this is my tune

Dug out this Lovers Rock comp made ages ago by my dj pal Paul Kennedy and was reminded how lovely this song is by The Cool Notes

and also by how uncannily it sounds like Saint Etienne (or rather I should say, how uncannily Saint Etienne sound like it  - in some of their earlier modes at any rate, Foxbase Alpha time particularly)

almost to the point where I'm wondering if Cracknell and the boys covered it

Love that synth solo -  so delicate and filigreed it almost sounds like guitar (and in fact is twined around a guitar solo, doubling the effect)

Dub is nice too



The lyric to  "My Tune" would have fit well with the songs-about-songs, meta-music interblog challenge of 2015 - the singer / group's evident pride in her / their creation... self-reflexively celebrating the seduction-by-hook of the consumer's ear and the fan's inevitable purchase of the delectable product .... a record that enacts its own promise  (shame it wasn't a hit) 

The title "My Tune" could also lend itself to a quite different lyric, written from the consumer / fan perspective - about that feeling you can have with pop songs (or any kind of songs - dance anthems, etc), that this song was made just for you, that is belongs to you - so snugly does it dovetail with your desire, so uncannily attuned it is to your particular audio-erogenous zones

(Well, The Cool Notes tune does contain that idea in the line "I wrote it for the people, I wrote it for you" - but here the addressee is the massive, it's "you" second-person plural i think - as in the earlier line "I write the tunes that you dance to in the blues". The word "blues" itself being uncommon parlance suggests the idea of social ownership of the song)

But yeah when a song on the radio possesses you, takes over your life,  it is like falling in love - that same feeling of extreme fortune and blessing, that heaven-sent matching 

I feel like there is already a song, or possibly many songs, out there that are about just this feeling -  a need miraculously met, the pop song as a personalised transmission....  

it's rather like the way certain stars when performing onstage can seem to meet each fan's gaze .... or how very charismatic persons, in the interview situation or the glad-handing meet-and-greet situation, reputedly can make you feel like you're the only person in the room, that you have ALL of their attention

but this-is-MY-tune also makes me think of the more disordered, hallucinatory regions of fan feeling  and fan-thought (as documented in the Vermorels's Starlust) where the star seems to be speaking directly to the fan, sending them secret messages, coded clues... the eyes in the poster on the bedroom wall piercing deep into you

While we're loving the lover's rock, here's another dreamsong about the dance of desire









postscript 8/25

Ian S in comments points out this rave versioning of Janet Kay



Fernando Ramirez Ruiz nominates Indeep's "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" as belonging to song-as-salvation self-reflexivity syndrome