By magicman
For those who like to dive in and listen before reading anything:
Strength in Numbers Resilient A-List Playlist:
Maya Angelou - And Still I Rise
Mêlée - Built To Last
Kate Bush - Rubberband Girl
Mel & Tim - Starting All Over Again
Fiona Apple - Heavy Balloon
!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Dancing Is The Best Revenge
Grace Petrie - You Build A Wall
Gerry Rafferty - Get It Right Next Time
Dub Syndicate - Hard & Tuff
Aretha Franklin - Never Gonna Break My Faith
Joe Walsh - One Day At A Time
B.J. Thomas - Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head
Labi Siffre - Something Inside So Strong
Todd Rundgren - Just One Victory
Tricky topic – or was it? Slippery and overlappy. After three days of listening to inspirational words of wisdom and strength, I discovered that the lighter touch had much to recommend it too. Thanks to Burt Bacharach, Hal David, !!! (Chk Chk Chk), and Nat King Cole. Kate Bush also provided a useful definition: “See those trees bend in the wind? I feel they’ve got a lot more sense than me - you see I try to resist.”
And there we have it: the difference between resistance and resilience.
Yasus Afari explains it too on Dub Syndicate’s Hard and Tuff: now hardness is the ability to resist surface indentation while tuffness is the ability to resist hard?? So glass is hard and glass is brittle anything hard is brittle…but tuffness resists all external forces…
Any questions? Typical that every time I put my finger on it, it slips away. No I don’t know what the missing word is.
Nomination of the week went to SweetHomeAlabama with Built To Last, he and his wife’s song for themselves. If that doesn’t make you melt, you have no reason to be here. We have alcoholics and drag queens, 400 years of black resilience, marriage and love, shrugging it off, finding your fuck-it level, and fighting through depression to find energy from somewhere, anywhere. Not allowing the weather to affect your mood. Tough one that which I fail at regularly. A last-minute punt by Fred Erikson (hi Fred!) landed the anchor tune which would otherwise have been my guru pick and the A-list became 14. No brainer. Which is lucky because my brain is starting to annoy me. The B-List were all on the A-list at some point, but some of them were hard rather than tuff…but well played everyone:
The B-Resilient B-List Playlist:
Len Chandler - Keep On Keeping On
Manic Street Preachers - People Give In
The Impressions - Keep On Pushing
Mark Stewart & Maffia - Don’t You Ever Lay Down Your Arms
Christina Aguilera - Fighter
Culture - Natty Never Get Weary
The Whatnauts - Message From A Black Man
Nat King Cole - Pick Yourself Up
Sault - Wildfires
Judy Garland - Smile
Little Richard - Slippin’ And Slidin’
Long Promised Road - The Beach Boys
Prince Buster - Hard Man Fe Dea
Guru’s Wildcards:
I haven’t got any G-tunes I’m afraid. Ooh yes, wait – what about –
Andrew Duhon - Slow Down
Jessie Ware - Begin Again
They’re shoehorn resilient, but very zeitgeist!
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: Against all odds: songs about resilience. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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