Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Round the bend

This morning I was passing from the bathroom to the lounge via the music room when a song on the radio caught my attention. It sounded like Nick Drake although I knew that it wasn't as I didn't know the song. The vocal sounded like Nick and the arrangement sounded like 'Riverman', so I 'shazamed' the song and was told that I was listening to 'Round the bend' by Beck.

In the past I tried listening to Beck as I had been given the impression that his songs would fit my taste, but obviously the selection to which I listened didn't push my buttons. In short order, I discovered that the song comes from his 2002 album, 'Sea Change'. Reading the comments on YouTube, I saw that I was far from the first who made the connection between this song and 'Riverman'.

Listening to the other songs on this album, I have yet to find another song that sounds so mysterious. It transpires that there is another song on the album that I recognise, 'Lost cause', but it's not a song that gets me excited.

Another song that has caught my attention lately is "It's not just me, it's everybody" by the artist trading under the name Weyes Blood. This is on my wife's playlist, although she doesn't recall how she found it. This song is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, primarily in the chromatic mediants. From a music theory point of view, this song is very interesting, and the arrangement builds and builds. The vocal starts low but ends up fairly high. The only thing that I find annoying is the staccato piano; although the chords played vary (I don't know what key the song is in, but if we say it's in D, then the chords start as D, D6, D, D6), their rhythm doesn't and I would have preferred some variation - some syncopation or even not playing for a bit. It's a shame as this slightly ruins my enjoyment of the song.

Again, I listened to other songs of the singer, but didn't find anything else that caught my interest.



This day in blog history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
17809/06/2009Inter-program communicationProgramming
25309/06/2010Post mortem on my Economics examMBA, Economics
59209/06/2013Barcelona log (4): In search of DaliHoliday, Barcelona
86109/06/2015LinkedInDBA
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95409/06/2016An advanced - and possibly useless - technique in PriorityPriority tips
104209/06/2017Rodos log 5: SymiHoliday, Rodos, Greece
114509/06/2018Italy 2018 - The market, Mole AntonellianaHoliday, Torino, Italy
123109/06/2019Crazy weekJewish holidays
151209/06/2022Italy 2022: OstuniHoliday, Italy, Bari

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