My Five Key Songs of July 2023
The song choices that will soon follow for July are a bit of an odd selection. The tracks themselves aren't odd but rather this time around there wasn't a clear front runner to be the key song of the month. In fact, all five songs seemed to have stumbled their way into the list as July was one of those months without a clear musical focus which meant that instead of five key songs, it probably should have been more like twenty. However, that is not the format and so five it is, and whilst we're here I suppose we should probably find out what those five are exactly so as a certain Italian journalist says, here we go.
First up for July, 'Angela' by Bob James.
I am starting this month's picks with what is actually the most recent discovery on the list. I had heard 'Angela' about a month ago in a show that I was watching but then in the last week or so as I have been listening to quite a few scores it seemed to crop up unexpectedly and I am so very glad that it has done. Now, I have not seen the show 'Taxi' however, I would very much like to so I think that I will need to try and track it down on DVD as it seems like the sort of show that I would really get along with. Its musical choice for the title has all but confirmed that for me as this is perhaps one of the strongest title pieces that I have ever heard and bare in mind that I am saying that without any emotional connection to the show itself, as of yet that is. Bob James' gentle 70s classic never fails to help me to relax and settle and I have found that I have been listening to it quite a lot over the past week particularly as I have been walking back from working at a few events in the city centre. It won't be the key song this time around but I think give it a few more weeks in my headphones and perhaps a viewing of the show attached to it and soon it will be one of the key players on my roster.
Second on the call list, 'Run from Tears' by Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Usually when I turn to Crosby, Stills and Nash I head straight to 'Just a Song Before I Go' which is one of my favourite songs, but over July it has been more of the case that I have been listening to 'Run From Tears'. Now, as 'Run From Tears' is also from the self titled album with one of my favourite photographs of musicians on or actually one of my favourite photographs ever adorning its cover, it makes it all the more attractive as putting this song on does mean that I get to look at that album cover again. But 'Run from Tears' is more than that. It is a track that manages to encapsulate what Crosby, Stills and Nash are as a group. It has their harmonized vocals, it has the moments of peace and gentle romanticism whilst also being able to pick up the pace and display their always stellar guitar work. The song in many ways feels funnily enough like a Neil Young track and I would very much like to have heard a version of it with Young singing the lead lyrics however, the trio still manage to make it a truly wonderful number even without their missing fourth member.
The third song for July is 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' by Donovan.
At the end of February, over the course of a couple of days I watched David Fincher's 'Zodiac' film for the first time and then a second time. Whilst ofcourse the subject matter is very disturbing and dark, I found 'Zodiac' to perhaps be Fincher's most underrated film and I think my favourite of his titles. My love affair with the 'Zodiac' film has continued as I have listened to various podcasts about it and have been thinking about it a great deal but the real legacy that it has for me is its soundtrack which features hit after hit that feel like they are the zeitgeist song of that moment within the pursuit of Zodiac themselves. Over July I have been working through the entire soundtrack so to single out one track from it is rather difficult but really I think that this time around it does have to be 'Hurdy Gurdy Man'. The sound that Donovan creates here to surround the song with this ethereal air from the outset is quite something and I don't think that I have ever heard anything like it or really ever will. It's use in 'Zodiac' is perfect, well, actually the entire film is so perhaps that isn't as strong a compliment as I want to give it but I think the point still stands.
The penultimate song for this month is 'Coral Reef' by Shigeru Suzuki.
Really, I think that this is the key song for July but this time around I have gone with a more emotional choice which we will get to in a minute. Also, I don't feel that there is any pressure to choose 'Coral Reef' now as I am sure that it will claim the top spot at some point down the line. When I stumbled across 'Pacific' it was Haruomi Hosono's name that caught my eye but now that I have listened to it again and again, it is Shigeru Suzuki who is my stand out from the record and that is most apparent through 'Coral Reef'. 'Coral Reef', I don't know what it is, there is just this quality to this song that really hits me. Its the sort of song that makes me actually stop typing as I look off into the distance to try and work out exactly what it is that I would like to stay but I'm not quite sure. On a practical level, it sounds a little like what may have inspired Dan Mason, the artist who is often floating around the top spot for my artist of the year over the last couple of trips around the sun. But really, it is more than the similarity to Mason's work. It has this quality to it of something that feels very unique, it feels of its time in Japan in 1978 and listening to it takes me to that time or rather that my vision of it. I don't know, I suppose 'Coral Reef' is my version of the beach paradise that adorns the album 'Pacific's cover, it is paradise and words can't really do it justice but the feeling that it inspires, that is enough. More than enough.
And finally, the key song for July 2023 is 'Germany, 1944' by John Williams.
'Germany, 1944' is the song that hits me the hardest from the 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's score. Going into the film, I was aware that hearing the 'Raiders March' musical sting would be rather emotional as the whole viewing experience itself would be. The thing is, 'Raiders March' never truly made a full experience, instead it worked itself into a few of the tracks as a gentle nod to Williams' iconic cinematic score from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. And really, I think that I preferred this use of the song, it meant that on one hand 'Dial of Destiny' could be its own thing and that it was looking back at its predecessors in a respectful way rather than in one that was solely using its previous adventures to propel the story forward. When 'Germany, 1944' played and when I first heard that sting from 'Raiders March' it felt truly heroic, as Indiana Jones always does, and more than that it served as a reminder that whilst a song may not be playing all the time, it is never really gone and is always there when you listen for it out there in the Universe.
So there we have it, the key songs for July 2023 and with one month of summer left it feels like there has not been a true 'summer' pick as of yet to be the key song of the month. Maybe August will change that, we shall have to wait and see and I for one am excited for the month ahead and for the adventures it will have in store and the music that they will inspire.
-Jake, a man still looking for his own Indiana style hat, 30/07/2023