Here's what I love: a voice and a guitar. Of course, a voice with a guitar backed by drums and a bass, and maybe even a second guitar, isn't too bad either. Still, there's something about the honesty of a single individual staking out his or her ground armed only with these two instruments. And here's a great example of this: Joe Strummer singing "Long Shadow."
The song is stripped bare to the point where it is not so much what Strummer is singing about as the way he is singing about it. I have no idea when he recorded this or how, but I like to imagine it was after a long night of battling against uncertainty and doubt. Listen to the gravely throat, the tired edges on the words he emphasizes, the way he musters the strength to punch key lines: "you don't chase your demons down. Ya gotta grab em Jack and wrestle em to the ground." What lends him the authority to make such a declaration? His decision to use his voice, and his refusal to hide it under layers of production.
I don't know if he is in tune. I don't think he is, but it doesn't matter. In fact, all the better if he isn't. Because this song is about confronting life, about not hiding, about being genuine. It is about peering into the darkness and confusion that one so often encounters in life and triumphing because of one thing: the clarity of one's passion.
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