By Suzi
Even with all the mind-boggling advances in scientific knowledge, there are some things which have not as yet been explained, and perhaps never will be. Is intuition an unconscious response based solely on previous experience, or something more? What about premonition, or inspiration? Kate Bush meditates on some of these Strange Phenomena.
Next, Linx recall a childhood spent getting up to mischief, and a mother – and a neighbour – who both claimed that intuition had led them to the culprit. Now the singer has the uneasy feeling that he’s always going to be found out, and wishes that he had the power of Intuition himself.
Ruby Turner knows that her lover will leave her. ‘My Intuition Tells Me,’ she sings. However, Imelda May’s intuition is telling her something quite different. She has a Sixth Sense that everything’s going to work out fine.
Meanwhile, Björk sings a joyous hymn to Sweet, Sweet Intuition. Forget all you’ve learned, trust your senses and your instincts, she advises.
The introductory notes of Dave Brubeck’s Sixth Sense announce a more sombre mood. Brubeck’s piano is soon joined by a slightly uneasy, melancholy but beautiful sound from Paul Desmond’s alto sax. The melancholy continues in Telepathy, sung by Emiliana Torrini. She wants her love to send messages telepathically ‘over land and sea’, but she knows it’s hopeless.
The year 1798 saw rebellion in Ireland, in which Catholics and Protestants united against British rule. Jackie Leven’s song is a dreamlike allegory, in which he meets a woman with second sight, who prophesies that he will leave his native land. Two centuries on, the two of them remain there, ‘like emblems of a rebel song no longer sung’.
The Grateful Dead also meet a woman. She has Scarlet Begonias in her hair, and, at first, she seems all that the singer could wish for. But then he has ‘one of those flashes I'd been there before’. Deja vu? He intuits that she’s trouble, and makes his escape.
Willie Mabon would have you believe that being The Seventh Son has given him special powers – telling the future, for one.
Night terrors, things that go bump in the night… is it all just in your head or are Cadaver Club after you? Watch out….it’s always The Quiet Ones. However, Peter Blegvad has no doubt that there are Powers In The Air which want to express themselves through you. Inspiration has struck Arthur Lee and Love’s protagonist, who was thinking about his beloved, when ‘on the roof of my head’ came a Five String Serenade - and very lovely it is too.
The Intuitive A-List Playlist:
1. Kate Bush - Strange Phenomena
2. Linx - Intuition
3. Ruby Turner - My Intuition Tells Me
4. Imelda May - Sixth Sense
5. Björk - Sweet, Sweet Intuition
6. Dave Brubeck - Sixth Sense
7. Emiliana Torrini - Telepathy
8. Jackie Leven - 1798
9. The Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias
10. Willie Mabon - The Seventh Son
11. Cadaver Club - The Quiet Ones
12. Peter Blegvad - Powers In The Air
13. Arthur Lee & Love - Five String Serenade
Before You Know It B-List Playlist:
1. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Deja Vu
2. Blondie - (I’m Always Touched By) Your Presence, Dear
3. Rod Stewart - (I Know) I’m Losing You
4. The Waterboys - I’ve Lived Here Before
5. Tom Petty - Casa Dega
6. Enrique Morente - En Sueño Viniste
7. The Modern Lovers - Astral Plane
8. Tim Buckley - Hallucinations
9 Ann Peebles - A Love Vibration
10 Benny Spellman - Fortune Teller
11. Carole King - You’ve Got A Friend
12. Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
Guru’s Wildcard Picks:
Based on a true story. A father’s intuition prevents a likely tragedy.
Show of Hands - The Dive
Nobody seems to have nominated this? Deja vu, surely?
Ella Fitzgerald - Where or When
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Gut instinct? Songs about the sixth sense. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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