Thanks for this selection Vicki. I had never heard of this singer. I found her voice and style interesting, but not that attractive to me. I listened to these tracks with interest, and I can't exactly say why, but there is something in the style that doesn't grab me. Yet I think that is a purely personal response - others obviously find her highly attractive, and with good reason.
I am fascinated by those interviews. That song writers felt a sense of release. Elton I have always thought of as conservative, so I'm not surprised he felt that way. I never suffered from that tradition of song writing, mostly because I never knew about it. Only many years later did I hear about things like bridges, which still baffle me, that people write songs like that. I doubt I ever wrote songs with an idea of chorus and what-not, for me it was always a selection of musical discoveries within a field I was exploring, and I would string them all together in the best way I could find. Even before I found other cultural music, I was composing with no rules whatsoever in mind. This caused me to feel uncomfortable when discussing music, or playing, with other musicians, because they all had some expectations which baffled me why they allowed themselves to be so constrained. Laura obviously felt the same way, and I like the way she just followed he musical nose into the music.
I think my dislocation from the main stream of music has only grown stronger over the years, such that I now feel a distinct sense of antipathy to the whole concept of a 'song'. I'm not against all songs, and I enjoy listening to them, yet I am still aware of an underlying frustration with that format for music. It seems like music has been caught, tamed and disfigured to fit into a mould that the public has been taught to expect. And it amazes me to discover other cultures with completely different expectations, so it's a learned thing.
