Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Ten and final pick.
Back in 2014, I happened to catch a wonderful song that played during a commercial on HDNET (movies). HDNET didn’t have normal commercials, they just had clips from movies that it was showcasing, changing each month. I loved the song but, had no idea what the name of it was, other than what I could glean from the lyrics. I desperately wanted to know who the singer was because she had a beautiful voice. I could find nothing, so, I contacted HDNET for help. Her name? Emily Hackett. The song? A Heart Worth Saving (and I wasn’t the only one asking). It is the third track from a short compilation album called Girl Electro Pop, released July 11, 2014 (as best as I can tell). There is no chart information on the album or the song and what lyrics that are on the Internet do not match all of the words she sings. That being said, I was overjoyed to find it and download it.
That brings me to Bad Weather (no chart information on it, either). In digging around for data on Emily, I found a demo video of her singing the song with a guitarist. Then, I found the album it was on…The Raw EP, released July 24, 2015. It’s a beautiful, sad song that reminds me of a stripped down Carrie Underwood piece.
Photo Credit: The Virginia Star
“I started this song in California when I was making lunch one day at my parent’s house. My boyfriend, Mikey, was goofing around on the guitar and I stopped him like, “What is that? We are writing that. It’s awesome.” It wasn’t until we got back to Nashville, a couple months later that we sat down with our friend Adam James and poured out this song in a couple of hours. It felt so right, we just went with it. It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever written.”
She was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was in high school in Georgia when she took off with a friend to visit Belmont University. Headed for the University of Georgia, she fell in love with Nashville and interned in the music industry:
“Here I was in Nashville at school. I had no idea that there was this whole world of music where you could have careers. I didn’t realize there was so much to it. It was cool to be studying the music business at college. I thought I could always be a writer and in Nashville, writers actually get to perform.”
Some months ago, I commented on one of Music City Mike‘s blog posts, regarding interviews of local musicians in Nashville. I told him about Emily but, I don’t know if he ever got the chance to chat with her. Give her a listen. She is a different genre from Lissie but, just as talented.
Thanks, Hans, for the invite to participate. Much like the movie draft, picking favorites is a tough go. There is SO much good music out there. I look forward to sharing more in the upcoming 2022 Draft. ~Vic
A merchant brigantine, the Mary Celeste was built at Spencer’s Island, Nova Scotia and launched under British registration as Amazon in 1861. She was transferred to American ownership and registration in 1868 when she acquired her new name. Thereafter, she sailed, uneventfully, until her 1872 voyage.
[She was] discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a disheveled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. The last entry in her log was dated ten days earlier.
She left New York City for Genoa on November 7 and [the] Dei Gratia departed for Gibraltar on November 15, following the same general route eight days [later]. [She] was still amply provisioned when found. Her cargo of denatured alcohol was intact and, the captain’s and crew’s personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever heard from again.
Image Credit: gutenberg.org
At the salvage hearings in Gibraltar following her recovery, the court’s officers considered various possibilities of foul play, including mutiny by Mary Celeste’s crew, piracy by the Dei Gratia crew or others and conspiracy to carry out insurance or salvage fraud. No convincing evidence supported these theories but, unresolved suspicions led to a relatively low salvage award.
The inconclusive nature of the hearings fostered continued speculation as to the nature of the mystery and, the story has repeatedly been complicated by false detail and fantasy. Hypotheses that have been advanced include the effects on the crew of alcohol fumes rising from the cargo, submarine earthquakes (seaquakes), waterspouts, attack by a giant squid and paranormal intervention. The story of her 1872 abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times in documentaries, novels, plays and films and, the name of the ship has become a byword for unexplained desertion.
[Were] it not for Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, struggling to establish himself as a writer prior to creating Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the world would not have ever known or cared [about the ship]. Conan Doyle’s short story about the ‘Marie Celeste‘ (he changed the name from Mary) turned a minor puzzle into one of the most famous legends of the sea. Nevertheless, we should recognise it was fiction, for which his editor paid 30 Pounds, […] a respectable sum in 1884.
Twenty-five years ago, this week (November 19/25, 1994), the song Spin the Black Circle by Pearl Jamdebuted on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart (Page 79/ called Album Rock Tracks in 1994), entering at #16 (also its peak). Released November 8, it was the first single from their third album Vitalogy. Produced by Brendan O’ Brien, it was written by Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard.
The most [Vedder] will do is proselytize against the extinction of the LP, as he does in “Spin the Black Circle,” one of the few songs from Seattle in which a needle has nothing to do with heroin.
Vitalogy has a number of gripping songs that match the soaring anthems of Ten. The first three tracks are a promising start: “Last Exit,” “Not for You” and especially “Spin the Black Circle,” a revvedup thrash tribute to vinyl, rock harder than anything Pearl Jam have ever done.
Pearl Jam still hasn’t developed an individual style to match that of its profoundly uptight singer, Eddie Vedder. Guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready continue to play sloppy, characterless riffs. [T]heir punk song, ”Spin the Black Circle,” is a little flabby, like dinosaur rockers trying to prove they’re into Green Day.
The song peaked at #18 November 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the first Pearl Jam single to enter this chart. It also peaked at #11 on the Billboard Alternative chart (called Modern Rock Tracks in 1994). It peaked in the top five in Australia, New Zealand and Norway.
I don’t know what this means. I don’t think it means anything.
Lyrics (From LyricFind) See this needle
Oh see my hand
Drop, drop, dropping it down
oh so gently
here it comes
touch the flame
Turn me up
won’t turn you away
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
spin the black, spin the black
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
whoa
Pull it out
a paper sleeve
Oh my joy
only you deserve conceit
Oh I’m so big
and my whole world
I’d rather you
rather you, than her
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
spin the black, spin the black
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
whoa
Oh you’re so warm
oh, the ritual
as I lay down your crooked arm
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
spin the black, spin the black
Spin, spin
spin the black circle
Spin, spin
