Roxanne De Bastion writes a beautiful blog when she’s touring. She tends to travel by public transport and so you get tales of train travel and blogs from buses. She’ll walk to venues with her luggage and musical gear weighing her down. But, the observations that she makes en route make for compelling reading.
A few weeks ago, I heard the lead single from Roxanne De Bastion’s new EP. ‘Seeing You’ harks back to those halcyon days when the grass was greener, when birds whistled in harmony and hippies ran around London with flowers in their hair… Perhaps…
Regardless, I was drawn towards the song. There’s a clarity and innocence about Roxanne’s vocal delivery on this track that appeals. The melody feels clean and organic. It’s a tune that’s on one hand familiar and yet on the other so fresh.
‘Seeing You’ has one of those lyrics that critics might call personal, beguiling or introspective. I suspect when they attach such labels to things what they actually mean is that they don’t have a frigging clue what the song is about. These are words that might have marked significance for the songwriter but the listener is left dangling within a mystery of meaning. It might or might not be be about having a ‘lightbulb’ moment, finding happiness or dying.
Ultimately though, such ‘introspection’ never harmed Mitchell, Mclean, Dylan or Drake. And when the melody flows as well as it does within ‘Seeing You’, it’s probably best to make no attempt to decipher.
Yesterday, Roxanne released a video of her and a bass player performing a stripped back version of ‘Seeing You’. The track itself was hardly cluttered before.
sonicbreakfast 