massive Attack's fourth album, 100th Window, it was written by 3D and his producer Neil Davidge with Sinéad O'Connor.

"Take a look around the world
You see such mad things happening
There are few good men
Thank your lucky star that he's one of them"...

The video is also strikingly outspoken and ahead of its time!

More soon...

Massive Attack - 'Special Cases'

Lyrics

"Special Cases"

Don't tell your man what he don't do right
Nor tell him all the things that make you cry
But check yourself for your own shit
And don't be making out like it's all his

Take a look around the world
You see such bad things happening
There are many good men
Ask yourself is he one of them

The deadliest of sin is pride
Make you feel like you're always right
But they're always two sides
It takes two to make love, two to make a life

Take a look around the world
You see such mad things happening
There are few good men
Thank your lucky star that he's one of them

Sur la question du vote des étrangers en France

Mon reportage sur les étrangers vivant en France, parfois depuis plus de 10 ou 20 ans, qui souhaitent voter mais ne peuvent pas :

VU D'ALLEMAGNE

La voix de ceux qui n'en ont pas

Emmanuel Macron contre Marine Le Pen : l'affiche du second tour de l'élection présidentielle en France est déroulée. Elle plonge de nombreux électeur dans le désarroi. Mais qu'en est-il de ceux qui n'ont pas le droit de vote ? Reportage de Melissa Chemam. Et puis on parle aussi de l'antisémitisme en Allemagne : un nouveau rapport est sorti à ce sujet en début de semaine.

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Ecouter ici : http://www.dw.com/fr/la-voix-de-ceux-qui-nen-ont-pas/av-38597577


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Alors que les Français sont dans la tourmente de l’entre-deux-tours, entre deux candidats qui outrepassent les clivages habituels entre grands partis, beaucoup de points du programme de François Hollande, encore inappliqués, ont été laissés de côté dans le débat. C’est le cas de la question du droit de vote des étrangers, pourtant promis par en 2012 par le Parti socialiste. Sur le terrain, les associations continuent de se mobiliser pour les droits de ces contribuables comme les autres. Et un petit groupe nommé Alter Votants a trouvé une parade temporaire : faire se rencontrer des citoyens abstentionnistes et des non électeurs frustrés… 

Rencontre à Paris, au micro de Mélissa Chemam.

Mounia : « Je vis en France depuis 17 ans… »

Allemande né en Tunisie, pour devenir française, Mounia devrait renoncer à sa nationalité… Pour l’instant, elle ne peut donc pas voter lors des élections présidentielles en France. Elle a trouvé la solution proposée par le collectif Alter Votants : faire connaître son choix à un citoyen qui n’a pas su se décider pour un candidat, et qui a failli s’abstenir.

Mounia : « On m’a parlé de l’initiative d’Alter Votant par hasard dans une soirée… Une initiative formidable… »

C’est Laetitia qui a voté pour Mounia. En pratique, c’est très simple, elle n’a fait que l’appeler pour connaître son candidat.

Laetitia : « Je m’apprêter à m’abstenir pour la première fois de ma vie… j’ai délégué la responsabilité de mon vote à une autre personne ».

Thomas, Rachel et Robert ont mis en place cette initiative en décembre dernier pour rapprocher ces voisins aux droits si différents.

Robert : « Le constat : ces personnes sont très engagés dans leur vie ici et sont dépourvues d’actions citoyennes démocratiques, alors que d’autres veulent s’abstenir ».

C’est aussi un acte en faveur d’une plus grande cohésion sociale, pour impliquer les personnes exclues du vote. Car pour les militants de cette cause, comme Françoise Dumont, présidente de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, les promesses sur les droits civiques des étrangers sont oubliées depuis trop longtemps.  

Françoise Dumont : « Hollande a déçu… Et ça a été peu présent dans cette campagne… Une question difficile mais l’opinion publique est souvent plus en avance que ce que croient les politiques ».

Si les Européens peuvent voter aux élections locales, le sort des autres étrangers risquent de rester en suspens encore au moins cinq ans : aucun des deux candidats présents au second tour cette année ne s’étant engagé sur la question.

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Le site d'Alter Votants : http://alter-votants.wixsite.com/2017