Man, it wore me out watching this guy:

"Hounds of Love" -- Kate Bush's idea of being foxhunted by love, being frightened, a coward, but in the end giving in to it, is magical.

In the middle of being frightened of love, she finds a fox being hunted, embraces it, feels its fear; and realizes she has the same fright, but it's of "nothing real" and she feels embarrassed by being a coward about love.

Her chords go major, the chirping violins change, and she loudly and confidently announces "So here I go/Don't let me go/Hold me down/It's coming for me through the trees". At that point, she and her lover are actually facing the cowardice of love together. "Take my shoes off and throw them in the lake", she sings -- to avoid giving her scent to the hounds -- but by the end, it switches to "take YOUR shoes off."



But today, 35 years since the original, I feel like the song is overproduced. Here's a version by Lancaster, PA's own Beth Sorrentino which emphasizes the lyrics and chord changes.

John's on a ventilator. :sniff:

Yeah but he's almost as old as I am, one of the expendables for the economy.

Have you heard their latest?
No, but someone told me it is good, how's the bass line go?
Bass line? The guitar plays the music, the bass just goes boom boom boom like the drums.
Iszatso?

:thumb2: Jamerson played that, and all the Motown hits, with one finger.

Hot damn! That video is incredible.
I like it when he plays a really low note to describe how low of a valley wouldn't be enough.

I've watched it at least 20 times, mesmerizing, seeing where he's going to go and hearing him do it adds a whole new dimension. It shows the subtleties your ear may not pick up, especially with everyone playing at volume.

Genius. The next chorus around, he reverses the mountain and the valley. And then when he plays the chorus through the outro, he just plays the groove, smoothed out. Such composition!

I noticed that some of the "peaks" are leaning backwards, meaning (I think) he played the peak note ahead of the beat of the surrounding notes.

And it's perfect for the song. Imagine a more mundane bass part and the song still working. You can't

Yes, the bass is the whole song.
Here's another one, in this case just fundamental bass under the vocals:

I'd still love to see it diagramed, animated.

This guy does several wicked acoustic tool covers. Just discovered him today. Win.

And something I found down that rabbit hole

Whitney Houston raised the bar of female vocal performance, leaving a mark on history that can never be erased.



Here are some other amazing performances:
as a 22 year-old kid on David Letterman, and here*, taking chances in a raw performance that hits you right in the feelings.

*today I learned: the lyrics to All At Once were written by Jefferey "On the Wings of Love" Osborne