Songs with SFX # 4: Kate Bush

Posted on February 10th, 2010 by Andy

Time to kick some life into Everything’s Swirling. My intention is for more shorter posts so here’s one.

Kate Bush will probably make many appearances in this series but as I was listening to Ariel this morning and as I’m a sucker for bird noises – here are the pigeons (and other tweets) that open the second disc of her last album…

Ariel should have been in many more end of decade lists – including mine. Not sure where (or if) Hazel published her list but I’m certain it was in there.

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Songs with SFX # 1 (slight return): Black Sabbath

Posted on September 22nd, 2009 by Andy

An excerpt from Ozzy Osbourne’s upcoming autobiography “I am Ozzy” was published in The Times Online this week and as well as the stories of drink, drugs and small animal decapitaions he also describes playing the first Black Sabbath album to his dad…

I can picture him now, fiddling with his reading specs and holding the cover in front of his face. Then he opened the sleeve, went, “Hmm” and said: “Are you sure they didn’t make a mistake, son?”

“What d’you mean?”

“This cross is upside down.”

“It’s supposed to be like that.”

“Oh. Well, don’t just stand there. Put it on. Let’s have a bit of a singalong, eh?”

With the first clap of thunder, my dad flinched.

I grinned nervously at him.

Then: Bong! Bong! Bong!

“Son, when does . . .”

BLAM! Dow! Dowwwwwww!!!

Dooooowwwwww!!!!!

My poor old man turned white. I think he’d been expecting something along the lines of Knees up Mother Brown.

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Songs with SFX #3: Teenage Fanclub – I Don’t Want Control of You

Posted on September 21st, 2009 by Andy

Having a Teenage Fanclub day today. Not sure where the urge came from but it’s always a nice urge to get. I suspect this series of posts is going to fill up with bird sounds opening or closing songs. On I Don’t Want Control of You (from the wonderful Songs From Northern Britain) there’s some nice bird song before The Fannies kick off.

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Songs with SFX #2: XTC – Senses Working Overtime

Posted on August 27th, 2009 by Andy

While the first entry in this series was brutally unsubtle in it’s raiding of the sound effects library, XTC’s Senses Working Overtime is beautifully subtle… and you have to wait right until the end. I love crows…

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Songs with SFX #1: Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Andy

I threw together a post last week of “my top 6″ songs with sound effects but it seemed a bit wasteful to just bundle together a few songs with SFX off the top of my head – there are so many more and some much better – so here’s the first of another ongoing series on Everything’s Swirling…

Unquestionably the best beginning to a heavy metal song (if not any song) is the beginning of Black Sabbath’s eponymous track from their eponymous debut album. It has hammering rain, rumbles of thunder and a church bell chiming in the distance… and the most fantastic opening riff. There might be many great sound effects songs on their way in this series (or possibly not) but none will be greater than this one!

Sadly this video doesn’t have the full intro and nor does the track on last.fm – but I’ve just found it on blip.fm.

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