If you examined the contents of this blog you would be right to assume that I have listened to a lot of Deep Purple in my life. I have only written about Deep Purple once before, and Ritchie Blackmore three times, once with Deep Purple, Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night a piece.
Deep Purple - Child in Time: https://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.com/2015/04/deep-purple-child-in-time.html
Rainbow - Stargazer: https://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.com/2015/04/rainbow-stargazer.html
Blackmore's Night - Shadow of the Moon: https://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.com/2015/05/blackmores-night-shadow-of-moon.html
Deep Purple and I have three eras of informative musical appreciation. My earliest experience was the radio hits Deep Purple has always had since before I was born, as I listened to these mostly in the nineties listening to classic rock radio. Thereafter, later in life I made it my mission to be more familiar with bands I knew by listening to other hits of theirs I had the misfortune of never hearing on the radio, and Deep Purple was among them, it was around this time I discovered the great “Child in Time.” After that, things got serious, I think I own most, if not all, of Deep Purple’s discography, so powering through those has been an experience not dissimilar to my last post about Emerson Lake and Palmer albums. Song’s begin to blur together. This last phase has resulted primarily in me only becoming meaningfully familiar with the handful of random Deep Purple songs happen to pop up on playlists outside of entire album consumption. Luckily for me one of those random Deep Purple songs was “The Mule.”
I am a busy man, so random songs playing while I work has become my primary source of discovery, or in this case, rediscovery music.
In my own uneducated manner I have attempted to explain my joy of layered music when the musicians understand their position and responsibility in the band. “The Mule” is a great example of this. The melody is split mostly between Blackmore’s guitar and Jon Lord on the organ, which is such a progressive rock thing to do, effectively trading solos twice. The song opens with Blackmore and ends with Lord. The drums provide a bursting flare that only deviates at the end when a short outro is performed.
Ian Gillian on vocals only has a single verse, that depict the lamentation of a slave to the devil. I am not I will ever understand why the devil is nicknamed “The Mule” but a I cannot see any reason why not.
“No one sees the things you do,
Because I stand in front of you,
But you drive me all the time,
Put the evil in my mind.
Used to sing and say my prayers,
Live my life without a care,
Now I have become a fool,
Because I listened to the mule.
How can I change when my mind is a friend of a Lucifer hid in the ground,
Just another slave for the mule.”
And that is it for words. It is my habit to examine and over think lyrics, but not very much in this song. I have mistakenly thought this song was an instrumental a few times. That single verse comes and goes so quick and there is so much else to get lost in, especially Lord’s final organ showcase which is a third of the entire song at least.
Normally I pay a disproportionate amount of lyrics, since I understand those far better than I do the intricacies of all musical instruments; however this is not the case for Deep Purple’s “The Mule.” I have mistakenly thought this song was an instrumental, which to be fair, it almost is. More than anything though, this observation reveals to me, just how good Blackmore and Lord have done with this track. For me at least “The Mule” is always a welcome listen, random or no. Deep Purple in general is always a welcome listen, anytime, forever.
- King of Braves
Deep Purple and I have three eras of informative musical appreciation. My earliest experience was the radio hits Deep Purple has always had since before I was born, as I listened to these mostly in the nineties listening to classic rock radio. Thereafter, later in life I made it my mission to be more familiar with bands I knew by listening to other hits of theirs I had the misfortune of never hearing on the radio, and Deep Purple was among them, it was around this time I discovered the great “Child in Time.” After that, things got serious, I think I own most, if not all, of Deep Purple’s discography, so powering through those has been an experience not dissimilar to my last post about Emerson Lake and Palmer albums. Song’s begin to blur together. This last phase has resulted primarily in me only becoming meaningfully familiar with the handful of random Deep Purple songs happen to pop up on playlists outside of entire album consumption. Luckily for me one of those random Deep Purple songs was “The Mule.”
I am a busy man, so random songs playing while I work has become my primary source of discovery, or in this case, rediscovery music.
In my own uneducated manner I have attempted to explain my joy of layered music when the musicians understand their position and responsibility in the band. “The Mule” is a great example of this. The melody is split mostly between Blackmore’s guitar and Jon Lord on the organ, which is such a progressive rock thing to do, effectively trading solos twice. The song opens with Blackmore and ends with Lord. The drums provide a bursting flare that only deviates at the end when a short outro is performed.
Ian Gillian on vocals only has a single verse, that depict the lamentation of a slave to the devil. I am not I will ever understand why the devil is nicknamed “The Mule” but a I cannot see any reason why not.
“No one sees the things you do,
Because I stand in front of you,
But you drive me all the time,
Put the evil in my mind.
Used to sing and say my prayers,
Live my life without a care,
Now I have become a fool,
Because I listened to the mule.
How can I change when my mind is a friend of a Lucifer hid in the ground,
Just another slave for the mule.”
And that is it for words. It is my habit to examine and over think lyrics, but not very much in this song. I have mistakenly thought this song was an instrumental a few times. That single verse comes and goes so quick and there is so much else to get lost in, especially Lord’s final organ showcase which is a third of the entire song at least.
Normally I pay a disproportionate amount of lyrics, since I understand those far better than I do the intricacies of all musical instruments; however this is not the case for Deep Purple’s “The Mule.” I have mistakenly thought this song was an instrumental, which to be fair, it almost is. More than anything though, this observation reveals to me, just how good Blackmore and Lord have done with this track. For me at least “The Mule” is always a welcome listen, random or no. Deep Purple in general is always a welcome listen, anytime, forever.
- King of Braves
No comments:
Post a Comment