“Unicorns and cannonballs
Palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers, and tenements
Wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags, ferry boats
Scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars
Yes, you climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail
Too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon”
Mike Scott – The Waterboys
The other day The Girl and I watched some of the coverage of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony from Milan and Cortina, courtesy of the mercifully still splendid BBC. The program was preceded by a short film featuring former AC Milan and Sweden footballer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, on what it takes to become a champion.
The soundtrack of this diminutive opus included – amongst other musical items – a cover version of The Waterboys’ track – ‘The Whole of the Moon‘. Now, this is one of my favourite ever songs… in other words, I wish fervently that I had written it myself! To my intense frustration, however, I missed the credit for the piece (assuming that there was one) and realised that I had no idea whose cover this was – or where I might find a copy.
No matter! We are, of course, blessed (or cursed!) in these dog-days with a frankly incredible range of services that enable us to discover pretty much anything about pretty much everything. I spent the next couple of days pottering around the InteWebNet looking for clues and hoping to locate a source for the piece.
This I was duly able to do, of course, establishing that this particular version had been created by one Tom Hickox – an English singer/songwriter who is clearly worth taking the time to get to know better.
Whilst I was hunting down this fascinating link in the chain I found yet another cover version of “The Whole of the Moon” – this time by another unknown (to me!) singer/songwriter – this time a Scottish lady by the name of Karine Polwart. This considerably more delicate version comes from an album of covers of songs by Scottish writers – entitled “Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook” – the which I had immediately to snap up.
In amongst other versions of songs that are already well known I found another of my favourite tracks (yes – another one that I would have done pretty much anything to have written!). This song goes by the soubriquet – “A Ship Called Dignity“…
…but more of that next time.
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