Track of the Day - 12/31/11

The Waterboys - "This Is the Sea"

Well, it's New Year's Eve here at The Casualty Report (and elsewhere, but who cares about anything else, right?) and that means it's time for another Track of the Day! Today's track goes all the way back to 1985 when British band The Waterboys released their album, This Is the Sea. I actually first discovered The Waterboys through random sampling of my parents' CD collection when I was about 11 years old, and I've just recently reconnected with the group.*

This Is the Sea fits into a fairly small genre dubbed "Big Music" that had a surge in Scotland in the 80s, and the title track is perhaps the "biggest" song on the album, filled with lush, naturalistic instrumentation that builds and crashes alongside the water imagery in the lyrics. It seemed like an appropriate choice for the new year, as 2011 was a pretty tough year for me, and statistically speaking, you as well (actually, according to the Blogger tracking stats you have a high chance of being a very confused German that stumbled on this site by accident, so I don't really know how this past year treated you) and the song deals a lot with putting the past in perspective and moving on to the future. So, here's wishing you a happy new year, and let's make 2011 the river, and 2012 the sea.

Previous days' connection: Yeah, both tracks had Karen O. in them. All of you imaginary readers missed out on an easy chance to win some great imaginary prizes with that one. This connection is a bit harder, so here's a hint: it has to do with a repeated lyric in "This Is the Sea." Good luck!




*Fun (or not) sidenote: My musical tastes as a wee lad were very strange, in retrospect, as I combined the shitty pop of the time with completely random music from my parents. I might have been the only person whose stereo system would alternate between R.E.M.'s Monster, Ryan Adams' Gold and The Waterboys, and Backstreet Boys and Pokemon 2 B A Master. I also really liked Rusted Root. What the fuck.