Music Day - Desert Rose

I really only have two criteria for Music Day posts: 1. It must be legally available for purchase; and 2. It should be a song that means a lot to me at the time of writing.

This is a song that I always glossed over. White Heart has so many loud, interesting complex songs that I was very confused by this ballad's immense popularity. If you mention the name 'White Heart' (to anybody who even knows who White Heart is), this is, nine times out of ten, the first song they mention. And that boggled my mind -- what about Let The Kingdom Come? What about Raging Of The Moon? What about Heaven Of My Heart? I do primarily listen for the lyrics more than the music, but in ten years of listening, I never 'got' the lyrics to this particular song.

Until now.

I am currently living in a VERY remote 'small town' that is literally an hour and a half drive from any other civilisation. There are no arts, no theatre, no dance classes, not even a freakin Staples. We've talked of moving but small tourist towns like this have a way of hiking grocery and gas prices so high that it is literally impossible to put together any kind of savings in order to actually do it (gas prices have been $1.43 a litre here since July; meanwhile my parents three hours north are zipping around on $1.17 gas. In the same province).

I don't have dance and I don't have money. I'm just watching my dream wither and die without practice. And I've been crying out to God, asking why He gave me this dream only to take it away again; terrified that I'm going to die in this literal hole in the ground, completely forgotten. I'm terrified of proving my program director right when he said I would never amount to anything.

Is this one of those desert experiences that so many people in the Bible went through -- Moses, the Israelites, Elijah, Jesus...? Is there still some important thing I'm supposed to do forty years from now and I just have to go through the motions until then?

I still feel angry and ignored sometimes when I think about how Brittney and M and my cousin died and I'm still here. It's not survivor's guilt so much as it is jealousy. They already live in a place where mercy is unreceipted, but I'm not lucky enough to get that chance. Given the choice between life and death, I would absolutely pick death. I'm not suicidal, per se, but I wouldn't fight death if it came for me. This world is not my home, and I want to go home. I don't even really know what 'home' is, but I know this world isn't it. I'm just so weary of life here.

And it's hard not to despair completely when all you see is the desert rising up on all sides -- literally.

(Forgot I was supposed to be doing a Music Day post. Pretending those last five paragraphs never happened.)

The song opens with a mellow but very classic '80s keyboard intro that hints at some of the haunting woodwind flavours that the band would explore in more depth on their next album Tales Of Wonder. And the tender, clear, angelic voice of Rick Florian (who I still maintain in the greatest singer to walk the face of the earth, even after five years of listening to music of all eras and genres while acquiring a BA in Music) comes in, painting a picture of an ocean of featureless sand and the tiny beauty drowning in it.

And you wonder

You wonder

Can you last much longer

This cloud you live under

Will it cover you?

The chorus features White Heart at their band-harmony peak. Harmony was something that White Heart always excelled at (their best-known line-ups featured a minimum of four competent vocalists), and it shimmers here, floating along on that bed of gentle keyboard that Mark Gersmehl weaves throughout the song.

Sometimes holiness

Can seem like emptiness

When you feel the whole world's laughing eyes

This is the part that resonates with me. I feel abandoned, alone, empty, tossed to the side, unwanted, unneeded, and useless. I feel like I and my life have been wasted and I'm just a shell of all my old dreams and potential just shuffling around waiting to die.

After the second chorus, the heretofore muted harmonies go from backdrop to centre stage, filling the song with layers and that beautiful '80s 'big' production. Chris McHugh's fantastic drums go a long way here too, and the effect is so lush and rich that it was several years of listening to this album non-stop (because of the title track and Storyline) before I realised that there isn't actually a verse here, only vocalising and a bit of vamping from Florian. (They pull off the same stunt in their song Let The Kingdom Come from their previous album, but that time they did it by distracting the listener with truly epic guitars, giant drums, and energetic rock vocals.)

Title: Desert Rose

Artist: White Heart

Album: Powerhouse

Year: 1990

Label: Sparrow Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

He will hold your tender heart

Oh desert rose...

Music Day - Major Tom

Since I'm apparently on a 'secular oldies' kick, we're just going to lean into it.

Despite my love for '80s music and my copious oldies-radio-listening, I had not heard this song until early 2020 when I heard it on the local radio station on the way to my husband's family's winter vacation spot (literally weeks before the COVID shutdown). I was immediately captivated by it. Turns out this particular station really likes this song, so I heard it several times over the next few months.

It's the perfect marriage of Things I Like In Songs:

- space themes

- '80s keyboards

- rumbling bass

- harmonies

- melancholy/thoughtful/introspective lyrics

- singer with a good voice

- upbeat/danceable

- '80s production

- clear and well-built climax

- good emotional/aural dynamics

- cohesive storytelling

If you like all (or even some) of these things, have I got the song for you.

It starts out like just another '80s song -- a staccato keyboard line that builds on itself and adds in some fantastic sassy bass before settling into a subdued guitar that brings in the vocals.

Our narrator sketches out the story: a space launch, the final checks, the nerves of the crew both in the ship and on the ground, the countdown to liftoff...

The music is fairly basic during the actual storytelling, but what makes the song truly amazing is how, the second there are no lyrics, the music shoots into the stratosphere with layers of space-y keyboards that paint a rich, full, detailed scene of the galaxies as the ship hurtles farther into the deep. The story itself is compelling, but it's the musical arrangement that the lyric is placed in that takes the song a cut above all the other story songs in the world. This is not merely tone-painting, it is universe-painting.

Earth below us

Drifting, falling

Floating, weightless

Calling, calling home...

In the chorus, the music itself gives one a floating, weightless feel. The echo they put in the vocal emphasizes that 'alone in space' vibe. It's the musical representation of what one feels when they look up at the dark starry night sky in the country, times fifty.

In the second verse, Major Tom begins to doubt the reasons for the mission -- what will it affect; when all is done? His doubts begin to outweigh his confidence in the mission. Meanwhile, all that the ground crew knows is that Major Tom is not responding.

On that cliffhanger, the chorus swoops back in and carries us away again, in the suit of Major Tom alone in the vast fields of stars. There's a brilliant synth bit here that sounds exactly like a spaceship powering up and zooming off, further into the unknown.

The music settles into the backseat and Major Tom sends one final transmission -- give my wife my love... followed by a haunting harmony and sixteen counts of nothing but staccato keyboard to let the impact of what has just happened sink in to the listener -- an odd choice from a songwriting standpoint, but a brilliant choice from a storytelling/dramatic perspective.

The verse continues -- he is presumed dead, and he is content to let them believe it. His reasons for staying in space are ambiguous... is he an alien, returning home at last? is he escaping the world back home (and who wouldn't want to)? does he feel he doesn't fit in on Earth? has he been brainwashed by an alien king? Personally, I'm inclined to believe the second and third options, but Schilling gives no hints other than the ghostly words this is my home... I'm coming home...

Another eight counts to let the listener process, and then we are launched into the chorus again.

The chorus is repeated and here is where the magic really starts to happen -- it's subtle at first; the keyboard backing harmonies began to change very slightly in the second repeat, and then in the third repeat they're joined by voices and clearly building to something.

The word home explodes through the speakers/headphones in a firework display of musical and vocal harmonies that sounds so much like Shotgun Angel Daniel Amos that the first time I heard it I swore I picked out Jerry Chamberlain's voice. It's a beautiful marriage of music, voice, and concept. 'Home' in space, so far away from home; 'home' beyond the stars. It is the perfect song climax, tying everything up with a bow but at the same time showering the listener with the stars of the sky like confetti or fresh snow on our shoulders.

Fun fact: the song (actually the whole album) was originally written and recorded in German, which is, for all its harsh sounds, a very thoughtful and poetic language. It's actually ideal for writing songs that deal with complex emotions with enough logic to not be silly (looking at you, Italian). When I'm better at understanding German, I would love to revisit this song and focus on the German version of it.

Title: Major Tom (Coming Home)

Artist: Peter Schilling

Album: Error In The System (German version: Fehler Im System)

Year: 1983

iTunes here; YouTube here.

And I haven't even gotten to part II yet...