In 2013 Piers Faccini released a beautifully presented clothbound Book/CD titled ‘Songs I Love’, a series of song covers from Dylan to Springsteen as well as traditional folk songs including a beautiful cover of Blackwater Side. Since then, he has continued to introduce more covers under the banner of ‘Songs I Love’. In the introduction to that album, he makes the point that great songs last beyond their writers’ lifetime. They are handed down through generations and reinvented. We know that’s true, but what he said next resonated the strongest:
I believe great songs belong to us all, and that they can capture an essential fragment of human experience for us to use for our own benefit and in our own way. Their chord structures, melodies and words are unique keys, unlocking and revealing ways of understanding emotional experiences common to us all, writer, musician or listener. Songs, like poems and paintings, are a form of food; we need them to live and flourish.
Piers Faccini (Songs I Love)
Faccini is tireless in his pursuit of music, and not just his own. As well as collaborating with numerous other artists he is also responsible for championing exciting new voices through Hear My Voice, a series of unique releases on his own label Beating Drum which introduced to us names such as Tui Mamaki, Gnut and Horsedreamer.
For today, we turn the spotlight back on Faccini with another ‘Songs I Love’ offering (No. 26) – Neil Young’s ‘For the Turnstiles’. It’s also our Song of the Day…quite unlike anything you’ve heard before.
In his own words:
Neil Young’s 1974 album, On The Beach, has always been one of my favourite records. I always loved the stripped-down instrumentation and production and many of the songs are like uncut poetic gems, all the more beautiful for their raw unpolished quality. Like Springsteen’s Nebraska, this album captures the full scope of a songwriter at the peak of creativity, uncensored and essential.
Here’s my version of the song, For the turnstiles, one of my favourites from the album and a song that playfully evokes mortality and the exit or turnstile that awaits us all at one point or another. In homage to his original banjo part, I played the song with slide guitar and fretless banjo.
Photo Credit: Mr Cup