A remarkable week, when all is said and done...

I can think of plenty of things to say but this song, and many others on the album Carry The Light, amongst them - 'No More Lies' and 'Time For A Change' - tell a story far better than I could ever hope to:

Run Like Hell

Building bridges
Across rivers deep and wide
We might need a telescope
To see the other side
We all know
That something must be done
'Cause the future is fading fast
just like a setting sun.

We can hear a distant sound
Like the ringing of a bell
We better do something fast or
RUN LIKE HELL!

War here, war there,
War everywhere.
A leader lies and someone dies
But do they really care
And could we face the truth
If truth were even there.
Who's gonna tell our children
The future isn't their's...

We can hear a distant sound
Like the ringing of a bell
We better do something fast or
RUN LIKE HELL!

Now don't get me wrong
The ending isn't clear
Many chapters of this book
Have all been filled with fear
I can hear the pages turn
It's the chance we've waited for
We're ALL in this together
And we've seen it - ALL before.
As we wake up in the in the morning
To face another day
Wishin' for blue skies
And all we get is grey
We try to keep our hope alive
No matter what they say
It is time that we get busy
And do something more than pray

We can hear a distant sound
Like the ringing of a bell
We better do something fast or
RUN LIKE HELL!

If the album 'Carry The Light' puts me in mind of any other that I have then it is 'Live - Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush' (1978) and that is no bad thing at all. This classic rock album has recently been re-released on CD and it is one of the favourite live albums that I own.

Things can, and in time will, get better...

A Change Is Gonna Come - Leela James (2005)

On the other hand, while writing this, I'm currently listening to an equally relevant but at least in style very different album. It was released only a few years ago but that could be an age; it is now more immediately relevant than ever it was hitherto.

A Change Is Gonna Come?

I've been quiet this evening as I've been playing in two pub general-knowledge quizzes at once. The nearer pub is some twelve miles away and the other about 150 miles away but I'm at home. I simply can't be in two places at once and anyway it is a great deal cheaper this way!

That is largely irrelevant except that I've just just been asked the following question in what is a quiz with a definite music bias: Who was Wolverhampton's end of last century 'Prodigal Sista'?
That is the sort of question that can be exceedingly annoying unless you remember that this was the title of Beverley Knight's second album. That was interesting in itself but it also reminded me that I should listen to her third album Who I Am (2002) again and when I did I had forgotten just how good it is. What is more important it remains so despite the massive increase in popular interest in UK soul and blues in the intervening years.
There is nothing poor on it but , for me at least, the stand-out tracks are still Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda and Fallen Soldier.

That said it is now available so cheaply on Amazon Marketplace that it is probably cheaper to buy the whole album than pay to download even two tracks, not least because my favourites might not be yours! What is more, for all of you who want the lyrics too, Parlophone CD 7243 536032 0 5 has them printed in full in the cover booklet. There is nothing wrong with her subsequent albums, Affirmation (2004) and Music City Soul (2007) either.

Although slightly different, and coming from the other side of the Atlantic, it prompted me to listen to this again. It is another album that, like some others that I have mentioned before, I bought in a frenzy of enthusiasm that had worn off by the time it arrived. It seems that when I felt inclined to give it another chance I rediscovered what it was that inclined me to buy it in the first place.

A Change Is Gonna Come - Leela James (2005)

The album has two cover versions, the title track (originally by Sam Cooke) and a rather surprising but, for my money, extremely successful version of the 1996 hit-single Don't Speak by No Doubt and from the album Tragic Kingdom. It was a brave idea, to cover a Gwen Stefani classic that spent a then record of sixteen weeks at the top of the 'Billboard 100', and I still very much like the original, but I can't say that she messed it up. I know that not everyone will agree but that is how it is for me.