MOURNING MUSE

Submitted by ub on

It is common knowledge that behind every good person, there is a greater one to provide motivation, love, support, and inspiration.

However, there are moments when moody artists and songwriters get hurt and want out.  Other times they're sincere and grounded with their odes, lambasts, laments, or love letters to their ex muse sometimes when music is at its very best. They call upon a special feeling and a deeper sense of introspection that goes beyond noodling away in the studio until you have crafted something resembling a song. 

Here are a few examples to share for your listening pleasure.

Lori Lieberman went with her friend Michele Willens to enjoy a Don McLean performance at the Troubadour. While the audience awaited ‘American Pie’ which was fresh in the charts, Lieberman felt sideswiped by his stunning performance of ‘Empty Chairs’. As he stirred her soul with his arresting performance, she began scribbling notes on a napkin. 

After the concert, she raced to a phone booth, called her songwriting partner Norman Gimbel and relayed her napkin’s musical eulogy to a performer putting their all into a piece of music. This inspiration would later be relayed to Roberta Flack who looked to replicate that sense of sincere humbling in her own version. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEbi_YjpA-Y

In the inversion of the track that Graham Nash wrote Joni Mitchell a sanguine song about the joys of settling into comfortable “domestic bliss”. What happened is that he and Joni we eating on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley; there’s a very famous deli called Art’s Deli and when they got to the house in Laurel Canyon, Graham says he said,  I’ll light a fire. Why don’t you put some flowers in that vase that you just bought? That note of casual conversation would later be echoed in the peaceful little song. While Joni was in the garden plucking flowers, he sat behind their piano and let inspiration flow through him. “An hour later, ‘Our House’ was born, out of an incredibly ordinary moment that many, many people have experienced. Then the fire stopped burning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=aunVlekXjkE&embeds_euri…

 

When Edie Sedgwick’s ancestors arrived in America they were among the richest and most powerful to come ashore. Then she disavowed aristocracy and ventured to the bohemian hub of New York City’s ‘Greenwich Village. It was here that she met Andy Warhol and became a central figure in his Factory scene. She then met the troubadour of the sixties and sparks began to fly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=IwOfCgkyEj0&embeds_euri=h…

 

A Case of You? The intro to ‘A Case of You’ is a moment of such brilliance that I am more than happy to assert that it is one of the ten greatest opening verses without any due forethought regarding the gilded list that it would be contained within. The song exhibits a sort of irascible wit that makes you pity Nash who was on the receiving end of such cutting jibes during their parting, and yet, as ever with Joni, it retains a dignified air and wisdom.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=qAZp5JfDmz4&embeds_euri=…
 

Linsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks huddled inches apart around the same microphone and crooning their heartaches into it, there can be no doubt that the heartache was being added to a performance under any more emotional duress. https://m.youtube.com/watch?embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ffaroutmagazine.co…
 

 

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