B015

Singing Songs Of Sade - Playlist (Part 1)

Welcome to part 1 of 2, which is following on from my previous blog post B014 where I was exploring some investigations of Sade’s Human Design BodyGraph and Astrology Natal-Chart. In this two-parter I now present to you my writers comments about the audio experience of the playlist that I call the unofficial and ultimate Sade collection:

“Singing Songs Of Sade.”

★ Spotify Playlist - User Lexi The Libra

Having explored her birth data in my previous post, and discovering she is a Human Design Manifestor-Aura, it’s time to share with you which of her songs really impacted me when consciously discovering her work in 2022.

I love that she was reported to have taken lead on her output from the get go, overseeing all publishing and press details with great intricacy and care from photography, written media and press, to musical arrangement, and of course her band members. Sade signed independently in 1983 with CBS Records (later absorbed into Epic Records) and then her remaining band members signed onto the label the following year - ahead of the album launch. She made a big push for the debut album Diamond Life (1984) to sound the way it did, and for the track listing to order the way it did, as she really cared about how she placed herself in the world.

Through a Human Design lens she is unconsciously defined in the 26-44 Channel Of Surrender and it’s safe to say she has a heartwarming way of transmitting a tribal energy.

In true Manifestor-Aura the first song on her debut album is Smooth Operator in which Sade opens the album, song, and her legacy, by signing a signature, and informing us about the song’s antagonist - through spoken word.

“…placing high stakes making hearts ache,
he's loved in seven languages…”

★ Sade - Smooth Operator

While this ‘intro skit’ does not make the song’s single release, we hear her southern English accent for the album version where she speaks to set the scene for what she wishes to inform us about - a smooth operator - perhaps? The fact she took the lead and happened to open her debut album with her highest selling song is a fun fact, and from stats in 2020 Smooth Operator sold almost twice as many units in sales as her second most successful song ‘Sweetest Taboo’. Smooth Operator is a great song to lead the album with as the different sections of her band get to introduce themselves, starting with rhythm and keys, escalating into brass and woodwind, from spoken to singing lyrics, and solos from sax to guitar.

We hear a well oiled pride in this song and while Smooth Operator did not make the cut for this playlist ‘Singing Songs of Sade’ it is a song that lit up radio airwaves and hearts frequencies from the moment it surfaced. Most people will know this song if not for the name alone. I have fallen in love with the 2011 Live version which is a close competitor to my ‘all time favourites’ which is something I have had a hard time assigning - as I adore all of her music. Even though Smooth Operator is far from my personal favourite, the live version I speak of is electric, and something I dive back into later on, in this blog post.

Recently one of my Spotify accounts told me I had listened to over 52 hours of Sade this year (2023) and that I am now in the 0.1% of her Spotify fans… this was just for that one platform, one account, and one device… so I am sure the number is higher elsewhere. I’ve spent a lot of time on these two blog posts, and podcast show notes, and share with you now my personal experiences of these songs. I feel that this will be a focus of Sade like you have never heard her before and with 15 tracks to cover, let’s get started with my breakdown of the songs in a playlist that I like to call ‘Singing Songs of Sade’.

1. Nothing Can Come Between Us

I chose to start the playlist off with this one as it gets right into a soft rhythm and when it drops we feel supported and inspired by the enticement of something new and exciting.

The track title and chorus reinforces the support the track and music of this playlist offers, and that the track title is really one of the most beautiful things about music: that no one can take that feeling away from us of how music makes us feel. ‘Nothing can come between’ this feeling when we hear music that we love.

Until this day nothing has come between Sade and her band, while perhaps somewhat parting ways after the sixth album and almost four decades. The band and their pride had gained in size by this third studio album, but Sade stayed with her founding members with love and loyalty through a very long and successful career. Stuart does not seem to make the performance credits of this song, so we are also not playing all our cards at once, keeping the saxophone at bay, and we will get into talking about all that sax, in due course.

With this song being from the third studio album we find Martin Ditchman on percussion and drums, as well as Leroy Osbourne on the backing vocals who both sustain an easy going vibe to effortlessly receive this transmission. The way the track slowly introduces the rhythms and backings of her band always causes me to smile as they make her tracks sound so alive. The fun antics are fairly reserved in this song which is another reason that it is a perfect introduction to the playlist.

2. Paradise

Staying on the same album as the first track - Stronger Than Pride - we maintain the upbeat and energetic pace with the second song ‘Paradise’.

Both songs are matched like a wheel revolving around-and-around. A bassline that has a similar vibration and style to the last track, introduces an intro to a soundscape that often will shortly take me to the HBO television series ‘The Sopranos’ particularly the intro song and visual sequence, only instead of ‘Jim’ we have ‘Sade’ behind the wheel.

Halfway through the song we begin to explore the slap shots and rhythms of how her band works in and out of her center stage. After the second chorus we hear one of my favourite Sade lyrics simply for the tonality of her voice as she enters into the initial words and phrasing of: ‘I’d wash the sand off the shore’.

She sounds so angelic, sweet, and pure, I can feel it, and once again in the second verse we hear this repeated.

“I'd wash the sand off the shore,
Give you the world if it was mine”

★ Sade - Paradise

Following this lyric the second time, at 2 minutes, we get a cheeky ricochet of a really fun loving sound-fx that sounds like her voice or almost like two outtakes that have been utilised creatively in the studio production. It sounds like a spring loaded vocal SFX, that goofily compliments the sincerity of her lyrics and voice, and speaks to a fun loving tone.

Perhaps this sound-fx is just better heard for one’s self and not explained in words but I do really love this playful aspect of her music, which we will get into more details about, as we explore this playlist. The rebuttal of harmonising with herself in the following lyric ‘blow you right through my door’. This song also demonstrates to us how she can use her voice to keep things interesting, even be it with a simple ‘mhmm’... it’s like we hang on every sound of her voice.

In her most recent live performances she still values these ad-lib-nuances as a valuable part of her music and therefor when she is on the stage. Throughout this post I speak to this side of her as a playful Aries-Moon placement. She has such a fun way of moving on stage and I love how she has no challenge wearing a dress with no shoes and glides around the set singing her wee heart out, then in the next costume change over she will be found in a smart suit suspenders with flat heel shoes - absolutely bossing the stage. Even the way she comes on and off set is so adorable in her live performances and when she is not leaving me in awe, she always makes me smile seeing her taking to the stage, especially singing and performing all the fun ad-libs. I really enjoyed watching her live show ‘Bring Me Home’ - as well as all the extras. It’s a masterpiece of a performance. 22 songs!

This song ‘Paradise’ also introduces more of the fun side of her spirit, and I am sure many of her fans would also describe similar sides of her as a woman with a huge heart and would most likely credit her for her humanitarian awareness and activism in her music, which was alike to her legacy and life work. In this picture below she is visiting a charity that she was known to support and advocate for which is called the Rainbow Trust UK. They work with families who have terminally ill children and in this picture we see her realness and heart, with a smile of youthfulness, all of which I really appreciate about her legacy and being.

3. The Sweetest Taboo

After some beach percussion we enter with an electric guitar riff and soft pad chords for what is one of the most elegant and beautiful songs that she has ever written.

This selection audibly rides off the wave-of-fun that the previous song Paradise brought to us, as the song buffers onto the shores of its percussive intro. We take the time here to set ourselves up and get comfortable, before Sade’s presence takes stage, and where she begins; firm and fair, serious but playful.

After the first verse we reach the first chorus and the lyrics of the first chorus stylistically take pauses in phrasing, for the first time around, only giving half a delivery of the lyric’s entirety. She’s teasing us but the moment feels so good - we don’t care.

In recovery of this first chorus lacking full lyrical delivery we have an amazing bridge in verse 2 which is jam packed full of fun loving band rhythms that guide and glide us to another exploration of the chorus in its entirety.

Exiting the hook of the chorus we are in another bridge which is now full of Sade-isms of such delightful vocal harmonies, lush belting power-vocals, tongue and cheek ad-libs, and the band’s unifying immaculate format continues to parade onwards in tune. It’s funner here, the cheek of the brass and adorable ad-libs, the pace of the band, the way she is singing indicates this fun, yet little do we know as the audience, that we are making a seamless transition, as the band eases into a gentle pause in the music that effortlessly takes us into the third chorus with an all important shaker-percussion shot. This section gives me thrills of recognition as the impact formulates from the previous escalating bridges and drops, and then so peacefully into the ‘quiet storm’ of the verse, where she repeats herself.

“There's a quiet storm and it never felt like this before. There's a quiet storm I think it’s you. There's a quiet storm and it never felt this hot before. Giving me something that's taboo”

★ Sade - Sweetest Taboo

Like I say, her music makes me feel so seen. When she says ‘that is you’ in the lyrics I simply melt in endearment, held up only by the mischievous rhythm and groove sections of the music and her statured voice.

Focusing again on the ‘quiet storm verse’ - it sounds a lot more serious part of the song due to the climax of the bridge - but this is apposed and accented by her ad-lib ‘hahas’ alongside the copy cat drum shots, which are replied to by wonky guitar shots. I love the one ad-lib in this section where Sade hums an off rhythm melody over the words ‘and it never felt like this before’ which sounds sort of like … ‘bababababababaaaahh’. The scenario I speak of is such a juicy section of the song, if you start at 2:17ish, you get that bellowing voice that just makes you want to scream from the top of a mountain ‘don’t let it slip awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy’ and then the drama roles into a serious but fun shenanigan of her continuing to inform us about her mysterious love.

We hear her using her voice in harmony and long held notes in this song as the power of her potential and impact unfolds while the song still maintains the adorable rambunctious energy of the first two tracks, which is very much aided by the rhythm and groove sections filling in the pieces, as well as her own harmonies and ad-libs.

What is she singing about here? ‘The Sweetest Taboo’ ..?

In the outro she mentions Christmas and New Years Eve and most of her music I have selected in this playlist - stays out of this realm of specifics or homogenised trivia or in this case ‘holiday’ branding, and typically her music really dwells in the being of poetic romance, which isn’t always so direct, but she does have as many of these direct moments elsewhere in her songs and can be very direct about this, and where in my insight these are some of the things that her fans really related to and sing along with, examples alike to ‘L.A to Chicago’ ‘Love is taller than empire state’ ‘on Bowery and Third’ ‘there is a woman in Somalia’ being some specific examples.

In this song, maybe it’s just because I am a Projector-Aura and that holiday seasons are just triggering bitter times and just far to much for anyone regardless of Aura-Type, but past the tragedy of this lyric I have found beauty in the mantra of her heart in that ‘every day is Christmas’ and even ‘every night like new years eve’ which is talking my kind of language of love and affection, so I have chosen forgiveness with these lyrics.

Maybe this is a personal favourite after all?

It’s hard to say with Sade! This one is from the album Promise and was released before the first two featured tracks, so we have taken a step backwards before going forwards.

4. Cherish The Day

After the fun and excitement of the first three tracks it’s time for this lil’ investigator to slow down and find rest in the shade, and elevate themselves in a hammock with a nice book of knowledge and systems, as this is exactly where we find ourselves in a distinct memory of the fourth song. Resting.

Waking up from a nap on a hot summer afternoon I thanked the water that I drank and took to some reading which sets the scene softly as this song is a good reminder to slow down. While we keep a relatively up beat rhythm in this track we bring the mood down deep, and introspective. Gratitude becomes abundant, and as a Projector-Aura it reminds me I can tap out at the fourth song, I’ll reach the 15th if I am meant to be there.

Here we really get into the level of spirit her voice holds. I recall this song well while watering the garden before the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The song blared out of my speakers, as I gazed across the garden a rainbow could be seen through the passage of the sprinkler and the day was winding down to an easy warm yawn. I glanced across at my neighbour who looked like they had had a well earned day, or at least in comparison to what I can only imagine was a very restful day for Alex. The music hit the moment like a soundtrack to a movie… the remainder of the day’s summer sun flirted with the edge of the mountains ether, and burned my face like the deep love that she sings about:

“You showed me how deep love can be.”

★ Sade - Cherish The Day

Oh Sade!

It is a very grateful song that plays for a considerable amount of time without the bassline, and mainly focuses on a drum beat, her voice and pads. This places her voice in a mystical waterfall, and then she goes and drops the LOVE word and like a soft pandering pair of paws the bassline scamps its loving warmth towards us. This has become an intentional entrance of the bassline in live performances, as the band interacts with one another on stage with enthusiasm and thrust before uncaging the bassline to the beckoning call of ‘love’.

The flute/ocarina vibes that comes in later in this track really symbolises the peace I believe she found in writing this song, and the isolation of her voice in the thin musical structure at the beginning represents the cold mystical reality peace can perhaps sometimes be.

5. Love Is Stronger Than Pride

Ok this is my favourite Sade song?

This song paints a picture in my mind’s eye of happy savanna wildlife, and a warm horizonal scenery. These ‘auto-savannah-hifi-vibes’ kick off the track and feature throughout. I’ve certainly found them suited to a warm summer’s evening Aries like stroll. Starting out as adorable high pitched choir pads and a primal drum beat, as if memoirs from the womb’s peace, it’s mother earth calling, she is the caller ID, and we are picking up the phone to nature’s call.

This track really helped me through a break up if not the fact it is a great title and mantra to work with in life. I love her honesty in it, it’s deeply beautiful. You can’t buy this sort of honesty.

“I won't pretend that I intend to stop living.
I won't pretend I'm good at forgiving.
But I can't hate you,
although I have tried,
Mmm-ah

I still really really love you.
Love is stronger than pride.
I still really really love you
Mmm”

★ Sade - Love Is Stronger Than Pride

She’s so adorable! What a lovely song. Honestly, love prevails, hate fails.

Often when faced by a woeful foe, trying even harder to hate on them is only wasted energy. Trust me I’m an Aries-Sun, Scorpio-Moon, the Martian lived experience is real - and this song is great for my Martian mind, in that dealing with our conflict in a loving manner is more ideal if we can get passed being honest with ourselves about this fatal potential of hate and why it is not an ideal use of energy.

Continuing on from a place of peace the harmonies of a duet with her backing vocalist Leroy Osbourne, are almost unimaginably lush. I love the one part at 1:40 the way Leroy harmonises with her, it’s so free and genuine, in particular how they scale differently and fit so well on the words ‘love you’ at 01:40

“I still really really love you.”

★ Sade - Love Is Stronger Than Pride

Another performance worth more than a merit in this song is the way she staccatos her voice and sings ‘things come and go-oh-oh-oh-oh’ as it speaks to the creative bravery she held in her vocal expressions, as well as that brave Aries-Moon tongue and cheek!

We also have some scarier lyrics in this song, so be warned…

“It’s going to be cold, there may even be snow.”

★ Sade - Love Is Stronger Than Pride

Oh no! Cold! Ahh!

I am much more of a summer-babe, and find winter to be a touch cruel for this adorable Aries-Sun. Fortunately we remain warm in the savannah-beach hybrid vibes of the outro, and while the band pick and pluck at the vibe started from the intro, we are now reassured that her music will keep us sheltered and warm during the scarier seasons of fall and winter.

6. War of The Hearts

Exiting the wildlife savannah scenery of Love Is Stronger Than Pride we come to the evening’s curtain call of a lover’s conflict. A very soft but firm love, an Aries like conflict. A war of the hearts, as Sade informs us.

We’ve all been there right!?

Speaking for myself perhaps, this song really acknowledges another harsh truth of love’s passionate warrior: the heart, the will, and the ego of devotion. The passion of an Aries archetype.

The intro of this song is very tendersome with its audience. It’s as if Sade has informed the band ‘prepare for launch sequence’ and we are floating in a meditative countdown to what is only described as ‘Sweet-musical-DAMN!’.

We meet each member of the band here in the opening sequence, as if a montage building suspense while suggesting … ‘Everybody Sade has something she would like to share’.

Even the Saxophone is cautious here, alongside the tame organ keys, guitar strums, and percussion that tiptoes around ignition fuel as if it is on fire. There is good reason for this caution as the fuel I speak of is flammable and that of a cardinal combustion of an Aries-Moon’s passion.

“Caution:

This song is absolutely fya contents of Aries-Moon archetypes. 

Consumers must be passionate.

Only use in environments that are supportive of pioneering vibes.

Extremely flamboyant.”

★ Aries Passion Disclaimer

Entering the song as the lead, her voice is soft, passive, loud and unavoidable.

We have nowhere to turn to in the chamber of her adoring emotions that she has bolted the exits shut to. She doesn’t care if you are listening, she knows you can hear her summoning, and that this is as much about her, as it is the other. It’s a cat and mouse, and her paws only need to flinch to swipe a grasp on the reality of our existence.

She informs us that we are within her firing range and that she is taking off, but she is giving us one last chance to join the fire at large, or forever be burned by the departure of her fiery heart. Knowing this is an Aries-Moon fire, we have a steady guitar chord to soften her vantage and aim, whilst maintaining her informed intent for peace.

“I could aim
But I could not fire
Got a bullet to spare

to kill my desire

Who's calling the shots?
One of us must make the peace
To have or to have not
The fire has got to cease.”

★ Sade - War of The Hearts

Noir piano chords and bongos come in from a deep bass shot, the song begins to take off with her voice bellowing around the seams of the silo of her emotions - pushing it in an upward trajectory.

After a star lit piano solo and some slothy-sax, we are reminded of our antagonist and soldier of love through warm playful ad-libs as she then carries on to sing in a beautiful harmony of her voice. The harmonies begin speaking to the calm battle we find ourselves in, and that she has chosen peace, this does not mean the temperament of her emotional tenacity will stop reaching for the skies, but rather she has chosen to accept it is time to move on, and she is informing us that this is a peaceful mission.

Just as we thought there was nothing left in this tank, all of a sudden, at about 3 minutes and 30 seconds, out of nowhere, we are being told - once again - ‘I’m loaded’ and like burning jet fuel pushing through the earth’s atmosphere we get the dynamic power of Sade’s voice which is accompanied by thick power-chord-keys so as they do not combust in the unforgiving boost. In totality it is an astrological ascent into a jazzy serenade of what we hear truly as a war of the hearts.

Sade sounds like she wants to know is this a yes, or is this a no. She’s calm and cool at this point, she need not explain why she is worthy, and belts out some soft droning ad-libs to support her evaluation of the battle’s hypothesis.

Full of vigor, Stuart’s sax starts again as the track begins to fade out, and is relatively behaved in this episode of the love… This allows a classic piano sound to keep the song melancholic and an almost intergalactic silence. It’s cold like the space as she is in reserve to continue giving her love, and I see the sax’ being the energy of walking away from someone and taking your swagger with you and all… A final ‘their loss’ reminder before confidently moving on. She’s not wasting energy over nothing, and more so holding onto her authenticity by soaring high towards the midheavens of her heart’s will.

She does not leave you empty handed in this song, and with such a title there is to be an expectation, even the formal piano tinkle of a solo can’t excuse the ferocity of what this rocket of a song is out to reach.

If you have a moment in your life, I dare you to explore this in its abrasive entirety, listen to it loud and proud, surrender to the journey.

I feel like this song summons discomfort and portrays a reality in which love can be uncomfortable at times. Honesty is like that too. Maybe in a Mars like manner of an Aries-Moon placement she speaks about the walls that we have to break down in our own hearts in order to love ourselves, breaking free of earth’s either and into our true celestial being. Only then are we able to deeply love others, and that this is the clear distinction of yes or no that can be very honest about Aries energy, as there is never a middle ground.

In the heat of the moment my Aries-Sun really needs someone who can understand this ‘loaded’ temperament of the heart of an Aries being, and I find familiarity in the success of the blunt reality that this song sings so softly about.

We are sat on a powder keg here as we gracefully reach a flamboyant expression of her raspy unapologetic performance clocking in at 5 minutes:

‘I’m loaded, dunno where to point this thing’.

★ Sade - War Of The Hearts

The magnitude of such a ballad is very hard to put into words, while I came out with some, this song really has to be heard. There is something about Sade in her cool calm collective that delivers in such a classy way.

7. Is It A Crime

Ok, remember when I said Sade is versatile… this track could easily be one of those uncomfortable ‘I hope this ends yesterday’ type of songs - in the wrong circumstances - as we have an abrasive glaring saxophone solo that evokes you to listen whether you like it or not. Maybe this is Stu’s soul seeking revenge for his restraint of air time in the previous track of the playlist, War Of The Hearts, but on the album Promise they feature in reverse to how I ordered my playlist. Either way… in the opening of this track we are gripped by the confident intent and style of the saxophone accompanied by rock solid drums and percussion. The bass scales and slithers between the elements perhaps with the foresight of the space ahead of it.

The Saxophone amongst all of this still cuts through the madness, sax’ is an instrument that gets into the nitty gritty rasp of our true emotions, and can leave us feeling rather blemished and flustered. With the band’s formation in the early 80’s the Saxophone defined an era of popular music and is frequently complimented with other brass such as trumpet and trombone. The saxophone fills and familiarises to a similar tonality as the human voice and perhaps another reason why it works so well in Sade’s band as not only does it stand up to the tonality of Sade’s voice but it tells a similar poetic mystery to the narrative of a song that translates into infinite languages and individual interpretations. In an interview Sade recalls her thoughts about first meeting the band members, and mentions her sax’ player Stu’ as cocky and confident. She informs readers of a memory of him turning up to the first rehearsal like he was the only one there - setting up and practicing, showcasing straight away what he brought in his shiny brass-woodwind-Sax’.

She calls Stu’ her ‘brother’ on stage at the end of one performance in 2011, while informing that they have driven each other mad over the years. I believe she is speaking to the song writing process, as he is often credited in the writing of her songs, but also based on other reads it would seem he has always had her well being at an intense level of priority, in this seemingly sibling type connection.

The words are said lovingly about Stuart, as always with Sade, and rather speak to the value they found in working together through life’s struggle and song writing disagreements. Stuart still steals the show in their most recent of performances, and he does hold perhaps the only instrument that could really grab our attention away from Sade’s voice. He is very much a part of the sum that makes up the entirety of the band and sound of Sade.

In a song that features the Sax dominantly ‘Smooth Operator’ and specifically during a live performance in 2011, Sade makes a rather sensually paced gestured towards Dan the Bass Guitarist - during one of his solos halfway through the song - perhaps suggesting he is the smooth operator that she sings about. As Dan climaxes his solo Sade takes to her knees and bows before him in front of a huge audience!

The only thing that could possibly interrupt this Sade-Day-Dream is of course brother Stuart - who with no apology grabs the performance by its everything and pulls the scope and sound back to his golden saxophone.

While Smooth Operator didn’t make it into this playlist, I do like it, it’s one of my least favourite Sade songs maybe because its so mainstream or over used, however I have no shame in repeating myself saying the live performance of this song - is maybe one of my favourite of her entire discography. The way she slinks on to the stage is just so fun and playful, the band look like the are having a great day, suited and booted and being beyond a touch of class. Notably, Stuart absolutely slays his Saxophone solos in this performance, and alike to ‘Is It A Crime’ her sibling sax fights for a moment to be heard.

I digressed I know but the saxophone is dominant in this track ‘Is It A Crime’ so it’s only fair to feature into it. I know some hardcore fans may fall to pieces if I didn’t also talk about Smooth Operator, so there. Its here in this song ‘Is It A Crime’ where Sade mimics this rebellious evoking energy of her siblings-saxy-spirit by poking at our wounds of temptations, playfully teasing her jealousy of some one she once loved - who is now loving someone else.

She asks:

“Is it a crime?

That I still want you…

And I want you to want me too…”

★ Sade - Is It A Crime

Sometimes I just can’t contain myself how much I love Sade’s music and surely this beholds the spirit awareness and romance of the Human Design Emotional-Authority, of the Solar-Plexus-Center, which I believe her to be defined in - as I explored in my previous post B014.

We have a spooky side to this song, and the sax and brass really encourage her energy to tiptoe around the boundaries of another, a past lover. The song is quiet but her emotions are loud with one final cry for romance. The track title suggests that she fears to be martyred for her honesty, her love, her feelings and emotions. Is It A Crime? I feel like this song is enacting this scenario in a witchy like manner, like she is singing into a vision rather than actually reaching out to this ex lover. On this note… a universal reminder to all ‘exes’ of the world, it quickly can become a crime, yes, boundaries are important for healing and respecting your past relationships. Here however in the song Is It A Crime - we have a crime of the heart and no boundaries are seemingly being violated.

Perhaps this person hurt her or that it isn’t a crime but she is being made to feel this way by others? The mystique of the song writing in her music often lends to a unique interpretation of the audience, which is poetic and inclusive and exampled profoundly in a song like this. I often see scenes of an episode from the Simpsons where Lisa is trying to get the late Bleeding Gums Murphy’s album on the radio - Sax On The Beach - which as a result - she is able to reach out and speak to Mr Murphy’s spirit, and that this is very much the vibe and ethos I get in this song, and in big part of this is the feature and use of Saxophone on this track.

I don’t adore the more so personal references in this song as it really bottlenecks such a vast vessel that she has portrayed, but I can still respect these lyrics of ‘My love is wider, wider than Victoria Lake. My Love is taller, taller than the Empire State’. She really belts these lyrics out in this song which contrasts the dynamic of minimal moments, and you can’t deny she earns these lyrics with out-right delivery and attitude. The Empire State became a big icon of her image, with it featuring a lot in her music video for Cherish the Day. She is a huge hit in the USA, even challenging the likes of modern Adelle for popularity.

The Saxophone really is a distinction in this song alike to her life’s work and something I just wanted to build on from this song as it does dominate their sound when it is used. I sense wor Stu’ might be a 1/3 with the Saxophone being the only foundation strong enough to be placed alongside her voice, and that perhaps the third line having to reinvent itself in each track while also being part of the writer’s process bumping into ideas, investigating deeper as a co-writer, lending his foundational scope of Personality-Conscious to the lyrics of a saxophone?

8. Pearls

This song runs so deep in the shivers of my spine.. Moreover I know the strings from a Drum & Bass artist who sampled the strings for an intro of their song, and not to side track but to share for context of her impact.

The said artist who sampled Sade is known for their contrasting intros and outrageously heavy drops, hence where these soft strings found themselves at the beginning of the song. One of the first Drum & Bass CDs I had was from a friend who DJed, and this said track started the hour long mix. I know it so well, even the envelope of attack of how the strings begin makes my heart sync to a familiar truth and feeling. Seemingly this song I speak of also sampled ‘Feel No Pain’ vocals, a Sade song also featured in this blog post and playlist, and the sampling combined the separate elements, from separate songs, into one track-intro.

I knew the strings in this track I speak of consciously since 2005, but would not have known it was sampling Sade until 2022. To be reunited with its sample origins feels nothing shy of epic.

I also love how in the sample-use they seemingly pitched down the vocals which makes them sound like whale calls, which very much remind me of the Four Giants guardian deities of Termina, in the Legend of Zelda - Majora’s Mask video game… Yes I am a bit of a Zelda nerd. You can also clearly hear various uses of the acapella of ‘Feel No Pain’ and so, once again, it was really cool discovering these Sade tracks nearly two decades later.

The strings really are what make this song Pearls because they achieve a match in somber tones that the story tells through lyrics and intensity, and that Sade’s voice can depict the sadness of this instrument alike. The song is seemingly quite a sad song, we don’t need the lyrics to know this, but there is certainly a wail to the sadness as Sade’s voice which speaks this through tone and nuance.

From my investigations of making this post, I have learned that this song is about a woman and child living in the 1992 Somalia famine. The reference to ‘pearls’ is apparently referring to grains of white rice that have fallen off a cargo truck onto the roadside, which has now become something so precious and essential to the antagonist of the song.

“There is a woman in Somalia.
Scraping for pearls on the roadside.
There’s a force stronger than nature.
Keeps her will alive.
That’s how she’s dying.
She’s dying to survive.
Don’t know what she’s made of.
I would like to be that brave.
She cries to the heaven above.
There is a stone in my heart.
She lives a life she didn’t choose.
And it hurts like brand-new shoes.”

★ Sade - Pearls

This is really powerful work Sade. And this is a great example of the mystery to her work, and the story’s she tells, while the intentions are obvious to set the scene in Somalia, the story is rather indirect to the mundane specifics, perhaps more so philosophical, metaphorical, and mystical in the sense it speaks of something most could not bare to imagine as a reality. Only … it is!

I’ve never quite understood the lyric ‘hurts like brand new shoes’ that she sings in this song, as brand new shoes would be a choice to buy them, or that they had capital to expose of - for shoes - which dilutes the severity of the song’s situation? Not that shoes would solve a famine, but we get the sense this person has nothing but their family and will to survive. Nonetheless this lyric has struck many to listen on, so maybe that’s the impact she wanted.

As I have said, what she is singing about is a human being who has little options but to face the blazing heat and sift through the dirt to find grains of rice that may have fallen off of a fast moving truck. ‘She’s dying to survive’. It’s unbelievable that this could be such a poor fate, and why this song is so sad. Perhaps it hurts like brand new shoes as it is a decision to survive that she will endure the heat of the sun, the long road ahead on her feet, the fear of leaving her children, and if not face starvation are all what she ‘pays’ with to be in these ‘shoes’. She can only afford her dignity and humility to spare her family a meal and this cost physically hurts her feet. It’s so sad, and yet humanity continues to allow this cost on people’s lives.

It also feels like it is a self-inflicted decision, which adds to the psychological trauma unforeseen, and the stark contrast in this example of brand new shoes, is a matter of translation to the audiences in order to exalt the representation that lies in the vast contrast of existence. The same sky we lay under is for real a quote I would like to take forward with me in life, it’s so profound.

“The sun gives her no mercy.

The same sky we lay under

Burns her to the bone.

Long as afternoon shade.

Is gonna take her to get home.

Each grain carefully wrapped up.

Pearls for her little girls.”

★ Sade - Pearls

It is at this moment we get a strong gesture rejoicing this woman in her suffering as Sade soars a valiant hallelujah in closing of this song, which brings dignity to the humans who are in the struggle of the story she tells. No one does this like Sade, and it’s her nature of work that impacts her audiences in such an authentic experience.

In the same flight of endearment Sade replays some of her feelings about what she visions through her lyrics and energy behind the mic. While her voice does not whisper it almost feels like it, she sings yet it’s almost like spoken word, and in recap in the divine space she has created in her imagery and gospel she is transmitting about global and specific suffering.

I have been working on a Sade humanitarian playlist of her work called ‘Sade’s Aries Moon - The Heart’s Womb & Warrior’ (of course it needed a dramatic Aries title) as well as some alternate playlists like: ‘Sade’s Funky Pride Band’ playlist, and a ‘Sade's Heartache Hotline - Love Lounge Radio’ playlist, and of course, including this featured playlist - ‘Singing Songs Of Sade’ which is perhaps the more so fun/DJ music. I have done this as she can also be incredibly profound and diverse in what she sings about.

After she has recapped the story one more time, the picture she has painted fades out with the song, which has given up on finding a drum beat and let’s the music and acapella take a final serenade. All we are left with is strings, perhaps it is a quartet that are playing, and a shy cute guitar joins in as if just waking up from a deep peaceful nap.

It is such a beautiful song. This song gained much popularity and honour and is a great contender for how brave she was to speak for humanitarian rights, while being in such a high ranking social popularity. Another example of this Aries bravery was when she posed semi nude in a pool of water, with one breast below the surface and another above it. She was raising awareness for breast cancer, and shared it was a big fear of hers. It’s brave because she was heavily sexualised by the media and masses, and so to deliver a shoot in the nude by choice, was a direct drawn sword to the perverse lens of society, reminding us of the human within a body.

That concludes this post for songs 1-8, so for songs 9-15 you can read about them in blog post B016.

Thank You

@acousticmutation

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Post is copyrighted by it’s publishing & with thanks for the free use images and work of:

BodyGraph and Natal Charts:

Bcurio.us

astro-seek.com

Image 1:

Neural Love

Image 2:

Essence Magazine

Image 3:

Sade Fans International - Facebook

Image 4:

Sade Fans International - Facebook

Photo 5:

David Montgomery - VEIN Magazine

Image 6:

David Graves

Image 7:

Sade Fans International - Facebook

Image 8:

Aleksandar Zec

Image 9:

Ebony Magazine

Image 10:

Rob Verhorst - Redferns

Image 11:

Kerstin Rogers - Getty Images

Image 12:

Sade.com

Image 13:

Pete Still - Redferns