SOUNDTRACK: MELANIE FAYE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #60 (August 5, 2020).
Melanie Faye was the impressive guitarist during the Masego Tiny Desk Concert.
She opens her set with an impressive instrumental–the introduction to Jimi Hendrix’ “Little Wing.” Her fingerwork is fast and clear and really fluid.
Then she starts properly with the first of her three originals, “Super Sad Always.”
The song has some clever complex lyrics:
In a sense, you’re innocent
But your inner sense is fading
I can’t decide if I like her voice or not–I want it to be a bit more substantial, I guess. Of course, her muted guitar works quite well with her mute singing. She puts an interesting extra muted effect on her (excellent) guitar solo
“It’s A Moot Point” is slower with some more amazing guitar work in the instrumental middle section of the song.
“Eternally 12” has another fantastic guitar introduction. It’s fantastic how great her guitar playing is–so delicious without being show-offy. This song has a lot of prerecorded backing vocals which sound very nice and kind of flesh out the voclas in a way that her songs seem to need.
Lyrically this song is interesting but the repetition of the word “eternal” is a bit tiresome.
[READ: August 1, 2020] “In the Bed Department”
This story is about Kitty, a divorced woman who works in a department store–in the bed department.
The big news is that the store has just installed an escalator. Kitty is suspicious of the escalator–she doesn’t know how it works and she doesn’t like it. She also didn’t like the workers–men covered in a dirty-looking tan, often adjusting their zip on the way back from the loo.
Kitty recently seduced a man from the local Drama Society. He was twenty years older than she was. Tom did set and Kitty had s mall walk on role. He had been courting her, slowly for a couple of months while they worked together on Johnny Belinda.
He drove her home most nights and one night she invited him in. Her boys were home, but they were in their own rooms, so she initiated right there. “It was awkward all the way through and quite satisfying.”
She didn’t tell him that had gotten pregnant.
She wasn’t actually sure she was pregnant, mind you. It could have been “the change,” but she trusted her body. What would it be like having a wee baby around the house.
Her life was full of ups and downs like an escalator.
This story felt like it needed more….something.
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