Some songs struck us so intensely they became part of who we are. “All flowers in time bend towards the sun” is one of those songs. One song I can listen to over and over. Not just because it’s beautiful, but because behind the song, there is a story I have watched, in time.
To tell you this story I have to go back to my early fifteens and to Cocteau Twins, the band that alongside New Order and the Smiths, established themselves as one of the three main pillars of British alternative music.
I remember the day when I found the album "Victorialand", in vinyl, at the first "Radio Popular" store, mixed with all sort of 80s not alike SuperHits compilation, Tarzan Boy, Lena d'Água, Duran Duran, etc..
I was already fascinated with 4AD, the label behind Cocteau Twins, founded by Ivo Watts Russell, originally an imprint of Beggars Banquet (yes, I knew all the Indy label names, dates and details).
At the time there was also this romantic feeling about buying vinyl by being seduced by the sleeve art.
And that's why, besides the identity and integrity of a label, I was also fascinated by the graphic designs of the 4AD Vinyl sleeves handled by 23 Envelope, the graphic design name given to the partnership of Vaughan Oliver (graphic designer) and Nigel Grierson (photographer/filmmaker).
Bands like Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and Dead Can Dance enriched my teenage year by giving me a sense o poetry and art perception.
I remember like if it was today (33 years later) the moment I first listened at home to "lazy calm", the first track from the album. I remember thinking that if I was not an atheist I would believe this would be the closest to a soundscape from heaven.
Some time later, after reading an interview with Ivo, I found that the man behing a label with the most wonderful voices I ever met, best 2 voices ever were from Billie Holiday and Tim Buckley.
So I rediscovered Billie Holiday (Cocteau Twins made a very odd cover of the amazing "Strange fruits").
Tim Buckley, I totally discovered because of Ivo and 4AD.
Because of the statement of being the best male voice ever and because he was the creator of "Song to the Siren", a beautiful song I met first by the voice of Elizabeth Frazer, the mystical voice behind Cocteau Twins, this time under the name of "This Mortal Coil", a collective led by Ivo.
"Song to the Siren", was amazing in both original and cover versions. But was the cover that I found first and that felt like this uncannily haunting ballad and its images of the sea, doomed romance and drowning alluding to what Ivo calls "the inevitable damage that love causes".
David Lynch, loved “Song to the Siren” so much that he become obsessed to use it on a pivotal scene in his Blue Velvet. Because he couldn't pay the rights at the time he had, very grudgingly, to make is own “Song to the Siren”, writing some lyrics and task his newly drafted composer, Angelo Badalamenti, with crafting a reasonable soundalike (this how “Mysteries of Love”, sang by Julie Cruise was born).
By Lynch’s own admission, “Mysteries of Love” ended up being “pretty perfect” for Blue Velvet — but it still wasn’t as good as “Song to the Siren.” In fact, Lynch would never stop chasing it, until he finally got it into 1997’s Lost Highway.
Well, what all this has to do with "all flowers in time bend towards the sun"?
It's a long preamble but, everything!
Tim Buckley's son Jeff Buckley (consider by Rolling Stone the 39th greatest singer of all times9, wrote to Elizabeth Frazer when he heard the This Mortal Coil cover. They struck up an intense relationship after they became infatuated with each other's voices.
Emotion produced music. A sublime duet called "All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun".
The song, floating around the Internet, was never officially released. On Fraser words, after being told the song is wonderfull, "But it's unfinished, you see. I don't want it to be heard." There's a pause. "Maybe I won't always think that."
Buckley died in 1997 (almost at the same age is dad died) by which time they had lost touch – Fraser had grown frustrated with his constant touring, a reaction that weighs heavily on her.
The news that Buckley had disappeared – he drowned, swimming in the Wolf river in Memphis – came while Fraser was recording Teardrop with Massive Attack. "That was so weird," she says. "I'd got letters out and I was thinking about him. That song's kind of about him – that's how it feels to me anyway."
So, because I'm fascinated by the stories behind and by connecting the dots, "all flowers in time bend towards the sun" has this mystic of compacting in one song part of my own experiences and emotions.
So, if you listen to the music I will be sharing a piece of me! Enjoy!