B016
Singing Songs Of Sade - Playlist (Part 2)
I split the post up as it became a rather long scroll for a cell phone audience, when trying to cover 15 songs in 1 post, and while the pictures help navigate your place in reading I felt the nearly 12,000 words needed to split up. I am currently working on a means to represent the word count for my blog posts. I am really happy with this Blog as an outlet and this series was important for me to complete before moving on so let us continue on with the focus of this playlist of Sade’s music.
9. No Ordinary Love
Climbing into something more upbeat we come to one of Sade’s biggest hits.
This track was on the album that many fans hoped would come and arrived with some of her best work yet, with songs such as No Ordinary Love, Feel No Pain, Kiss Of Life, Cherish The Day, and Pearls… talk about delivery. In her career she faced a lot of critics and always waited for her peace in order to show that she knew what she was doing, and that at this point in her career she ended any genuine critic concerns about her output or quality of music.
In the same way that we see her on Wembley Stadium in the first year of her debut album, in this album’s first year we find her winning a Grammy Award. This song is 4 times Platinum, peaked at number 3, and the Grammy earned was for best R&B performance by duo or group with vocals in 1994.
I know this song very well because of a popular Drum & Bass bootleg of it, and; most-to-any knowledge of her legacy was in this bootleg song, and for so long has that bootleg been a favourite of mine. The soft rock ballad style works well in the sped up fashion of Drum And Bass, and the lush music and vocals suit the sub genre of Liquid Drum & Bass perfectly.
The reason this song is so powerful and amazing is it holds strong to the band’s legacy and work, and the independent yet popular sound they have curated. It’s a minute mutation of her heart, four years on from her Saturn-Return, and perhaps four years into her ‘climbing to the roof’ - as a potential Sixth-Line personality. The track, similar to the album that it was featured on, gave audiences what they were expecting with a twist of Sade’s mutative style.
In my investigations I read an article talking about what fans might want to hear from Sade in future albums and I really resonated with the suggestions of the roots as a band, as well as some other mainstream UK sounds such as garage and Liquid Drum & Bass, and while Funk is some what the seed of this band as much as it is the roots, it would also be great to hear modern tributes to their very specific Funk work…
I am more than content with what she has given us and certainly lean into the older albums, but I have now begun exploring each of the albums top to bottom, so I am open to hear it all out, and dive even deeper on her work. The Promise album shapes up to be a favourite so far.
10. Feel No Pain
If you ask me this one’s a bit of a rootin’ tootin’ good time as we go way downtown, downtown fun-town, way downnnnnnn…
With good times but a banjo away … this one has a funk of ‘Billy Bob’s Barn achievement unlocked’… you know the vibes!? ‘Straw hats achievement activated’… ‘Bring the whole family down’… It’s humble wholesome music, with a strong message.
I love the fun in her voice when she sings ‘why’ in her harmonies, as always she is singing about very serious matters but provides elegance with her voice. The song certainly has a brewed country flick to it, which I think she fulfils very well and brings an estranged welcoming means to this sound. It picks up off the energy of the last song which pulled us out of a very quiet deep contemplation of Pearls and No Ordinary Love, and towards some tribal gathering messages, sounds, and feel good somatic times.
One of my favourite parts in this song is where she sings ‘one day we gonna wake up, with ghettos all around’ the auto-savannah-hifi-vibes are in check, and she unleashes more ‘why’-ing, while claiming ‘have you ever seen a man break down?’
When I first started consciously listening to Sade, I really was a broken man, and the sad plucking whines and wails that reply through her band, who are certainly wearing plaid and boots at this point, hold relics of an old country western twang in a whim sickle ‘break down’ of a guitar’s cry.
11. Couldn’t Love You More
Sade is a deep lover and a lot of her music is about love…
If you’ve made it this far it is certainly time to share a laugh and take a moment to acknowledge the fact that the entire band were writing these songs, to which I am wise, and to make a point :
I can also laugh at myself.
When editing this post, and I read how I open comments on this track ‘Couldn’t Love You More’ I have to laugh, as there’s me talking about Sade and the ‘L word’ and all this Aries nonsense, all the while it’s a hot mess of her entire ensemble and band writing these songs. Well WHATEVER!
In the capacity of my writing I have no problem in playing many a character, and in particular being borderline obnoxious about the things in life that I am interested in, or often become rather histrionic to bolster this for humour. Particularly about being an Aries. Some people find it adorable and others a bit of a flaunt. You have to really learn with myself that I am capable of many expressions, and a lot of my writing on here is to always be taken with a sprinkle of humble awareness that I don’t ACTUALLY think or believe some of the things I say but rather this is a way of me exploring my truths. As a 61-24 Channel Of Awareness, making my Individual-Circuitry acoustic, allows greater truths within me to mutate and be freed. I also have a real soft spot for the tone and ensemble of Sade’s music and voice, to which I do not feel I am alone. She’s amazing.
I wonder how many of these songs I’m all ‘love sick’ over Sade about are actually not even written by her? I am quite sure she was the core writer for most of her songs, and certainly say none of this in critique that she had ‘writers’ or any of that sort of hate media narrative… no! She respected her band and her tribe and co-wrote with them, and it paid off to work with them.
I originally had placed this to follow selection 9 which is No Ordinary Love, but I felt like we needed some space between these two songs being on the more so serious side of things, and while Feel No Pain is a serious song it is sung and performed in a playful way.
The grand piano is rolled back out for this one and we feel as if we are in the spotlight of vibey soft keys and clap track. Sade begins the song by informing the audience that she is in love with us, our hearts melt, we endear to her aura, and our hearts listen. It’s here once she has captivated our being that she offers out an invite in this song. This invitation comes from a secret place in her heart… or is it Stuart’s heart? Maybe it’s Dave and the boys who wrote this one while Helen was out smoking a ciggy?
As she begins to sing, a well behaved saxophone joins in with very steady tones to remind us that we are, yes, in fact in a Sade like trance…. I mean can you imagine such an invitation… an invitation to be loved by such a brave lover as Sade?
”Take me by the hand, come on.
Be my darling, be the one.
I wouldn't want to lay or ever love with another.
If everyone in the world.
Could give me what I wanted.
I wouldn't want for more than I have, hey yeah.
I couldn't love you more if I tried.”
★ Sade - Couldn’t Love You More
This song also shows how the dynamic of her band were able to work within their lines and show up how and when they were needed in an adaptable familiar sound. I won’t say too much for this song as honestly it’s rather private, personal, and ought to remain quiet. I also ranted about myself for like 4 or 5 paragraphs to begin with, if not this entire blog post, so you know….
Below is a picture of her band during a performance in 2011 - and the Bring Me Home tour. The founding members are still there with a smile on their face alongside new members and friends. I really appreciated her admiration for her band at this moment, and it makes you feel really happy that they have one another to share their music. Each sentiment she shares about them is so special and honest and powerful, there is not a lot she can do wrong in our books. I hope to perhaps do a deep dive on the band through a podcast episode rather than a formal blog post but for now, I will say all contributors to Sade’s legacy and band members are deeply appreciated in the work they achieved as a band.
12. Lovers Rock
This one arrived later in my investigations, it found me in the hands of DJ Spotify Shuffle, and instantly captivated me with the 16th triplet drum shuffle that I used to rock out to as a kid at school during the brief period of my life where I would actually get behind the drums. The production is well polished and the format of the song is flawless. This is the only song in the playlist that reaches past her fourth album, and her last two albums I have mined, and organised into the many Sade playlists I have - so in time I will explore them. For me the first four albums are incredible and so hard to step to.
The song speaks to Sade’s love as she candidly sings about another, a special other. At the time of hearing this song I was healing from a break up, and this song was felt deeply, almost desperately. A lot of pain has left my body through this song and its phrases like below, that held me together in this time of silent suffering - there was someone who saw me and knew what I had lost.
“Somewhere in my sadness, I know I won’t fall apart completely.”
★ Sade - Lovers Rock
Even though I found this hard to believe in the puddle of pain I found myself in, she sung it with such magnificence that I regrouped here many times, and was eventually able to experience her words through the majesty of many quiet summer evenings.
In this song it feels like she delivers a vulnerable side of herself, admitting that she has found someone she can rely on to ‘swim to in a storm’ and that there is hope for others too. I like the spoken word in this song towards the end that is utilised before the outro in an almost phone call skit which fades out on the chorus leaving it imprinted in our heart’s memory.
13. Kiss Of Life
Similar to Lover’s Rock we have another romantic song, however this one is a bit more exciting than the previous softer rendition of Sade’s heart. We feel like a prancing Aries lamb sprung into life and glee. It’s spring time and the piano breathes refreshing courtship and excitement into the colour of life, and everything about this song is just fantastic.
“There must have been an angel by my side. Something held me led me to you. Look at the Sky. Its the colour of love.”
★ Sade - Kiss of Life
Oh Sade, how you make a melted mess of me… This song does wrap me up in the ‘colour of love’ and I feel that rather she smile’s these lyrics as much as she sings them. Kiss Of Life has a rather mischievous Aries-Moon nuance to it which joyfully wails a calm stylistic character and backbone to her voice.
The pieces fit in this record, and while it is a rather ‘generic’ love song, love is still for many a tough subject and this for me is a more blatant example of how she would take something very serious and present it in a way that was transmittable. This often has a soft, graceful, fun, and playful essence to her voice, with examples like Maureen - where we are dealing with the loss of a childhood friend, and while so sad, the song becomes an outstanding tribute to a friend where the song is so real and rad that you actually want to turn up and boogie. Sade’s work has a level of spirit awareness to that song that has impacted me towards the tail end of putting this playlist together, so I will find other ways to honour this further. Of course the band needs serious credit in all the stylist presentation because they are somewhat the cereal to the bowl, Sade the milk to the cereal that melts the magic.
The saxophone accompaniment in Kiss Of Life brings a fresh energetic approach to loving others and perhaps the acute use of strings is used to represent the old pain of not being in love and moving on from this place of heart ache with the ‘Kiss of Life’ rejuvenating a passion for living and loving freely. This is a very very smooth track with the lacey Rhode keys, smart tall behaved bassline, and sexy percussion.
The outro has its own twang to its soft bongos, Rhodes keys and murmuring woes of Sade, and before fading out entirely we get one more rendition of her explaining being wrapped up in the love, and the song intelligently fades out on the hook ‘You gave me the kiss of life’. A lot of adverts do this as an imprinted lasting memorabilia of the message being portrayed through lyrics or melody, as the brain can often fill in the hook, or hold onto it in this way.
14. Keep Looking
This one brings it all into perspective with the auto-savannah-hifi-vibes locked tight. Hand percussion - poppin’ off… The city skyline bassline is not only in both the front and rear view mirrors but a 360 export of fun and excitement of a new road ahead…
Memories of the song ‘Paradise’ lay in the substructure of this track, as we meet the second last song of this blog post. There’s a certain romance that the serenade of the neck climbing/sliding guitar riffs electrify this piece, and we also have some really groovy Latin style guitar rhythms that respond and play between the action, which really paints this horizonal heat and signature. At one point the hot riff even breaks out into a bit of a barn dance, as memories of Feel No Pain linger in the memory of our souls. We are quickly regrouped back into the slow cruise this song takes pace in. The last few moments of this song sound like a ship sailing off into the sunset, perhaps a metaphor to how the track makes me feel.
The organ/Rhode solo before the outro is very reggae influenced and plays a flurrying whimper for the outro which feels like a whirly round up of the journey this song rocks to.
Fine, this is my favourite song, I said it... When I say her music speaks to me, this song is the megalith of this guardian spirit her voice represents.
Jumping into the lyrics, skipping to the part where she says 'Don’t let them bother you, no’. I feel so seen with an overwhelming sensation of angelic power. As if Sade, a vanguard to my gates, through her saintly songs and potential role model she’s greeting all my worries and troubles, and informing them:
“No no!
Alex isn’t available right now.
He’s busy resting.”
★ Informing Alex The Aries’ worries - Nap-Gate Vanguard Sade
Her impact to inform others of nap time restrictions are not to be rivalled.
She certainly sings some Gate-61 dramas in this song, with looping mantras like:
“Don't lay awake at night. Thinking about your Worries, thinking about your problems… Thinking about your troubles.”
★ Sade - Keep Looking
I sense she’s really encouraging and demonstrating to us as a Sixth-Line Role-Model, to follow our True-Self in life by ‘Keep Looking’. For Human Design buffs this serves as a useful mantra in being the passenger watching the energy of Aura-Types play out before them, as really experimenting is just Personality-Conscious awareness (in my experiment so far). Awareness is the key to most of life’s concerns, and profound in the vocabulary and lens of Human Design. Through this lens we can be compassionate for others’ dignity, which is very much something Human Design transforms people’s humility for others when played through humble awareness. Those who really get into Human Design know it’s not about being a ‘typist’ and rather being able to have compassion and appreciation for one’s natural energy, which can be difficult when this person is acting out of it, with NO idea of this, but this only deepens the experiment as it is a signpost that reminds us to be true to who we are.
Keeping on a Human Design theme, I love the prowess and magnitude of her words here in this track that seem to fall out the sky from some reverberated playful nonsense into an almost heretic-like saviour of rad’ vibes…
“Some will tell you that you're wrong.
You do it all the wrong way.
Some will tell you that you're wrong.
That you don't know the way.
They enjoy cheapness.
Don't show your weakness.
Don't let them bother you, no.
They enjoy cheapness.
Don't show your weakness.
Oh no, no.”
★ Sade - Keep Looking
I feel many in the Human Design experiment will have been tired by someone’s ability to instantly jump down their throat about how you are ‘doing it wrong’ or not understanding Human Design… To those experimenting in what works to them - I hope this song finds you well and deep in the richness of this experiment - continuing forward with the power to discern and ‘keep looking’ for self truths.
Human Design has been a really impacting invite via another for myself, and it is really interesting to look at Sade’s birth data as I did in my previous post B014, especially the connection of Gates that we share in composite of her Personality-Conscious Sun & Earth, being potentially the same as my Design-Conscious Sun & Earth Gates.
Keep looking, for the Human Designers, the passive passengers who see it all come to them, I hope the way Sade’s music has found me in pure love and admiration of her music, that you find grace in attracting similar experiences.
Her music really speaks to me so this Earth/Sun Gate comparison was interesting, and I wonder what similarities people can find in the musician’s birth data they adore in composite to their own birth data?
As we reach the final song I want to say thanks for reading, and if you didn’t catch my previous post about her Human Design BodyGraph and birth data where I share more about my investigations you can read it in my blog post B014. But we still have one more song to cover, so let’s get into it…
15. Cherry Pie
Cherry Pie is a late entry that knocked a rather cheesy-playlist-ender-song into another playlist (Hold On To Your Love). The decision like all the decisions just felt right and seemingly the synchronicity of track 14 - Keep Looking - and track 15 - Cherry Pie - have synastry of a delicious bassline presence. I also absolutely love this track. In fact this is THE new favourite… While this does not take away from the other ‘favourites’ this song is just so-good. I may actually end up adding 7 more songs - to match the size of her ‘Bring Me Home’ concert in 2011 which was 22 songs - as I just can’t help myself. Tracks like Maureen, Never As Good As The First Time, Sally, Jezebel, I Will Be Your Friend, and many more have recently found their way into my listening cycles, and this certainly includes Cherry Pie as a more recent awareness - so - in focus…
This is a very funky song and from the early days of the band’s legacy.
I have a rather biased investigator’s suspicion that she is talking about a particular Aries-Sun in this track… We start with the intro’s orderly percussion, rugged bassline, and adoring key chords, as well as a touch of Aries-Moon ad-libbed-fun from Sade herself. This, of course, all sets the scene for an Aries-Sun stud to ramble his way into the venue and center stage spotlight of Sade’s heart.
After all, when an Aries-Sun is done being rambunctious and frolicking in their own adorable immense selves, we can shape up to be quite a frisky number, which when cherry picked curates a moody mixture of one who’s passion flickers in the moment to their heart’s desire. We can be real heart aches of a moment when not lost in being so adorable.
This said, particular rambling Ram, finds themself in an 80’s flick, and the bassline in the intro almost has a Red Hot Chilli Peppers attitude to it. In a red flash the fiery bassline, soft keys, and steady percussion drop into a thick beat, and Sade begins to inform us about someone that broke her heart. The continual frolicking sparkles of the guitars really add a glisten to the magic of this song alike to a flame’s flicker of an Aries passion.
At 01:14 we assuredly get into the track, as after all this is a serious song, it is here where we uncover more evidence that she is in-fact singing about an Aries-Sun man.
“When I met you, boy
You were as sweet as cherry pie
That smiling eye
You were as wild as Friday night.”
★ Sade - Cherry Pie
See - you see? ‘That smiling eye’!.. We have an Aries at large here!.. Surely? As she speaks to the excitement of a new beginning alike to her comment ‘Wild as Friday night’ which is the infamous night that starts the weekend off, and all the excitement that comes along with this. Being wild is certainly a side I can play when encouraged by the right people around me to be my simple soft self, more so slightly goofy perhaps? Sometimes I need it to shake off that rugged exterior and serious intellectual stance that can jump the lines often. For me this song captures an Aries legacy and swagger of lamb to ram, in the flash of bang we wish it was the weekend again.
Now I might be obnoxiously glorifying Aries placements here, which you really have to take with a grain of salt in how serious I am being, and not to cherry pick in the song Cherry Pie let’s counter that by un-censoring this verse, as in examining the second half of it we read some deeper insights into the Friday night Aries energy at large here…
“I should have known
However hard you tried
Change would come and strangle it
It was bound to die.”
★ Sade - Cherry Pie
Yikes. ***Blushes***
It sounds like she has been burned in this way before as she ‘should have known’. In the words of ‘however hard you tried’ and to hold it against an Aries’ passion, I feel like Aries can be really love blind, love sick, or be top heavy and very passionate lovers. The cardinal flame of an Aries is a fire that eats the air around it so ‘strangle’ is a rich metaphor for the Aries archetype, and this temperament is a fine line of assertiveness.
‘It was bound to die’ is also in good measure as Aries kicks off the Zodiac, or in the reality of our vehicle’s journey to be born is to also be bound to death. We are like a Friday Night - you can never get enough!
I love the way the keys in this song play to her words, holding lush long tones in playful gestures. I call them the Aries keys… of course… and we first hear an example of this playful response to the lyric ‘Wild as Friday night’ and the keys shuffle around in an Aries like manner, as if asking the question…
“Wild like this?”
The Aries keys scamper their way back into the song after again holding space for the following verse, adding almost like a musical mic drop, to her lyrical assertion, or re affirming that she is in fact, let’s not forget, an Aries-Moon, who is dropping some love truths, informing from her poor broken heart. I love the way the keys play once again just after she burns this lover back by informing them, there ‘was’ a time where - yes - I wanted you to stay, but that is no longer a thing…
“You gave me your soul
For at least a day
Listen, boy, there was a time
When I wanted you to stay
You know the cost
Its you who's gonna pay
I'm stronger now; I loved you then
I ask you anyway.”
★ Sade - Cherry Pie
The beat and bassline here is phat, and why I love the sound of this song aside from everything else. The song has a bad ass attitude to it that I can speak to only in the flavour of red hot passion. In the outro I really pick up on a stereotypical ‘Rocky montage’ outro - busy but reviewed ready to move on, like her sweet heart.
Before passing off to the bonus track I just want to say I had such a fun time exploring these songs through many different experiences and narratives. If you didn’t get to read my previous post about her Human Design BodyGraph or Natal Chart I feel like I uncovered some cool insights into her life’s work and that I split this post up because of the volume of writing. You can read it here B014.
I’d love to hear from the tribal collective as well as individuals about this Sade series… What track is your favourite Sade track?
Rumour has it there are ‘The Acoustic Mutation Experiment’ show notes for a podcast episode that a special lil’ Aries-Sun Investigator has been writing. What an honour it could be to dedicate some airways of my legacy to this woman, Helen, or as we adore her Sade.
15. Bonus Track - Hang On To Your Love
Rounding this one up briefly as its been a journey - I know. Thank you for being here.
I DO warn you though.. take it from a 61-24, this song is extremely catchy, and may hang around for a while, however the writing on the wall is clean and clear in its message, being, that it’s too easy to walk out on who we are, and it is so important to have love for your true self.
“Take your time if you down on luck, its so easy, to walk out on love.
Take your time if the going gets tough, its so precious.
So if you want it to get stronger, you’d better not let go.
You gotta hold on longer, if you want your love to grow.
Gotta stick together, hand in glove… hold tight, don’t fight.
Hang on to your love.”
★ Sade - Hang On To Your Love
Thank you Sade!
@acousticmutation
#acousticmutation #alexthearies
#introspectionadaptation
#singingsongsofsade #sade #sadesongs #sadesaid
Post is copyrighted by it’s publishing & with thanks for the free use images and work of:
Image 1:
Neural Love
Image 2:
Daily Mail
Image 3:
upworthy.com
Image 4:
Vip Images
Image 5:
Black America Web
Image 6:
B. Gomer
Image 7:
Essence Magazine
Image 8:
Neural Love
Image 9:
David Livingston - Getty Images
Image 10:
ITV - Shutterstock
Image 11:
Vogue Magazine
Image 12:
Sade Fans International