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Monday 7 October 2019

Monday's Long Song


'What were the pies like when you were young?' someone asked on Twitter on Friday night to which the answer could only be what Rickie Lee Jones replied to a very similar question...

"They went on forever, they, when I w- we lived in Arizona, and the skies always had little fluffy clouds in 'em, and, uh... they were long... and clear and... there were lots of stars at night. And, uh, when it would rain, it would all turn - it- They were beautiful, the most beautiful skies as a matter of fact. Um, the sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire, and the clouds would catch the colours everywhere. That's uh, neat 'cause I used to look at them all the time, when I was little. You don't see that. You might still see them in the desert."

Skies mind not pies. 

Little Fluffy Clouds is getting on for thirty years old, is one of the cornerstones of ambient house and never sounds old. On this track The Orb (at this point Alex Paterson, Thrash and Youth) borrowed heavily from Steve Reich, Ennio Morricone, Harry Nilsson and Lee 'Scratch' Perry along with the vocal from Rickie and the snippet from John Waite at the start about 'the traditional sounds of the British summer'. These two mixes aren't too dissimilar despite their names and taken together give you almost a quarter of an hour of Little Fluffy Clouds to kick off your Monday. 

 Little Fluffy Clouds Ambient Mk.1

Little Fluffy Clouds Dance Mk. 2

8 comments:

The Swede said...

I groaned out loud when reading '....Little Fluffy Clouds is getting on for thirty years old...'

londonlee said...

I had a flat mate who did PR for the Orb’s label. One night he took me to some label party (might have been the release of UFO) where he convinced an NME photographer that I was Alex Paterson so the guy took a load of photos of me

Swiss Adam said...

Brilliant Lee- a comment that raises several more questions though.

drew said...

It maybe 30 years old but it’s still absolutely wonderful

londonlee said...

This is back when people didn’t know what The Orb looked like (I still don’t tbh). The NME did a story on it the next week but I wasn’t in the pics so I guess the photographer twigged

Rob said...

That was a very magical year

Anonymous said...

What about Alan Parker’s take on it, reflecting on his Watford skys when he was young? The clouds were grey.

https://youtu.be/__QqQq9XBsQ

Swiss Adam said...

Ha, not seen that before, very funny.

Grey, monotonous....