Currently my favourite tracks from this album. Why does no-one else seem to like it?

Good question Steve!

I suppose it might be that NOOD is not everyone's favourite LP and if this is considered an average song from it few could be bothered to submit a post.
I agree with you that it IS a good song, and although the melody is a jaunty one the message of the song is I think a sober one.

"time is burning, burning, burning it burns away"

For one that returns to the village where his parents, grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents have gravestones it is a reminder of mortality. The stone remains when the flesh and blood are long gone and the deceased are no longer in living memory: it does indeed "weather well"

Just the impression it had on me

Have a good day!

Mike

Having WBC, Caramel, Stockings, and Birthday on the same album may just squeeze Tombstone down a bit. Just how many 'great' songs can can there be on one album?

Also, may I offer the idea, that since it is not a one that is played much in concert, and that would further hold it down.{ch}I know that JC will say that Marching Dream is not played and that it is more liked. This may be because it is rare.

Uncwilly

Long live "The Marching Dream"!

I'm sure Suzanne can't help playing it very soon, now that it is featured on the Windows Walk T-shirt.

J.C.
President of The Marching Dream Association

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josé carlos wrote:

> J.C., President of The Marching Dream Association

i hereby apply to be an honorable member of the above mentioned association.

remember me, philipp

Hi Philipp,

The Association has just doubled its number of members. I think we start to need a website.

J.C.

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I've had a new thought about "Tombstone" tonight. The tombstone could be a metaphor for something else.... something "carved in stone" so does speak, like a recording.

I guess I always come back to recordings when I interpret Suzanne's music. I guess maybe if we have anything in common at all it would be the love of vinyl LP's.

Anyway, just listen to Sinatra sing "I'll be home for christmas" this coming season and tell me that isn't some kind of permanant etching to speak for a man who has passed over.

Maybe what Suzanne is really saying in "Tombstone" is that she'd rather leave her mark on the world than play it safe.

Anyway, long live Suzanne Vega!
I'm hoping for at least five or six more albums out of this legendary poet.

It's been forever since I heard this song. My copy of NOoD was destroyed in a car accident, along with Live in London, her eponymous debut, Solitude Standing, my Japanese import of SiRaG, and a CD that had "Boulevardiers" and other cool rare and early songs on it. Boo hoo.

But I remember "Tombstone" being one of my favorite 2, 3, or maybe 4 songs on NOoD when I first got it, and it was always one of my favorite on that album. It's a neat little song with a cool sound and I am willing to bet that there is even more to it than I originally thought. You guys aren't the only ones who like it a good bit.

-M

it's my fave on this album. ppl think I'm weird 'cause I keep singing it. how come nobody knows WHO SV is ?

Useless trivia time:
Before this song starts, The piano comes in too early, and then a voice says "once more", and the song begins. Who says these words?

Yuval =8-)

Yuval wrote: > Useless trivia time: > Before this song starts, The piano comes in too early, and then a > voice says "once more", and the song begins. Who says these words? Well, I always thought that this is what was said during the recording process. And that Suzanne decided later that she like to have it on the album track, and not to have it cut out. It`s the same with "Headshots" - did you ever hear the small sigh (of Suzanne) right in the beginning? To me, it feels like this special recording was the 42th or so rehearsal this evening and that everybody was tired of working... I like these little sounds, like that the songs are not too perfect or overproduced!

Nothing much (not much) Moni.

>=20 >=20 > Thanks, Moni, for showing me the pair of glasses on my head ;-) Once agai= n=20 I rediscover some endearing small detail in one of Suzanne's songs, and it= =20 makes me listen to the song for the first time all over again. And the=20 beauty of the thing is that listening to an old song means not only=20 remembering the beauty of the music or the brilliance of the lyrics, but=20 also the Towies who discussed the song and the main points of the=20 discussion. For instance, I remember the article that Bruce M. wrote about= =20 Headshots, about the memory of a poster of a boy who seems to be rememberin= g=20 something else... sort of a serial memory connection (may the geek god=20 forgive me for this awful joke).

This is the weakest song on the album for me, but I still quite like it. If I'm honest it's more for the mood conveyed by the production than the song, though, and Suzanne's voice sounds a bit too dry and upfront for my liking on this one.

I've always liked that song a lot. When the album came out, it had been a while since I'd played Suzanne's music, and I still only had "Solitude Standing" back then. What I remembered was the mood of "Solitude Standing" and I was really surprised by what I heard then. I guess that the songs I liked the most on this album were the ones that really surprised me (I hadn't heard "99.9 F" yet). "Tombstone" was one of them. Something about the contrast between the title and the mood -- the idea of writing such a cheerful song about death and dancing on tombstones. I think that's what made me love the song in the first place.

Very wrong! one of my very favorites to so your not alone there, its a wicked track love it.

 

Kevin