Gym, Deer - "Darlings". Gym, Deer's Robert Lee lives in Red Hook, NY, by the water. In an interview with his label, Primary Records, who showed me this extraordinary song, they asked him, What is something you find funny? And Robert Lee said, When kids try and relate with animals. That made me sad. "Darlings" had always made me think of human beings' clumsy fumblings, the gentle ones, helping and longing and loving, sometimes futilely. Now I imagine animals there too, in with Gym, Deer's haunted doo-wop, just as clumsy, just as misunderstanding. A dog cannot tell a girl his heart any more clearly than I can. Let me show you with gifts, looks, unworded murmurs.

I'm very smitten with this song. Gym, Deer's debut is forthcoming; in the meantime you can buy another track, "Nod". There are also many other excellent things on Primary Records' free sampler, particularly the songs by Claude Rosen, Names of War and Pony of Good Tidings. When Primary's Anthony LaMarca told Robert Lee that he reminded him of Arthur Russell, Lee said, "I don't know who that is. This is me trying to be Nick Drake and Bobby McFerrin.".

Martha Wainwright - "Adieu mon coeur (live)". Martha and her band perform this song with even more whimsy than Édith Piaf's original, a smile at the corners of the mouth. It is a song that dwells in its own "écho de bonheur", its echo of happiness, from the season before the singer said adieu to her love. When we walked on treasure, when we were vagabonds, the stalks of wheat were long & golden, the days went on forever. "On aimait les chansons", we loved songs, and now-- now, what? We love them still, bittersweetly, adieu, adieu, we cannot help ourselves. [from Martha's excellent record, her best, interpreting the songs of Piaf - buy]

(lion image by Disent)