Now that Cillian Murphy is all the rage again I wanted to take the opportunity to remind everyone that not only is he a talented performer, with eyes of clearest blue and zero tolerance for the Royal Family, he also happens to have an exquisite taste in music.
A few years back, BBC Radio 4 gave him his own show where all he had to do was play music he liked and talk about it*. I would do unspeakable, terrible atrocities for that same chance. (my post is definitely getting banned again by Blogger because of that sentence). *spends 12 minutes going over everything that could've possibly pissed the platform off in the last post*
Anyway.
My point is, he has this section called Songs From Under the Stairs where he finds old gems that he kept in boxes under the stairs and he vaguely explains why they were important to him in the past. I'm stealing the idea and doing Songs From Under the...errr...Metaphorical Spotify Stairs.
I thought I might put my Spotify saved songs selection on *gags* sHuFfLe, mainly to direct the choices and then if I'm inspired by what comes up I'll select my song.
1. Got to Be Real - Cheryl Lynn
Remember the 2004 animation movie Shark Tale with Will Smith and Jack Black? I love that movie. I was nine when it came out and even back then I remember thinking certain parts of the soundtrack were fire. The song plays in that moment when Oscar gets access to the penthouse in the posh part of fish town and as the kids say these days, it slaps. I also remember discovering Get it Together by India.Arie and being obsessed with it. There was also a terribly catchy Justin Timberlake number that was made just for that movie (remember when Justin Timberlake and Timbaland were like siamese twins?).
Looking back I was probably a little too young to be judging movie soundtracks but I distinctly remember dancing on the sofa to Got to Be Real and thinking "I'm gonna get my dad to put this on the iPod classic".
I want to record this song as my first contact with disco music that was sought out by me and not because my dad wanted everyone up on a Sunday at 10am and decided to play Earth Wind and Fire full blast.
2. Wichita Lineman - Glenn Campbell
I discovered this in 2009. So I was...*heatedly tries to do the very simple substraction in her head* fourteen (?). *Uses phone calculator just to make sure* Yes, fourteen. If your whole teenage persona is constructed around listening to cool indie bands of the time and 70s angry punk, you don't really want to be caught listening to soft country music from 1968. But I was instantly captivated by this song. It sent me into some sort of weird nirvana state that I can't really explain. I don't even connect with the lyrics or anything, I mean, I had to google just now what a lineman actually does (it's someone who repairs the telephone lines in the middle of nowhere by the way). I'm ashamed to say, that at the time I hid away this information about my music tastes but I'm happy to have grown out of my pigheadedness and teenage phase.
3. A Design For Life - Manic Street Preachers
I grew up in a very small place in the middle of nowhere. All I had for entertainment was reading, films, music and going for contemplative walks with the dog. As a result, I've developed a few compulsive hobbies and an inner monologue that won't shut the fuck up. Because I got bored so often I made up little games such as trying to recognise any artist on the family iPod within the first 10 seconds of a song playing. Doing this on shuffle was a little bit too hard for twelve-year-old me so I would go in alphabetical order according to song title.
We had around 10,000 songs on the iPod at the time I recall so I would never make it past the C. What this meant was that I always did As and Bs. I did this at least once a week for years.
As soon as A Design for Life comes on the radio, in a bar or in the goddamn supermarket I have to say out loud within the first 10 seconds "A Design for Life, Manic Street Preachers, NEXT". It's a part of me now. It also happens with Abel by The National, A Bomb in Wardour Street by The Jam, Absolute Beginners by David Bowie, Accidents Will Happen by Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Acrobat by U2 and many more that forever live inside my brain in a tiny box labeled "the result of teenage boredom. This way up".
4. The Nearness of You - Frank Sinatra
On one of the rare occasions that my Granny came to visit us in the middle of nowhere, back when I was a small child still, she brought me a gift. She thought I would enjoy a double album of The Essence of Frank Sinatra. If I think about it now it's very comical but it's also as endearing as anything can get. I can just picture her looking at the album and thinking "You know who would love this? Our wee eleven-year-old Caoimhe over in Spain". And to be fair, I did. Immediately. Frank Sinatra's voice is just so warm and steady that's impossible not to enjoy. I have to thank my Granny from the bottom of my heart for the album because she opened a world of music to me. And not just Sinatra, through her I have found a love for Irish folk, US country, blues, rock and roll and swing.
5. Meet Me At the Pier - Doves
Doves is music that I never fully enjoyed when my dad played it at home. On some level, I think I found it cold and devoid of feeling. As I've grown older though, I wonder if I've grown colder or if my mind just perceives much different levels of emotion. Because in the past few years, everytime I've had an internal crisis, Doves has been there to pick me back up. To remind me that there is beauty in feeling grey and that there is nothing wrong with being a little cold from time to time. Meet Me At the Pier is an instrumental that feels like watching a lonely tear falling down a cheek in slow motion for 3 minutes. And the beauty of it is that it's always been there, playing in the background in my parent's house and I would go upstairs with my discman and listen to something else to drown this "boring stuff" out. As usual, my dad was on to something here, I just clocked on a bit late with this one.
*I'd like to reinforce the concept that what he does on the show is just talking. I mean at one point he says something along the lines of "Well this album was released in... I think... 2005" and I'm just sat there listening to that thinking, bro, Google it. What do you mean you think it's 2005? Just Google it. Was it 2005 or not? Although, being who he is I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know what Google was in the first place.