For The Love Of The Song

This website mikeshaft.com is now well over a decade old and I honestly cannot remember ever writing an article of this length about a single piece of music.

In these days of music downloads I have to say I spend most of my time on itunes listening to albums of all genres and picking out my favourite tracks and then purchasing them.

This track came to me in a totally different way.

As you may know I present the Sunday Breakfast programme on BBC Radio Manchester and have done for the last 10 years.

There is a box in the BBC offices into which is placed all the cds we receive that nobody wants.

I say nobody but that is not quite right.

Whenever I have the time I like to go through that box and see if there is anything that interests me.

Usually I look for artists that I do not know and then listen to the album or single before deciding if it is something I want to add to my collection.

There isn’t much that I don’t like in music, however, now that I present just one show a week on the radio tracks have to be rather special for me to take the decision to feature something on my show.  Further, the process can take weeks as I listen and listen again to make sure it fits.

Well this song is different. Here is the official video.

Having arrived on Sunday morning for the show I had a quick scan in the box to see what was there and found the new album from Jessica Clemmons.

There is a saying in broadcasting that if you do not know something never admit it as nobody knows you don’t know it.  Fortunately I do not subscribe to such nonsense.

I have to admit I did not know much about Jessica Clemmons and I certainly didn’t know about her musical style.

I listened to the album very quickly wondering if there was anything that might interest me.  There were a couple of interesting tracks until I got to track 7 – ‘Loving this day’, which is also the title track to the album.

Firstly I did not at any point decide to skip to the next track.  I listened to it all the way through and then listened to it again immediately.

I then took the decision there and then that I was going to play this track on the show this very morning.

Back in the old days djs like me would take a box full of albums into the studio and decide which tracks we would play as the show went on.

I can remember taking in some of the truly great albums and just deciding to play which ever tracks I felt fitted into the show as we went on.  I am talking about albums from artists like Little River Band, the Eagles, Queen, Gerry Rafferty, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and others.  Tracks like Hotel California, Against the wind, Baker street and of course lots of Country tracks as well because I love Country.

Now I have to admit that I do not listen to much music radio anymore because I cannot stand their choice of music and I certainly cannot take the constant repetition.

There are exceptions as I love the track ‘River’ by Emeli Sande, still not released as a single and of course I think that Adele has made a couple of absolute belters.

I can tell you without doubt that had this album from Jessica Clemmons been released back in the day, this track would now be one of the most played oldies on radio.

I do not know what it is, but programmers seem to not want to take chances with music and want to stick only with the tracks and styles that they know.

Well let me give them some advice.  This track, ‘Loving this day’ is one of the finest pieces of music ever made.  It is up there with the legendary rock songs of our time. From the moment it opens with its Knopfleresque guitar to its soaring vocals and wonderful lyrics, you know this is for real.

Further it is inspirational and uplifting.

I say to all programmers on whatever format you are in, do your listeners a favour and just play this song.

You can thank me later!

Later

Mike S

Concert photos courtesy of Mike Johnson and Thwaites Empire Theatre