Two songs: The river and the sea

Here, two songs, one theme and how it moves me.



Indeed, this probably is the 'creepiest Randy Newman cover ever.' I first heard this song in Marianne Faithful's voice. Two years ago, working days, listening to OPB: something about that haggard voice, the qualified triumph of sixty years on earth, sent me on the Cannondale to the Everyday Music on Sandy. Or, I bought an album reviewed on public radio and officially became middle-aged.

My search for Marianne's version unearthed this gem. I don't know any more about Esther Ofarim than you do, or than what this tells me. Her face suggests that she spent a solid decade staring at the river in Dusseldorf, or that she's totally insane. But the way she holds her body at the end of the song, the way a memory is suspended, inverts her relationship to the song- she becomes its subject, the suspended memory of the sea.

Whoa.

To take the edge off, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Celia Cruz:


Juan Carlos and I danced around the living room of the cabin, shouting this chorus and boogying. This is how you get through winter. Here's what's going on:

Throw up your arms and dance tonight!
Ours is water from the river, mixed with sea.

Maybe you will understand it (I understand it!)
The words don't matter.

This is why I love the night- the moon and its unwritten pact with the sea, out of reach and invisible from here. I have no words for these things. Forget the words- they're meaningless. You throw your arms up and dance!