So here I am, like so many of you before, trying to tell you something about myself.
First thing I have to say is that I'm not a native English speaker, so please forgive my mistakes - you may notify them to me so that I can correct them, but you may as well be in a forgiving mood and act as if I wrote really good english ;-)
Well, to introduce myself, beside that I'm male, 53 years old and not a good bavarian ... what could I say, where to start, how should I do it?
As a kind of answer, what first comes to my mind is "Paint it black" (the funny part is that I only know the title and the band, not the song itself).
This shows that music is quite important for me and leads me to the question: could one be described through the music one likes?
I believe a mere list of songs would not be descriptive enough, as two persons may well like the same song for quite different reasons. For example, many rocksongs include instrumental parts that some surely like the most of the whole piece, while I many times find them too long, tyring, breaking up the clear shape.
So I shall not only give you the names of songs and singers/bands, but also a brief outline of what it is in each case, that makes it go under my skin.
Let's begin with "Wizard", by Uriah Heep, the first song on side one of the LP (yes, I still have these giant, black vinyl-discs that hardly ever come close to hold one hour of music) "Demons and Wizards" from 1972.
It starts with a beautiful acoustic guitar solo introduction, the voice of David Byron (named "Davotron" by bandleader Ken Hensley) joining soon after to tell us of his meeting with "the wizard of a thousand kings". I love this soft beginning, Byron's voice and the story told. The last word of each line is echoed and the last of the verse additionally is distorted, increasing the pitch. This turns out to be the connection to the second verse, where the energy of the song grows with more instruments being added, while the echoes and pitching-up happen as in the first verse. Again, the connection is achieved, this time to a not too sudden boost in the third verse (by means of an instrumental change: after the high vocal tone we find us like an eagle dashing down to a heavier groove), where it's the wizard himself talking to us. Power softens again with the fourth and last verse, Uriah Heep's well-known electric organ finally dominates the sound carpet, and at the end, the song fades out.
Although I'm not a fan of fade-outs, this one I find is done right at time, I'm still not desiring for the song to end.
Recently, I looked for, and found -what else could you expect?- the song on the web (actually there are many places to find it, one example is here: ) and was half disappointed, half made laugh by the way the guys appeared on the stage back in the early 70s. I keep thinking about what I would have expected them to look like, but after all, I don't care so much, I just like to hear and feel the song.
Phew, there are so many songs I should like to talk about with you, but I think it's time for us to have a break, get some tea and listen to the music.
I look forward to your comments!
