By philipphilip99
“Even though white is often associated with things, that are pleasant and pure, there is a peculiar emptiness about the color white. It is the emptiness of the white that is more disturbing, than even the bloodiness of red.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, the Whale
The A is for Alabaster White A-list Playlist:
Marty Robbins – White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)
Legend has it that Marty wrote this after he stopped his car to let some kids cross the road in their glad rags as they headed for their high school Prom, then spotted the downcast fellow in the eye-catching sport coat walking in the opposite direction.
Jacky – White Horses
In the 1960s, singer Jacky and friends were asked to come up with a theme song for a Yugoslavian TV show that the BBC were dubbing into English. All they had to go on was the show’s title, The White Horses, so they kept the lyric vague and tried to make it sound like something from the pop charts. Though not really a good fit for the show, the song took on a life of its own and became an unexpected hit. Oddly, the song sounds like it’s metaphorically describing a drug high or even a darker kind of escape, which probably explains the number of twisted cover versions.
If you’re of a certain age, and unfortunately I am, this song really pushes the nostalgia buttons.
It’s A Beautiful Day – White Bird
The songwriters were describing themselves. Like the white bird that is trapped in its cage, they were stuck in an attic in Seattle and going nowhere, but they then began to take flight because of the white bird’s song. The epic jam session versions of this were popular with dove loving peaceniks and potheads, a group that had much overlap with the kids being sent to Vietnam, which gives this song added poignancy.
Jane Siberry – The White Tent, The Raft
This song is oblique and tries to capture something that’s resistant to capture. My best guess is that the singer is aboard a raft from a Huckleberry Finn childhood, floats along the river of life to adulthood, and gets there via a failed romantic relationship.
It’s wilfully pretentious, leaves no tangent unexplored, and was made in the face of warnings that commercial radio wouldn’t be interested – and you can only love her for it.
The dB’s – White Train
A foot tapping and country infused song that seems to be about a classic subject – the glory train. But the notorious train named here is the one used during the Cold War to transport the USA’s nuclear arsenal. So, the song is drenched with an acidic irony – the white train can’t give you a ride to Kingdom Come but might well get you blown to it.
The Mutton Birds – White Valiant
The Chrysler Valiant, a car produced in Australia from 1962 to 1981, was a favourite of New Zealand petrolheads, especially the Charger version that came with a V8 engine, gleaming white paintwork, and an all-white interior. In this cinematic song, a vulnerable someone is being led to a white Valiant by the song’s narrator, who might well be of evil intent, which makes the car’s colour and its grandiloquent name chillingly ironic. It doesn’t take much of a leap of imagination to see that white interior splattered with blood.
Super Furry Animals – White Socks/Flip-Flops
Ffantastig.
Chilly Gonzales – White Keys
An instrumental played on a piano’s white keys only, which means no sharps or flats, and that self-imposed loss of contrast could kill a composition – but not for Chilly.
Public Service Broadcasting – White Star Liner
Celebratory song about the launch of the ill-fated Titanic that’s played live in the video at the site of the shipyard where the cruise liner was built. Though you do get a tingle of hindsight, there’s no sense of hubris in the song because, as they like to say in Belfast, she was fine when she left here.
Day One – White City
In art and fictions of all kinds, all that’s good and right about civilisation is often symbolised as a gleaming white city that aspires to be its own heaven for all its citizens. And if that city must have walls, it also has doors that stand open for those with the will, heart and need to enter.
The B is for Brilliant White B-List Playlist:
The Big Bopper – White Lightnin’
The rock and roll pioneer doing what he did best.
Vampire Weekend – Unbearably White
I assume the band have taken a barb aimed at them and used it to write a song.
Cat Stevens/Yusuf – Into White
Reaching for Nirvana via domesticity, nature and song.
SIX60 – White Lines
Rest easy, New Zealand isn’t all dodgy geezers in white Valiants.
The Tubes – White Punks on Dope
One of those songs that’s truly great on the first listen but quickly pales because of all the messing about.
Belly – White Belly
Only in LA could goths get their bellies out.
Ken Nordine – White
Can’t have a colour week without Ken.
The Cult – White
Oo-oo-ooh, wh-h-h-h-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-te-ah! Ah, yeah-yay-ah!
Laid Back – White Horse
Another white horse and with a white pony as a bonus, but this song is really about rejecting smack in favour of the devil’s dandruff – a message only half endorsed by the ‘just say no’ movement.
La Dusseldorf – White Overalls
I’ve got a mate who went through a ridiculous phase of wearing white overalls. Annoyingly, he always looked great.
Guru’s Wildcard Pick:
Laurie Anderson – One White Whale
A hunt for Moby-Dick that hauntingly mimics whale song.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Blanc expression: songs about the colour white. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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