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with the cheap shipping it does! 2 months, but as far as i’m concerned you can make it 3 or 4 or even 5 if brazilian customs decided to make your life miserable.
it will take months for the package (i ordered the deluxe cd) to arrive here. i also got essence elsewhere, finally.
i should’ve subscribed to this lost highway thing. i think i did my share of contributing to promote blessed. i even did a countdown to 50 days for the album since january 1st. (that counts – and not only literally – right?)
tom, thanks for that insight, really. i like reading those.
and it’s just my opinion, but i don’t think copenhagen is centered on details, and there’re not many of them. the way she describes the city, the awful weather, does not go into detail. everybody can understand and expect such descriptions (the sky is gray, the snow is falling), but the way she melts herself into the snow, the sky, the lovely language, the handshakes, that builds up to amazing poetry, she seems like levitating through the streets, the voices, the people. so, thundering news stroke her and that’s it for the detailing, then she starts comparing the news to a snowball shattering her face, and the poetry kicks in. “you’re flecks of light/ you’re mist”, i think stuff like this is more powerful than carefully chosen details from that night, they’re reflections about that night. i love it that she pulled everything together, and if you say that the details are right 15 months later i’ll believe you, but those who weren’t there can just be grateful for such a rich song coming from so little (‘little’ as in modest and just a few, not as in opposed to ‘big’), the sky, the snow, the news. the chorus couldn’t be dreamier, the frailness of responding to an unexpected event is beautifully rendered esp. when lucinda confesses that she grasps mortality just as faintly as a 7-year-old. the nicest details of the song, for me, are the ones given to reverie.
ugly truth, power of memory? just because that perception of omniscience (“swallow your pride/ swallow your pills/ in your house, up in the hills/ leave your husband/ leave your wife/ keep on runnin’/ your whole life/ sweep your dirt, under the rug/ fix your hurt with a little love”), of seeing all at once (“from the cradle to the grave…”) you have sometimes towards a person who screws up with you or with his own life. it’s not memory, it’s caring about people.
KLYK, upside of romance? (as in the advantages of being in love?)
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20468460,00.html
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http://thehurstreview.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/lucinda-williams-blessed/
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just found the 75th version of 2 kool here (indiana jazz festival ’99):
http://groundsforappeal.ihookitup.com/nothing-better-than-to-be-blessed-by-lucinda-musics-best-bucket-of-blues-singer-returns-with-more-tales-of-sweet-heartache/
songs about lost souls living just outside the edges of redemption, struggling to live right but ultimately failing
i really don’t get this feeling from copenhagen.
and oh, so sorry for those lame comparisons (i don’t know how you’re livin’ and little angel, little brother shares just a THEME, that’s it), i just felt like commenting on each song.
and born to be loved has nothing to do with convince me, same thing buttercup & ugly truth. just an . . . aura?
yeah, i’ve been listening to sweet love and copenhagen considerably more than the others. both songs create a powerful world, an atmosphere of serenity & emotional levity that sucks me in. sweet love’s sweepingly gorgeous melody is definitely made of stuff dreams are made of, and copenhagen itelsef is quite dreamy, the beginning, the first words “thundering news hits me like a snowball striking my face and shattering”, the frailness of responding to an unexpected event in a foreign country, people speaking in lovely undecipherable language, unfamiliar streets. it’s a stunning song, and i wrote here that i love that she mentions her age on it. there’s something quite . . . wintery in the instrumentation that works perfectly with the lyrics, which is in my opinion the strongest of the album.
i don’t know how you’re living rings just as true as little angel, little brother, it’s wonderful. soldier’s song is just as powerful as john prine’s sam stone, its minimal production works splendidly (just like prine’s), the abrupt ending. convince me is late-night bluesy wonderment (i LOVE the first 30 seconds, btw), ugly truth is buttercup working on a different wavelength completely. born to be loved is a bit like convince me without the edge, the sparkle, whatever, but i still think it’s pretty great. blessed is a masterpiece, the thrilling humanity, the universal scheme of things adding to the local color adding to the… divine guidance? who brings the flower girl close to the homeless man and the watchmaker after all?
awakening took me 4 listens to truly enjoy. seemed at first more of a song cut from the WEST/WWT sessions. it’s a terrific mood piece that stands a bit alone – not only in BLESSED, but ever. i tried to compare it to atonement & come on & wrap my head around that and i failed. but i don’t think it’d close the album nicely. kiss like your kiss with its circular structure of seasons passing and love remaining, is too beautiful it hurts, and lucinda humming at its end is such a Moment Out Of Time.
and this is what i wrote about seeing black:
pretty wonderful. a sparkling song built on various questions directed to a suicidal friend that not just reinforces something lucinda said in interviews (that she gets mad whenever she hears someone killed himself), but quite grasps the agony of the situation for the person (“tell me baby, what was it like?”, “when you made the decision to jump ship/ once and for all lose your grip”, “was it hard to finally pull the plug?”, “did you finally get tired of running the race?”), not only her reacting to it (e.g. “pineola” and “sweet old world”). the use of “seeing black/red/white” in the chorus is particularly shattering: a person (in this case, musician vic chesnutt) settling to the idea of leaving this world and slowly fading from black to white. but instead of being emptied to the point of unselfness, lucinda overfilled (frantic guitars) him to the same state: this is a tribute song of admirable power & heart.
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sweet love is still my favorite. “here’s my love letter.”
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Lu & Tom – congratulations!
never mind that, buttercup is great where it is.
“sweet love” is the immediate stand-out track in my opinion. i’d be hard pressed to find a more beautiful love song/letter.
BLESSED, the incredible thing that breathes, gasps, talks, walks, thinks, is, barks, growls, roars, laughs, cries & burns.
still terrific, puzzling & wonderful. the kind of album that’s riveting on its quieter moments (copenhagen, sweet love, soldier’s song, i don’t know how you’re living, kiss like your kiss, ugly truth) and circumspect on its most eloquent songs (awakening, blessed, seeing black, convince me, born to be loved). buttercup, as wonderful as it is, feels a bit disjointed with the other 11 songs, but that’s my fault, i’ve been listening to it a lot these past few weeks, which explains why it feels like it belongs somewhere else.
Given that she made her name with songs of heartbreak and betrayal, what motivates Lucinda Williams now she’s found love? Her 10th album casts wide for inspiration. “Buttercup” bids a lover farewell with her usual disdain, but “Blessed” counts the strands of happiness. “Soldier’s Song” empathises with an army far from home, while “Seeing Black” delves into the mind of a suicidal friend (the late songwriter Vic Chesnutt). Elvis Costello is among those contributing to the guitar-heavy pieces, but it’s the gentle “Copenhagen” and the mournful “Kiss Like Your Kiss” that are the standouts, their reflective qualities intensified by Williams’s racked vocals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/20/lucinda-williams-blessed-review?CMP=twt_gu
