Without doubt, birds were the first musicians to make the earth sing. According to Hindu belief, music began with the cry of the peacock, and the first note in a scale – shudda shadjamam – represents the cry of this bird. Ever since, these cries, songs, and calls have continued to inspire composers. This series of three playlists is a journey following the many influences of these animals throughout the history of music.
Did you know, for example, that if we repeat the word ‘bird’, it loses all of its original meaning and becomes a magic force that makes us dance? This is what the Trashmen do: ‘B-b-b-b-bird is the word …’ But when the singer sings ‘bird’, he might also be referring to a woman who’s caught his eye. White Noise’s “Firebird”, talks about a woman about whom the singer is consumed with passion: ‘I can't hold you back, you're too wild for me’. And Sonny Boy Williamson's harmonica cries for the blackbird who’s left him.
But once people return to solitary places they become closer to the birds, by which I mean the real animals this time. A person who rejects all worldly constraints always prefers the company of animals perched in trees (Eels). John Lydon identifies with the Baudelairian albatross. Gasps and dischords express the forsaken soul of the man desperate to be free. But even before punk nihilism, flying was a sought-after activity. Drugs, meditation, sexuality... get it any way you can. In 1967, George Harrison lived on the evocatively named “Blue Jay Way”. While waiting for a friend who was running late he composed a song that was weightless, magical and absolutely captivating. Well, that was the sixties…
Be careful, however, because birds can also be a cause of anxiety and morbidity. Thom Yorke identifies with a black swan, the symbol of a curse condemning humans to failure. For his thriller The Birds, Hitchcock called upon Oskar Sala to rework songs and wing beats using an electronic machine called the ‘mixturtrautorium’. What makes this film so terrifying is the sound, perhaps even more than the images.
Birds are also seen as harbingers of death. The Ancients believed birds acted as messengers because they lived closer to the gods. With a simple and beautiful melody set against the backdrop of birdsong, Aphex Twin offers a glimpse of what it might feel to pass away peacefully...dying is, after all, freeing oneself from one’s body and becoming weightless; it is to mutate into a diaphanous bird and return to the heavens, as Anohni sings beautifully in “Bird Guhl”. But when poetry fades all that is left is the daily grind – the wretched existence of dead industrial chicken on your plate (Philippe Katerine).
Birdsong (Episode 1)
Our three-playlist series ‘Birdsong’ is a journey following the many influences of birds throughout the history of music. This is the first episode: From love to death.
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