Day seven of Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas posts is upon us, well as I type this it is technically nearly over. So Christmas is now in the fast lane and Chris Rea is on his way home! All of you regular readers (thank you for sticking with me and welcome to all the new readers too) will know that this year, once again, the theme is the classic cumulative song “The Twelve Days Of Christmas”. What gift was presented on the seventh day of Christmas? It was of course Seven Swans A- Swimming. The link to todays tune is not as tenuous as some of the earlier entries.
Today’s track is by Public Image Ltd and it is “Swan Lake” from the ‘Metal Box’ album. The song was originally released as a single called “Death Disco” in 1979 but was remixed and retitled “Swan Lake” for ‘Metal Box’. Guitarist Keith Levene said this of the track “I realised that this tune that I was bastardising by mistake was “Swan Lake”, so I started playing it on purpose but I was doing it from memory. You can hear that I’m not playing it exactly right. It just worked. There’s a few versions of that. The one on Metal Box is version two, which is very different from the simpler, original 12-inch version.” The lyrics are based on John Lydon’s mother dying of cancer he has spoken about the lyrics many times and said “When I had to deal with my mother’s death, which upset the fuck out of me, I did it partly through music. I had to watch her die slowly of cancer for a whole year. I wrote “Death Disco” about that. I played it to her just before she died and she was very happy. That’s the Irish in her, nothing drearily sympathetic or weak.”. In addition to Lydon and Levene another member of the classic PIL line up played on the song, Mr. Jah Wobble. The melody comes from what many consider to be the finest ballet ever written, “Swan Lake” composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
There will be a playlist of all twelve songs when we get to the final one? In fact that playlist is under the streaming Christmas tree already. I will unwrap it soon for you! What do you think tomorrows song will be?
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