'When I first saw you, the sky, it was such a natural blue.'

September 13, 2017

I've always found that August is a strange month.  I have occasionally seen it as the pause mark in the year; if I've been on holiday I will have been in July or at the very beginning of August, leaving me with at least a month before returning to the usual routine of school or, now Uni, to try and endlessly find something to fill my time.  In the past, I've spent it rearranging my room, reading, and waiting for results day so I can plan the next year of my life.  The songs on my August 2016 playlist don't really reflect that month in many ways to me.  It is strongly influenced by new music released then and only the songs I assume I added towards the end of the month give me the familiar nostalgic feeling I talked about in the last post.  However, my August in 2017 broke the pattern.

It was potentially my favourite month of the year so far, especially in terms of music.  Although I got very frustrated by the repetitive nature of the radio at my part-time job (by the end I was playing musical bingo and if they didn't play 'Perfect' by Ed Sheeran at least once in the 5 hours I was there, something was wrong), the rest of the month was highly influenced by Green Man Festival.  Held in the Brecon Beacons, it's a psychedelic mix of indie, folk, rock and dance music among other genres.  It was introduced to me as a festival that you could go to not knowing anyone on the lineup but come home with a new favourite artist, whom you watched eating the best food you'll have ever eaten, with a pint in your hand, and mountains invading your peripheral vision.  As someone still suffering from post-festival blues, I can confirm this is EXACTLY how I would describe Green Man.  I would say that I am definitely someone who doesn't like to go to a gig or festival blind. I like familiarising myself with someone's music, even if it's just a couple of songs, because I think familiarity can help you realise a performer's ability quicker than if their music was completely new to you.  With this in mind, between January and the festival, I intermittently listened to the playlist the festival organisers put up and, in June, my friend Jake sent me his own selection of songs by the artists on the lineup which heavily influenced what I then listened to leading up to the festival.  My August 2017 playlist also includes a couple of new releases and suggestions by friends but Green Man was definitely the biggest influence over this playlist and the memories of Green Man 2017 are what I assume these songs capture and will trigger when I listen to them in the future.

A very happy me at Green Man 2017.


August 2017

  1. Something To Tell You - HAIM
  2. Heavy - Oh Wonder
  3. It's Only Life - The Shins
  4. Fall of '82 - The Shins
  5. Midnight - Jessie Ware
  6. I'll Never Love - Michael Kiwanuka
  7. Kept Me Crying - HAIM
  8. That's How I Got To Memphis - Karl Blau
  9. Barbary Coast (Later) - Conor Oberst
  10. Natural Blue - Julie Byrne
  11. Learn To Let Go - Kesha
  12. New Slang - The Shins
  13. Formidable - The Big Moon
  14. Boys - Charli XCX
  15. The End - The Big Moon
  16. Waking Up Slow - Gabrielle Aplin
  17. New York, New York - Ryan Adams
  18. Would You Be So Kind - dodie
  19. You - dodie
  20. Never Be Mine - Angel Olsen
  21. New York - St. Vincent.
  22. Still - Seiabo Sey
  23. Seasons (Waiting On You) - Future Islands
  24. Outbound Train - Ryan Adams
  25. Found It In Silence - HAIM
  26. Grudges - Paramore
  27. Place We Were Made - Maisie Peters
  28. Early Morning Light - Sarah Jarosz
  29. Back of My Mind - Sarah Jarosz
  30. Run Away - Sarah Jarosz
(There's a link at the end to a Spotify version of this playlist.) 

The Green Man Selection

The songs on this list by The Shins, Micheal Kiwanuka, Karl Blau, Conor Oberst, Julie Byrne, The Big Moon, Ryan Adams, Angel Olsen and Future Islands (so the majority...) are all there as 'preparation' for or were stand-outs from the festival.  Particularly the performances by Karl Blau and Julie Byrne stuck with me.  Blau's old-school Nashville sound is beautifully captured in his cover of Tom T. Hall's 1969 original 'That's How I Got To Memphis' and, as someone with a strange, unexplainable love of songs with place names in the title, this song and his version became an instant favourite of mine.  On the Walled Garden Stage, Blau translated the song simply but eloquently into the live setting and his song 'Falling Rain' certainly reflected the grey drizzle Wales is all too familiar with.  Unfortunately for me, this is also when I realised my trusted waterproof was not actually waterproof - well done, Sarah.  Byrne's performance 48 hours later on the same stage was equally as captivating.  On first listen of 'Natural Blue', the lyrical intelligence of Byrne is apparent.  To me, her lyrical imagery is her greatest merit, and the line "sun split ember and fields that span / forever" demonstrates this.  Coupled with a light but intricate guitar accompaniment, the mystical warmth on 'Natural Blue' will always take me back to August 2017.  

Ryan Adams was the artist I was most excited about when the lineup was released.  I was quite late to the Ryan Adams game as I first became aware of his work due to him covering the entirety of Taylor Swift's 2014 album, 1989, and then heard his song 'Desire' on the US political drama, West Wing. The announcement was the encouragement I needed to try and listen to his entire discography before the festival.  It's fair to say I failed because I didn't realise how much he's done but I found a favourite in 'New York, New York' when I first started taking notice of it in August.  Again it may have something to do with my strange affection for songs written in ode to places but I love the driving guitar chords that appear throughout the song and the pace at which Adams sings the lyrics of the verses. 'Outbound Train' is off of Adams' newest album, Prisoner, and is a perfect example of the way Adams mixes Springsteen-esc stadium-filling sounds with his own musical sensibility.  As a storyteller, Adams uses the simile of "I feel like an outbound train" to describe the feeling of knowing he should leave a relationship amongst other imagery to paint this feeling like "cars don't move in the middle of the night / lost inside the void of the failing tail lights".  This was a favourite of mine when I first listened to the album when released in January but after seeing Adams perform it live a few metres in front of me, I found a new love for it.

The beautiful Mountain Stage.

New Releases & New Finds

On August 11th, ukulele-playing artist Dodie Clark (styled as dodie) released her second EP, You. 'Would You Be So Kind' is the song I warmed to most from the EP, having first heard it when Clark posted a demo performance of it to her YouTube channel in September 2016.  Originally, Clark intended the song to be sad as it was written about a romance that didn't work out but when produced months after writing, it was transformed into the more uplifting song which appears on the EP.  Along with 'You', this song did create a little soundtrack to my August.  I really like the lyric in 'You' that says "People will tell me that I messed up, that it wasn't love / and I'm secretly hoping they are right" because it articulates the narrative often told, and that I find myself often following, that in such situations we don't listen to other people's verdicts unless they are what we want to hear and I'm assuming being told that what Clark was experiencing wasn't love is the sort of comfort we do actually look for.  

HAIM's album Something To Tell You was released in July but is still something I am frequently playing and I'm sure will be on my 'Albums of 2017' list.  'Kept Me Crying' and 'Found It In Silence' contain my favourite lyrical nuggets on the album.  'Crying' with "I can't pretend that I'm anything more to you now than someone who's hard to forget" and 'Silence' with "I have found happiness in a life that's truly mine" are both powerful and poignant points on the album.  The production of songs reflects the power behind the lyrics with the use of drums.  I specifically admire the delayed drums in the chorus of 'Found It In Silence' because they turn it into the ultimate, bad-ass walking song.

Feeling edgy at Simmons in Camden.

During the summer, I turn more to upbeat music generally closer to the Pop genre.  'Waking Up Slow', 'Boys', 'Learn To Let Go' and 'Midnight' are all songs which were released either late July or in August and were great accompaniments for my walk from work to the station to get the train home.  'Learn To Let Go' in particular represents this August as (hopefully) the turning of a 'page' or an end of a chapter as the last couple of years have been tough but for the first time in ages, I'm not just excited about a gig or night-out, I'm excited about the direction life in general is heading.

'New York' (St. Vincent) and 'Still' by Seinabo Sey were two songs I discovered this month and fell in love with.  I had heard of St. Vincent but had never explored her music. Piano-driven 'New York' is a stunning ballad which, although quite simple in terms of production and structure, the pattern of repetitive lyrical rhythms really shape the song into a bit of a masterpiece.  The second verse stands out for me the most - "New love / wasn't true love / back to you, love. / So much for a home run / with some blue bloods."  Sung in St. Vincent's rustic contralto tone, I feel these lyrics capture the idea of moving on and trying to find someone new but failing to forget someone from the past heartbreakingly well; something my friends and myself have struggled with in different capacities this year so this lyrical concept stuck out for me.  As mentioned in my previous blog post, 'Still' illustrates my feelings of late better than I could.  I'm trying not to live so much in the past and I'm looking forward to going back to Uni so this song sums up the general mood that shaped my August.  This song has sat in my iTunes library for months but after hearing it during the World Athletics Championship coverage, I found it and I don't plan on losing it again.

Notting Hill looking beautiful in the August light.

Rediscoveries & Continued Faves

After watching Julie Byrne at Green Man, she reminded me of an artist I discovered all the way back in 2011; Sarah Jarosz.  She was brought back to my attention when she won Best Folk Album at the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017.  I added her music to my library right at the end of August so she will definitely appear in greater detail in September but Jarosz is an extremely talented musician and I'm glad I rediscovered her this month.

Earlier this year, Paramore did not disappoint with their fifth album After Laughter.  Again, another album which will find its way on to my list of favourite LPs this year but August had me returning to 'Grudges'.  I've always found it strange when someone you know that you could be really close with sort of drifts out or dramatically exits your life.  In the past, I've just got on with it because they've left it for a reason but twice in the last 12 months this has happened and it left me a bit lost as to why each time.  One of these situations has been mending itself since March but both seemed to come to a close this month and now both people are fully back in my life and I hope it's for the long haul.  Each time I listen to this song the part in the second verse where Hayley Williams sings "'Cause now I feel you by my side / and I don't even care if it's been a while / I can feel that we've changed and we're better this way" is stuck in my head afterwards because it puts into words my feelings succinctly and plainly.

August 2017.
Other highlights of this month included many trips to London, especially going to see Girl From The North Country at the Old Vic Theatre.  A fantastic story set in Bob Dylan's hometown in Minnesota in the 30s, using the musician's songs to tell a story of race and the Depression. It was truly incredible.  Ending its fun October 7th, I would highly recommend trying to get a ticket.

Coming out of August with a positive mind and a lot of new music to listen to is all I could have hoped for.  The first year of Uni was never going to be easy and life managed to immensely screw with me just at the wrong time for my brain to handle, but now it's September again and I'm really excited about autumn and heading back to Uni.  

I hope you enjoyed reading about what I've been listening to this month and getting the general lowdown of where I'm at, see you around soon?

Hope you're well,
Sarah xoxo

Here's a link to my Spotify where I remade the playlist if you want to listen: August 2017

(The title of this post is taken from Julie Byrne's 'Natural Blue' off of her album Not Even Happiness.)




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