Rivers songs playlist

[0bleak]

although I didn't have to worry about tornadoes constantly, seemingly

 

[william_kent]

"songs" made out of the sound of rivers, potential inclusion?

REJECTED


John Hassell - Malay

I used to like to imagine that the "water splash" rhythm in this tune was recorded at the bank of a gentle bubbling brook, but an older me now knows that the Semelai tribe live in a "swamp filled region" and so they are probably just splashing around in dank dirty stagnant water....

 

[DLaurent]

 

[DLaurent]

A favorite of mine, from an album (Mr. Gone) that Downbeat gave one star to out of five. Weather Report's idea of going disco.

I like this. Roller disco tempo.

 

[Corpsey]

 

[Corpsey]

add this to 'worst thing you;ve heard all day' thread

 

[blissblogger]

Popular myth, that.
There are tons of cities (big and small) in the states that get more rain.
I lived in Seattle for a couple of decades, and where I am currently, we have a higher yearly precipitation because it often rains MUCH harder when it rains, but it doesn't have a reputation as a rainy city.
The problem in Seattle is that it's often overcast with maybe a slight drizzle (enough to drive people mad/be depressed for much of the year except for summer where it almost never rains or is overcast), but even then the funny thing there is that there are also other big cities in the states that rain more days of the year if you consider any kind of rain: https://www.redfin.com/blog/rainiest-cities-in-the-us

"On average, Seattle only gets 37 inches of rain over 165 days while 40 miles south in Olympia, there is more than 50 inches of rain received in the same span! For comparison: Houston gets 54" in 99 days."

I stand metereologically corrected!

I've been to Seattle a few times - overcast and damp; rainy; the most recent time it was bright and sunny - but the one time I went to Portland it was bucketing down.

 

[blissblogger]

"songs" made out of the sound of rivers, potential inclusion?

REJECTED


John Hassell - Malay

I used to like to imagine that the "water splash" rhythm in this tune was recorded at the bank of a gentle bubbling brook, but an older me now knows that the Semelai tribe live in a "swamp filled region" and so they are probably just splashing around in dank dirty stagnant water....

A shame this doesn't count as a made-of-rivers song

Similarly John Martyn's "Small Hours" was recorded outside at night beside a body of water - you can hear distant waterfowl. But the body in question was a lake I believe.

 

[0bleak]

I stand metereologically corrected!

I've been to Seattle a few times - overcast and damp; rainy; the most recent time it was bright and sunny - but the one time I went to Portland it was bucketing down.

I mean, you're basically right since "a lot" can also mean "often".

 

[blissblogger]

“There's something about water that does it to me. I have to live near water. I couldn't live in the centre of the continent. I go to see the Hudson River nearly every day" - Arthur Russell

But "Let's Go Swimming" appears to be about swimming in the sea judging by its "Coastal Dub" and "Gulf Stream Dub" mixes.

Also one of his alter-egos was Indian Ocean

 

[shakahislop]

this is going to get the maximum number of likes anyone has got on dissensus, a new record

 

[shakahislop]

there is an english agricultuaral rural thing about rivers that you still see echoes of in things like this. the whole community of people living on longboats and all of that. drinking cider on the riverbank

 

[blissblogger]

Paucity of Springsteen fans on Dissensus, no surprises there - warrants inclusion as it is the title of a song AND a title of an album

 

[blissblogger]

Leading lights of the cowpunk scene, Blood On The Saddle with a "high-octane" take on a 19th Century murder ballad. This has been covered by loads of people over the years, mostly country singers, but also Olivia Newton-John, bizarrely


Blood On the Saddle actually had one really ripping tune - non-riparian though


A funny moment in the early-mid '80s when all these young folks in Los Angeles who'd grown up with lawn sprinklers and shopping malls - who'd probably never even seen a cow or been on a horse in real life - started to make this sort of punkified shitkicker sound - rediscovering roots which in most cases weren't even their actual ancestral roots

 

[blissblogger]

Waterfalls are essentially vertical rivers - or stretches of river on a slope

Mind you this "Waterfall" song is actually a metaphor or simile so perhaps don't count... Nor the famous TLC song

 

[blissblogger]

A spring is the starting point of a river - or, depending on the size, a stream

However with this song written and voiced by Stevie Nicks, I think we are again in the realms of mystic metaphor

 

[blissblogger]

Once went searching for the source of the River Bulbourne (more like a stream than a river but it has that title). This is a body of moving water that passes through my hometown Berkhamsted. It's a winterbourne I believe, which means it can dry up during the summer.



We did in fact track it to its origin point - but rather than the bubbling gush welling forth from the chalky depths of the Chilterns that I'd pictured, the spring was more like a large damp patch amid a swathe of dense vegetation

 

[version]

 

[blissblogger]

Then there's the Bourne Gutter - this is an example of something I never heard of until recently, "woe water". This is a stream that disappears for years at a time and then suddenly rematerializes, in the middle of farmland usually. Superstitious country folk regard it as an ill omen, a harbinger of war or such like. Hence "woe water".



"Formerly known as the Hertfordshire Bourne, the Bourne Gutter is an occasional tributary of the river Bulbourne. Its valley runs South-East along Hockeridge Bottom, and continuing to follow the old county boundary, turns North-East to join the Bulbourne valley at Bourne End. Inevitably, any watercourse that behaves as capriciously as the Bourne Gutter will attract local folklore. The common belief that it recurs at intervals of seven years is clearly at odds with the facts. The stream is also regarded locally as a ‘woe water’, its appearance presaging major tragedy or war, but this again is not upheld by the records."

Wikipedia disagrees, though:

"Bourne End derives its name as it lies at the end of the Bourne Gutter, an irregularly flowing stream, at its confluence with the River Bulbourne. According to local tradition the Bourne Gutter is a Woe Water that only flows at times of tragedy. Recorded instances include during 1665 at the time of the Great Plague, in 1914 at the outbreak of the World War I and in 1956 during the Suez Crisis.] The Hemel Hempstead Gazette has also run stories on the Gutter flowing in early 1982 as Argentinian Forces invaded the Falkland Islands, in early October 1987 days before the Great Storm of 1987 that devastated woodlands throughout southern England, and in 2003 as British troops joined the International invasion of Iraq. It also began flowing in March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic within the UK, and throughout Winter 2020 into Spring 2021."

 

[blissblogger]

The lake - a static river.

Okay it doesn't count but I stumbled on this look while looking up Angus Maclise