Illume - is this the best?

Rainman · #1 07-31-2003, 02:29 PM

I just heard Illume on the radio, and cranked it up. It really is beautiful.

You know, the more I hear this song, the more I believe it's the crowning artistic achievement on the whole CD.

Other SYW songs are more approachable. Others get you rocking. A few are just plain clever. But Illume is the one song that seems to have real depth. It's just one of those songs that keeps sounding better and better.

Has anyone else found this? Just curious.

gldstwmn · #2 07-31-2003, 02:52 PM

Illume on the radio?

I love the whole song from McVie's great bass to Stevie saying "It's just like a river, never ending." I also love the first time you hear Lindsey's guitar at the begining of the song.

Rainman · #3 07-31-2003, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Illume on the radio?

Yeah. Heard it on Radioio -- internet radio. They play a lot of songs from SYW, sometimes two or three in a row. I've not heard Illume on regular radio.

Sorcerer386 · #4 07-31-2003, 03:13 PM

While I love Illume, I have a number of favorites above it. I think the most insightful song is Destiny Rules, and I love the little tad of philosophy in Everybody Finds Out:

When love starts out in the darkness
It doesn't do well in the light
Affairs of the heart that start out in the dark
Usually stay with the night

Plus I love the lines: She spends every day, waiting for the day when everybody finds out.

As far as music matching the song goes, I think that goes to Running through the Garden...an urgently lyrical song that has matching urgent music: like it's saying "hurry up and get out of here before you're trapped!"

CarneVaca · #5 07-31-2003, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rainman
Has anyone else found this? Just curious.

No, at least not me. I find Lindsey's insights into the human condition in songs like Murrow, Red Rover and Peacekeeper to be far deeper. Illume, while I now understand what she was trying to do, is still a bit of a puzzlement to me. It's too inward-focused, considering the topic, in my opinion.

blinker12 · #6 07-31-2003, 03:43 PM

I'm with you, Rainman. It's one of the songs from the CD that's had the most staying power for me. I never would have predicted that, since from a musical standpoint the song is very repetitive.
I think for me, it's the intensity of her vocal _ the way it builds to a wail at the end of the song _ paired with the power of *some* of the lyrics, especially in the chorus. (Although I agree that some lines are just silly... "I am a cliff-dweller from the old school" is right up there with "the forgotten chimpanzee" in my book!)
Also, John's bass is just fantastic _ really exciting, especially the way it creeps in at the beginning.
I also have learned to deal with that weird effects-laden interlude in the middle of the song (the "Speak N Spell" portion

), which really turned me off at first.

madformac · #7 07-31-2003, 05:20 PM

I've already briefly touched on this in the SYW Survivor thread but...

I'm sorry but I find Illume about as lame as Stevie's movement on stage at the moment.

I don't know if it's Lindsey's fault for overproducing it or what.

There is absolutely no focus to the song at all. I've got the benefit for better or worse, of listening to it in 5.1 here and it sounds a mess, I also feel Stevie is reading her journals straight to song without any proper melodic construction

Having just played it through 3 times I think one of the problems is the lack of dynamics within the song. It's one paced all the way through.

Yes, some of Lindsey's stuff is rather cluttered musically but I understand what he is trying to do, Red Rover being one instance. I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking on this one.....

strandinthewind · #8 07-31-2003, 05:58 PM

I really like Illume and listen to it often.

However, like the song Say You will, I think Illume suffers from the lack of an additional verse and a ridiculous amount of repetition. I also like if not love the beginning guitar, but wish they had ixnayed (

) the bongos, which I think inappropriately lighten what should be a dark, dense song to almost whimsical.

Interstingly, I totally get the "cliffdweller" line but, hey, I loved the chimp line so what do I know

Again, I like the song, I just am adding my $0.02 as everyone is a critic you know!!!!

P.S. madformac - I must take complete offense at any quote by Jamaroquai - they undeservedly beat Silver Springs for a Grammy and, therefore, must be detroyed. To quote TreeBeard from Lord of the Rings "Destroyers and usurpers."

Johnny Stew · #9 07-31-2003, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CarneVaca
No, at least not me. I find Lindsey's insights into the human condition in songs like Murrow, Red Rover and Peacekeeper to be far deeper. Illume, while I now understand what she was trying to do, is still a bit of a puzzlement to me. It's too inward-focused, considering the topic, in my opinion.

There's no doubt that there's a great deal going on in Lindsey's newer songs, but I think this particular batch of songs is not as "deep," because they tend to take an arm's-length view of the subjects being commented on.
Something of a journalistic distance... a critical-eye rather than any type of self-reflection.

As much as I love "Murrow" and the others, this batch of songs will never touch me as deeply as some of the tracks on 'Out Of The Cradle,' because I don't come away from the listening experience feeling as if I know anything more about Lindsey the person... or even myself.

A song like "Illume"... to me, at least... possesses greater depth because it allows you a glimpse into the songwriter's psyche. It's inward-focused because it's supposed to be. And I relate to that raw emotion, that despair, and that very real desire to find a way to get thru the situation to the other side. To come away from it all having grown from the experience.

I feel the same way about "When I See You Again"... which is so stark and confessional.
Stevie is really laying herself out bare on these songs, and I can't help but be moved.

I'm not saying one writing style is "better" than the other... just that I tend to relate to the one more, and to come away from it with something more.
But hey, that's one of the great things about these two writers... between Nicks & Buckingham, there's pretty much something for everyone to love.

wondergirl9847 · #10 07-31-2003, 07:02 PM

I really love this song...it's unique. I like the melody and the wierd, freaky LB voice in the middle....I love the guitar opening the song and that high pitched guitar part.

I love singing this one along with Miss Stevie. She hit the nail concering 9-11....even in Texas, I was scared and didn't know what to do with myself.

"What I saw on this journey,
I saw history go down,
I cannot pretend that the heartache falls away
It's just like a river, ooh, it's never ending,
I cannot pretend, that the heartache falls away..."

Exactly.

Rainman · #11 07-31-2003, 07:18 PM

I can't say exactly WHY it's growing on me more than others. Perhaps Johnny Stew said it best: the raw emotion and despair. It's not an easy listen. But some of my most favorite songs didn't thrill me at first (a few from Abbey Road, or Thick as a Brick for example), but they've stood the test of time for whatever reason.

Illume may not make it with me in the long run, but for now it looks like it might.

Good comments, everyone.

strandinthewind · #12 07-31-2003, 07:46 PM

Also, the "nag champra" line and ther way she delivers it made me a little numb with, for want of a btter word, realization when I "got it," so to speak. I mean I think she cleaverly puts it in there so when you hear it, you are like WTF is this dizzy Hollywood hippie chick saying. THEN, when you realize her smelling it then (when she wrote the song) perhaps the smell of it then took her back to 9/11 when she had to use it to cover the smell of burnt people and carnage, it is just chilling to me. Sort of the opposite of when you hear a song you haven't heard since a big event it is associated with for you (like a prom) and you hearing it again after a long time suddenly and without hesitation reminds you in that flas of a moment all of the things surrounding that event and you smile. THAT is why I think she is just so great.

Note: I am not saying others in and out of this band or anywhere else are not also great writers. I am just saying La Nicks captured that feeling I and apparently she and many of us felt that day in such a vivid and chilling way for me that I just love her for that.

The Catdancer · #13 07-31-2003, 07:47 PM

I loved it right from the start, it's Stevie at her best. It's a very haunting song and her vocals are excellent. Well, everything about the song is excellent in my opinion. John's bass is phenomenal, Mick's percussion.... it's the whole package. I had chills all over when I first heard it and immediately fell in love with Illume. Too bad they won't do it live though. It's a real Stevie gem.
Take care ~ Debbie

RavenOfRhiannon · #14 08-01-2003, 07:25 AM

I have to agree, this song is incredible. I don't know about the rest of you, but there is usually one or two songs that directly relate to what is going on in my life at the moment an album comes out. On Say You Will, that song is 'Illume.' Just two weeks after the album came out, I had some huge trama in my life, too big to go into now. However, 'Illume' really gave some comfort to me in a time when I needed it most. It is amazing how she can take you right back to the scene of such atrocity, but give you comfort at the same time...

Randy

sulamith · #15 08-01-2003, 08:13 AM

I love Illume. It has a veery spiritual feel to it, and I think that is what Lindsey was trying to invoke by using that "trance house" feel to the music. Yes, it's monotonal, but it is supposed to sound like a Gregorian Chant or a mantra. It's inward focused because that's the way chants and mantras are. They are designed to uplift you internally.

I think this is why Lindsey set it up that way, to invoke that spiritual Buddhist monk sound. It sounds very similar to Madonna's Bedtime Stories, which was also inspired by trance house music. If you listen to both of them back to back, you will see what I mean.

I think this is the song that Stevie was saying was too monotonal on the VBoFM footage. Lindsey was going for a certain emotion by using that sound, and that's what I get from it, anyway.

I like to just close my eyes, light the nag champa, and let it lull me into meditation.

If you don't like it then, like Johnny Stew said, there's something for everybody.

-Sharon