Songs For Saturday: Roxy Music, Blondie and 10,000 Maniacs

 

Hi there and welcome to Songs For Saturday. It's my weekly post on Saturday where I post songs that I like.

I will need to confess the title of today's post might be a bit misleading. With three groups listed in the title, you might expect to get three songs in today's installment.

Nope.

You're getting one song. 

The same damn song each time.  

That song is "More Than This" written by Bryan Ferry for the Roxy Music album Avalon. 

"More Than This" has been a musical obsession with me for nearly 4 decades. 

One reason was that the album Avalon came out while I was still in college, working at the campus radio station. Back in the day, we played our music directly from vinyl albums and "More Than This" was the first track. So it got played a lot.

The whole Avalon album got played a lot and not just on the campus radio station. There are some really smooth, sultry tunes of this record and with the lights turned down low, Avalon could make the cruddiest dorm room a sexual Shangri-la. 

I'm a guy who didn't get laid much in college. Trust me. You could get laid with this record on your stereo. 

However...

There is a sad side to my compulsion for "More Than This". Sometimes I listen to this song just to re-open the wound in my heart. Right out of college, I lost the first woman I ever truly loved. I would spend many an evening in the dark listening to this song.  

I could feel at the time

There was no way of knowing

Fallen leaves in the night

Who can say where they're blowing?

As free as the wind

Hopefully learning

Why the sea on the tide

Has no way of turning?

More than this, you know there is nothing

More than this, tell me one thing

More than this, there is nothing

Over the years, I have discovered numerous covers of "More Than This".  Here's one by Debbie Harry and Blondie.

"More Than This" is, objectively speaking, a beautiful song. I can enjoy it on it's own aesthetic merits.

But there are times, when it's 2 or 3 in the morning and I remember the pain again.  

It was fun for a while

There was no way of knowing

Like a dream in the night

Who can say where we're going?

No care in the world

Maybe I'm learning

Why the sea on the tide

Has no way of turning?
More than this, you know there is nothing
More than this, tell me one thing
More than this, there is nothing

"More Than This" gained new notoriety when it appeared on the soundtrack on the film Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola starring Scarlet Johansen and Bill Murray.  There's a scene where Bill Murray's character sings this song at a karaoke party.  I've included a clip of that below.  

"More Than This" has made several appearances in movies (Book Club, Knives Out), TV  shows (Community, The Americans) and even in video games (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as a playable song in the in-game radio station Emotion 98.3).  

Perhaps my most favorite rendition of "More Than This" outside of Roxy Music is a cover by the band 10,000 Maniacs. 

After lead singer Natalie Merchant left the band, Mary Ramsey came in as the band's new singer and the new line up established themselves with a cover of "More Than This" in 1997. 

Below is a live version of Mary Ramsey and 10,000 Maniacs of "More Than This". 

So here we are with the last Songs For Saturday for 2020 and...

More than this, now there is nothing

More than this, nothing

More than this

More than this, nothing

Well, I guess there is something, 2021. 

We'll have a new year and maybe we can have a fresh go at this ol' wheel of life. 

Take care, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive. And sometimes even the heartache.