
Local music junkies, rejoice. This blog's for you. Before you go out, let Play's scenesters scout it out for you: Who's hot, who's coming to town, who's got a new disc. We're on it.
This is the soundtrack of our city. Pay attention.
Push Play Pulls Plug - 3/11/2008 3:41 pm
Kenny G's return imminent - 1/22/2008 1:22 pm
Review: Misfits show raucous, nostalgic - 12/30/2007 1:49 pm
Delmag returns ... sorta - 12/28/2007 10:36 am
Sad news for civilians on the Cyrus front - 12/20/2007 3:28 pm
Hannah Montana's dad schedules show in Alaska - 12/13/2007 11:27 am
Toryn Green: From Colony High to Fuel in 15 years - 12/13/2007 10:45 am
Misfits: Confirmed - 11/19/2007 4:05 pm
Misfits: An early Christmas present? - 11/16/2007 5:59 pm
Review: Glen Phillips and Po'Girl - 10/26/2007 6:35 pm
Review: Maui's reggae ambassador jams long and hard at First Tap party - 10/5/2007 6:16 am
Review: Bow Wow's stab at mature content an ill fit for lil' audience - 9/24/2007 11:38 am
Review: Bright Eyes concert raw as open wound - 9/20/2007 1:02 am
Meg White's breakdown causes White Stripes to cancel local concert - 9/12/2007 11:27 am
Weekend music round up - 9/4/2007 12:39 pm
Shiny Toy Guns can't keep it in their holster - 8/30/2007 11:59 am
Review: Charlie Daniels doesn't show his age, but often left stage - 8/26/2007 11:06 am
Where my dogs at? - 8/24/2007 4:13 pm
Ready to pick up (A profile on Eric Howk) - 8/19/2007 11:24 am
Are protest songs becoming more tame? - 8/16/2007 6:19 pm
Fairbanks loses, Bright Eyes show cancelled - 8/14/2007 6:41 pm
Cake never too sweet for the Tooth - 8/13/2007 2:20 pm
1 July 4, 2007 - 11:34am | te222
More Wonderful Songs by Emily Kurn
If you love a well written song, performed with honesty and intimacy, you owe to yourself to get her CDs. The melodies are compelling and fit the lyrics. The songs are well crafted stories and vignettes sung with a voice pure and true. She doesn't tell us what to believe, she makes us believe. She doesn't tell us what things mean, she delivers meaning.
For example, Mississippi Moon laments a lost Eden, spoiled by pollution. As easy as it might be to write a lyric such as "pollution s**ks" and scream it with as much emotion as you can muster, Emily crafts lyrics and melody taking you to Eden with her. It is a place you, too, inhabit. You feel the loss in your soul, in a way that an "intellectual" discourse shouted in anger cannot hope to evoke. Neither does she condemn material wealth. Her song gives us the things that make life important, that have forever sustained the human soul, and when they vanish, we feel the loss. The song is so powerful she has no need to tell us how to make the trade-off between beauty and material wealth. She trusts us to understand. Such is the power of her songs.
Because there is a link to Mississippi Moon on this page and the song won an award, I chose it to review it. It is a great song, but not my favorite. I tend to prefer her more introspective songs. I'd love to review each of her songs, but as they say, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." It takes much more skill than I have to convey to you that which you can experience for yourself by buying the CD.
BTW, why buy the CD when you can download most of it for free? Artists and talents like Emily are so valuable they deserve our support, and so rare that anyone can afford to be a "patron". For as little as the cost of a CD, those of us whose talents are not necessarily in the arts can make the world a more beautiful place by using our talents to help those that create beauty, - especially if it is purchased from the artist at a performance. See Emily. Buy her CDs.
Disclaimer: I have watched Emily perform for a couple years, but I don't know her personally. She once signed a CD for me, and I told her my name for the inscription. LOL
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