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In general, people who know Daniel Lanois know him from the musical acts he’s produced: U2, Robbie Robertson, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, and Emmylou Harris, just to name a few.  His partner in crime, Brian Eno, also shares in many of his production credits, and, truth be told, sometime it’s tough to know how these two split up the work.  Eno’s eggheadish tendencies, while brilliant at times, seem to be tempered by Lanois’ more rootsy approach to music.  The combination has resulted in some interesting and engaging albums by the performers above, but what about Lanois’ own music?  Well, that’s what this mix is about — so let’s get started, shall we?

“Sleeping in the Devil’s Bed,” Daniel Lanois (download)

In a way, I’m cheating by including this song as separate from the album The Beauty of Wynona.  “Sleeping in the Devil’s Bed” first appeared on the Until the End of the World soundtrack, and a shorter version was included on The Beauty of Wynona.  I have both iterations now (thanks to Scott Malchus), but I prefer this one — mostly because I first heard the song on this soundtrack.  Lanois’ vocal style varies from album to album, but on this song it’s clear that he was influenced by Bob Dylan when he worked with Dylan on Oh Mercy. (more…)

Has this ever happened to you?

You’ve bought a new album. You put it on and hit “play,” and as it’s playing, you find that you’re enjoying it well enough, but it’s not really grabbing you…until, suddenly, the album hits a particular song, and - bam! - you’re in love. You play the song again. Damn, that’s good. And now that your ears are open, you find yourself wondering if the remainder of the album is just as good, so you let it continue playing…and you find that, yes, it is! Then, you realize that you need to go back and start the record over from the beginning, since you weren’t really paying enough attention when it first started….and, holy crap, you must’ve been drunk or something, because it’s so obvious to you now that this entire album is brilliant!

That, in a nutshell, is what I experienced when I first heard The Devlins’ “Alone in the Dark,” and it’s how their debut album, Drift, became one of my favorite albums of 1993.

“Alone in the Dark” is, for my money, one of the sexiest and most sensual songs ever written. It has been included on many a mix tape over the years…though, of course, the only one that matters is the one I made for my wife when we first started dating, and any claims to the contrary are damned dirty lies. (Today is our seventh wedding anniversary, as it happens. Happy anniversary, sweetheart!)

It’s a song which begs to be on the soundtrack to a romantic movie, playing as the couple you’ve been rooting for throughout the entire film finally comes together, and if you don’t believe me, just read these lyrics:

I feel the storm, but it’s so strange
To feel desire without the pain
And I feel your eyes search my soul
For sometime sacred, for something more than you need

So tell me what you feel
Tell me every little thing
Tell me all that you are now
And tell me what it’s like to see
From your own heart
Now I’ve got you…alone in the dark

Goosebumps, I tells ya. Goosebumps!

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Playing a disabled or mentally ill character seems like it would be one of the most demanding roles for an actor to portray. It’s probably just as tough for an actress, although few films seem to be centered around handicapped women. It also seems to be something of an initiation rite – although it’s not universal , a large number of the finest actors, particularly in more recent years, have distinguished themselves by portraying characters that are either on the lower end of the intelligence scale, or suffering from a psychiatric disorder that makes coping with the surrounding world into a daily ordeal. In the final few moments of Billy Bob Thornton’s breakthrough performance as both an actor and a director in Sling Blade (1996), a fellow inmate in the mental institution he’s returned to asks him, “What it was like out there, in the world?” Thornton’s character Karl responds with the memorably simple pronouncement, “It was too big.”

The Film: Sling Blade

The Song: “The Maker”

The Artist: Daniel Lanois

Although the immense praise Billy Bob Thornton received for his performance as Karl Childers was well-deserved, it’s actually hard to pin down what handicap or illness Karl suffers from. When he is interviewed by a student reporter at the beginning of the film, the elaborate preparations and preconditions suggest that he suffers from autism and won’t react well to a deviation from routine. His tendency to rub his hands together suggests stereotypy, another common autistic trait. And Karl’s savant-like talent for fixing small engines coupled with his rudimentary social skills add even further to this impression.

However, Karl complacent acceptance of his imminent departure from the mental institution and his ability to adapt to new situations seem to refute this. Furthermore, the instantaneous empathy that Karl begins to show for his newfound friend Frank Wheatley is very uncharacteristic of autistics. Karl’s grasp of the implications of Doyle’s return to the household suggest that he can conceptualize complicated situations, and although Karl’s solution to the problem is very straightforward and simple, it’s a course of action that he contemplates thoroughly before following it through. In both writing and portraying Karl, Billy Bob Thornton managed to create a character that either suffers from a very unique disability or illness, or otherwise suffers from no disability at all other than a need to process information very slowly and a certain lack of initiative. (more…)