#songsthatchangedeverything

[songs-that-changed-blog]

Céline Dion – Pour que tu m’aimes encore

D’eux, 1995 (Studio Méga)

My life was changed several times by songs, or rather, voices. I could fall in line with the “we understand each other with the drop of a name”-consensus of Feist, Cat Power, Ella Fitzgerald or Nina Simone. But let’s talk about a moment which altered my life and every hidden fibre of my being. The moment where, in a David Lynch film, someone would find a blue box, and suddenly everything’s different. It would have been 1995. I was living near Frankfurt and on Sundays, the local radio station FFH would play the latest hot tunes from Italy, France and Spain – and yes, that invariably meant Eros Ramazotti and Nek. No point in sugarcoating it. But I didn’t care. From 10pm until midnight, I was glued to the receiver and was grateful for every song, each new voice from an alien world. Like a dog who is thrown a few stale breadcrumbs.

Then she came on.

I can’t recall anything, except that the song was in French and that outside everything was dark, and that suddenly this voice was like a warm, yellow light. Everything stopped with the first bars, the first words. There were no feelings anymore but feeling itself, just being, all was one, timeless forever. And the chorus kicked in and the light began to burn. Stronger, brighter with every bar. Then the key change, and everything stood in flames.

Who was she?

The presenter had said her name before the song. But then I hadn’t known how important that name was. I waited, bargained, implored him to say it again! Just once more! Nothing.

1996. My mother bought me Falling Into You by Céline Dion. I knew a few of her videos and thought they were alright (I’m a sucker for pop music), but I also knew videos by Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Portishead. I couldn’t get all that excited by this album. But track number ten… I knew it, knew that I knew it, but not like that… different… IN FRENCH! THAT WAS IT! IT WAS HER! I ran to the CD store, please, could you have a look at the catalogue under Céline Dion? This one, that one, look, D’EUX from last year, in French. Please, can I have 35 Marks, I have to order this! “You don’t even know if you like it.” There is no way to have listen beforehand. Mum, please, this CD or none!

When I talk about Céline Dion these days and tell people that this song was the catalyst for me to want to start singing, 90% of people react by shaking their heads. Post-Titanic Céline Dion – I get it. But before the devil got her soul, there was a time where she could put all of herself into a single note. She was never a woman for verses. She must not think about what she does. When the chorus kicks in and the high notes demand all of her physicality, she has to let go of every “want”, of every misguided intention to impress anything upon the listener. Then her body and all the hard work make time and space melt. Like the perfect three-pointer, when the basketball player sees his chance and only has milliseconds to make a decision.

Whoever has an open heart and would like to see that behind even the biggest bogeyman, there is a real person with feelings, has to listen to “Pour que tu m’aimes encore” by Céline Dion. When I finally saw the video for the first time on VH-1 in 1998, I knew I wasn’t alone. Other people felt like I did. Because at the beginning, there was a warm, yellow light. And at the end, everything stood in flames.

Karoline Schaum

This is a translation of a piece originally published in German in the Songs That Changed Everything print zine, of which you can buy a copy here.

[songs-that-changed-blog]

The Velvet Underground & Nico – Venus in Furs

The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967 (Verve Records)

Angela Aux is the solo project of Munich-based musician Florian Kreier (ex-L’Egojazz, Aloa Input). His new album Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams was released on Millaphon in May 2016.

How did this song change your life?

 Angela Aux: When I first heard this song, I was 16 and was in a HipHop-Band called Sportfreund. My friend Soulsepp was the DJ, I was the MC, and on weekends we used to hang out at his to listen to music and get stoned. Like we did that evening as well. He had gotten two records from his cousin – The Velvet Underground & Nico and Mellow Gold by Beck. And he greeted me all excited, “I have these insane records from my cousin Mario, he have to listen to these”, and then we had a smoke and put on the Velvet Underground record. I liked it, but didn’t really get it. But when Venus in Furs came on, I was like “Shit, what the hell is THIS?” I had never heard this kind of avant-garde music – so druggy, lascivious, and in an understated way really aggressive as well – before. And that hit me so hard that that night I decided not to do HipHop anymore, but something that lies somewhere between The Velvet Underground and Beck. And that’s the kind of territory I’m still working in now.

I listened to a live version of Venus in Furs by Lou Reed  , without John Cale and his viola, and a solo version by John Cale, which does have the viola in it . They are completely different songs. On the album version, this drone-y, seesawing element is so central to the recording – do you remember how you perceived that back then?

I had no idea what that even was. It sounded like a violin… But I never found a version that’s as good as the one on the album. That recording is so unique, there’s this album by The Velvet Underground with the green banana on the cover with the demo versions of the songs, which got scrapped eventually. And had the record come out with those recordings, nobody would have cared – Black Angel Death Song is produced so incredibly well, or I’m Waiting for the Man, what a sound! Devastating. You can’t even compare the album to the live or solo versions. In those original recordings there’s something so indescribable, something so special.

You just said that you listened to that song for the first time when you were 16. At that age, people are very susceptible to that kind of thing. When you write songs yourself, do you have an image of the time and circumstances people listen to that song in for the first time?

Not at all. I do film music as well, where you obviously have to consider that – with those projects, I don’t think about if I like it or not, but try to put myself in the position of the listener and the moment in which he experiences the music. But when I write songs, I only notice that I’m making music while I’m in the middle of it. It’s very subconscious. When I’m not specifically trying to write anything but just mess around on the guitar and look out the window and mumble to myself, until I sort of jump up and go “Woah, what was that?” Just letting it happen, that’s how I write songs. I think when comes to art, letting everything you have taken in just come together, consciously or unconsciously, is much more fruitful than any sort of rational process. When you’re mixing a record, then you do think about what it sounds like – is that part going to be a violin or a saxophone? Funnily enough, when I write short stories or poems, I think a lot more about what it does to people. Music is something a lot more intuitive, I think that’s the main thing.

You mentioned the lyrics to Venus in Furs earlier – were you able to understand, what Lou was singing about? In the verses, he sings about leather and blood and whips and stuff, and in the chorus, he’s like “I could sleep for a thousand years”, and being all dreamy – such a contrast.

I can remember hearing that chorus for the first time. That was the thing with The Velvet Underground, that the music is such a mix of the stoic and leftfield, and something totally sweet and simple. And that chorus really got me. That was a feeling that I’d always had – I was always tired and confused, always wanted out, was always daydreaming. And then that chorus hit and I thought “Wow! That’s exactly how I feel”. That was one of many such moments that Lou Reed gave me.

I grew up in a Bavarian village, with a lot of old hippies. And it wasn’t until later that I realised what they were about: To understand, who you are, to accept it, and to have the certainty that you’re different from the rest of the village population, but also that you belong somehow. That was almost like a homecoming, listening to that song. That it had something to do with sexuality, I kind of got that, “shiny boots of leather” and so on, but I didn’t really care about that, that came later. Those lines: “I’m tired, I’m weary, I could sleep for a thousand years”, those were the ones. And that druggy atmosphere – every person has that in themselves, that desire to flee, to escape the everyday, even if it’s just for a while. And alcohol never gave me that, I never liked that drug, and maybe that played a role as well back then – being slightly stoned perfectly fit the mood of this song.

What do you feel when you listen to that song now?

The older I get, the happier the song makes me. I’ve become very conscious of how important these two records – The Velvet Underground and Beck – were for me. And this song celebrates being different in a very sacred way. I think other people feel like this when they hear their national anthem, or really powerful classical music. For me, this is the most meaningful song. And I usually think of my friend when hearing this song, because he was the one who brought it round. And of course I think about that time in general – growing up in the countryside, and entering the world of popular culture through these records.

Near the Lake Chiemsee, where I grew up, there are these villages with 6000 inhabitants each, and in every village were these handfuls of people you eventually got to know. They had these massive record collections in their loft, or their basements were full of taxidermied reptiles, they were all a bit odd. That was the time were we sat around in this hippie commune, and we realised that four of the people there once lived on my grandfather’s farm!

All these experiences that you made back then, it was so exciting. Near the Lake Chiemsee there’s also the “Grüne Haus” (Green House), a kind of shelter for people who suffer from addiction, and through our interest in music we got to know these people and talked to these Heroin addicts. Heroin addicts often are very self-reflective people, and during these conversations, a lot of vague inklings I had about life were confirmed – and I’m reminded of that feeling when I listen to that song today.

This is a translation of the interview published in the Songs That Changed Everything print zine, of which you can buy a copy here.

[songs-that-changed-blog]

Donnie & Joe Emerson – Baby

Dreamin’ Wild, 1979 (Enterprise & Co.)

I had tried to be calm, to wait and see, to observe myself and him. I didn’t manage it. It was so intense, so pure – so close. I had never felt so shaken, so lonely and torn as I did then.

 He had it figured out and I tried to find empathy, warmth or simply presence where there were none tob e found. At least that’s what I told myself, because I couldn’t keep up with the pace and the flood of shared moments.

 But somehow...

 For weeks, my thoughts revolved around the same step, I repeated the scenes before my inner eye over and over again and I knew I had to leave. To keep what we had – I had to leave. Again and again I announced it, communicated it between head and mouth, but then rescinded, spun myself around. The rules of reason did not seem to apply to him and me.

 Daydreams, wishful thinking – sometimes the fog cleared and I knew I had to get away from what I so dearly wished for.

 In the evening we found ourselves next to each other, he was with me again, next to me, with me. I couldn’t. Again, I couldn’t.

 He beamed at me and gave her to me, one present of many: hope.

My gestures consisted of a gentle nod and shy, muted glances, again there was a miscommunication between my head and the rest.

 What was wrong with me? It was as if I was standing next to myself. “Carefully, the male presents the female bird with a gift, which symbolises his availability as her partner. Hesitatingly, she accepts”, I thought, remembering a jungle scene from an ornithological documentary we had watched together.

 But we’re no birds.

 This gift, this record, hope turned artefact. We listened to the most intense, the purest and affectionate words:

 “Feels so good walking side by side

Wanna be with you all my life”

 Lying on the bed in the white-grey smoke, legs dangling out of the window, we listened, talked and laughed. He said this song was so me and too beautiful, and I nodded. I liked giving him nods. That evening I didn’t leave him. Instead, a pink fog rose up inside of me, letting disappear all thoughts of flight. Until springtime, anyway. Then the fog lifted.

 Eleana Katanu

This is a translation of the piece published in the Songs That Changed Everything print zine, of which you can buy a copy here.

[junglelandzine]

Max (who designed the cover for the Jungleland zine) and I made a new zine - it’s a collection of essays (in English and German), illustrations and interviews about songs that changed the contributor’s lives in profound and lasting ways.

First print run is limited to 200 copies, they were risograph-printed and handnumbered and packaged into four different 7″ sleeves.

This is what it looks like, and you can get your copy here:

http://songsthatchanged.bigcartel.com/product/songs-that-changed-everything-the-zine

xx

[songs-that-changed-blog]

We have them packed in four different sleeves – if you have a wish, note it in your order via Bigcartel! We can’t promise but at least try to send you the one you like most!

Order here: http://songsthatchanged.bigcartel.com/product/songs-that-changed-everything-the-zine

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The Spotify playlist to go along with the zine

[songs-that-changed-blog]

Handnumbered af. The zines are here, they look and feel and smell great