Sade - Soldier of Love

^^good post

xps "U HEARD ME" is kinda telegraphing the challop, don't u think?

obv

still think she's saying flame xxpost

It's "flame," not "fling."

I doubt I will ever feel an urge to listen to anything but "Soldier of Love" itself.

― Andy K, Monday, February 8, 2010 9:43 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark

When I posted this, I should have noted that there was a source: the booklet.

Also:

http://www.sade.com/us/lyrics/babyfather/

interesting hear that from an official source (i commented on this before when i read that on some random lyrics page) but to me it clearly sounds like fling. i have a theory: she put it on the lyrics sheet as "flame" so as not to harsh her daughter, but sang it as "fling".

of course i could be reading way to much into this, obviously. anyway i like it as "fling" so i'll continue to choose to hear it as "fling"!

Anyone with the time or cash to see the current Sade tour (first in ten years!) would be well served snagging a ticket. She was great last night, smooth as silk and oddly down to earth for someone of her status and reputation. Sound/band was great, too, and visuals were minimal but effective. I had my doubts she would work in an arena, but I was proven wrong. She may also be the best looking 52-year old I have ever seen.

She may also be the best looking 52-year old woman I have ever seen.

shes been doing arena tours for so long id hope shed be good! would have loved to have seen it last night $$$$$$$

saw the tour 2 days back (wednesday). HOLY SHIT so good. all the new stuff from Soldier of Love.... excellent. Love Deluxe cuts (cherish the day, kiss of life, no ordinary love, pearls) and Lovers Rock (by your side, king of sorrow) all fucking dynamite. only thing a bit cheesy was the old lounge-y stuff, the sweetest taboo, smooth operator... etc. but about 90% solid gold. "jezebel" was stunning, "morning bird" WOWOWOW. whole show was just so good really. john legend not bad either!

Those songs are not cheesy damn u

hope this record has risen in ppl's estimations over the past few years. "in another time" is probably my favorite sade song at this point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68OTrm5fC9o

Good call – I'd forgotten about "In Another Time."

"Be That Easy" :O

The whole second half really. Plus the rest.

about to be the ten year anniv

i hate reading my tone in these old threads but i stand by the gist of 'being really stoked abt this album'

10 years wow. I still feel like I somehow haven’t yet had time to give it a good listen.

11th anniversary!

oh damn ... i cant count

#74 on pitchfork year end list .... ariel pink #1 ... thoughts on which has aged better

I was about to say: this came out when I was still in office at XLR8R, which ended in mid-2010. We had an office listening party when it came out.

love this album so gd much

"be that easy" ... "in another time" ... tears

I remember my shock of glee when the title track was so awesome.

Just think: the Dems hadn't lost control of the Senate yet.

man this album

i'm finally diving into it and i really think it might be their best. how anything can deal with death so forthrightly and have such a light touch at the same time feels like such a miracle. somehow even the family stuff reaches me - the treatment is gentle, relieving, unsentimental, full of detail and observation, the truth there is so undeniable. her vocal performances on these tracks.. there's a whole life and universe there, they feel truly representative of all of humanity. some of these songs have 'recently minted songbook standard' vibes to them. at the same time there's something unassuming to the whole thing, sort of hidden in plain sight. what an achievement.

be that easy, babyfather and soldier of love are great songs

otm

be that easy completely destroys me.

i'm not sure who exactly some of these songs are addressed to, but it seems like it may be ... god ...?

also, i really did need to know that in spite of the long hard road ahead it's going to be alright. you know?

just like, crying for 30 minutes straight in the car while this cd plays

Just discovered on YT the clips of the official live recording of 2011. Wonderful and unusual staging. Might buy a DVD for the first time in 15 years

“Be That Easy” is so fuckin nice

no love for 'skin' ....

I doubt I will ever feel an urge to listen to anything but "Soldier of Love" itself.

― Andy K, Monday, February 8, 2010 8:43 AM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

curious if andy has come around

That's all he's listened to since 2010.

"skin" is divine.

i've had this in my car for a few weeks now. it's a total comfort listen. something about this combo: grief / family loss + the sober / real / "morning after" vocals + incredible grooves / very crafty but light touch on everything.

"the moon and the sky" is lush and almost gothic, what an anthem about love turned on its head.
those last few minutes of "soldier of love" are such a groove - p funk vibes.
"morning bird" is devastating mothers' grief.
"babyfather" is wonderful, it's honestly not my favorite thing here because of the subject matter but it's very seductive.
"long hard road" is a perfect miniature about being lost and moving ahead anyway.
"be that easy" - obsessed with this.
"bring me home" - this song is nuts. did i ever think i would hear a sade song about being at that stage in life where you just want to die + major halloween vibes? there's almost a spiteful joy for me in singing along to it.
"in another time" - matthewman's sax! the first time it shows up on the album, and what a song for it. just like, "fuck those dudes." time washes away everything.
"skin" - "cause you're not right within" - probably the sickest burn i have ever heard
"the safest place" i have never had a child but this is very compelling, very rich soundscape

my ranking is something like

"be that easy" > "moon and the sky" = "soldier of love" = "skin" = "in another time" = "bring me home" > "long hard road" = "morning dove" > "babyfather" = "the safest place"

it's not like i've heard very much music, but i've never heard anything in the pop realm that gets so real about death and loss and what it takes (or doesn't take) to deal with it.

"be that easy" gets me literally every time i listen to it. when the thesis of the song arrives, that she could have been falling all these years, full of air, sun on her face wind in her hair, falling down, flying as slow as she can, not trying to reach the land, just falling somewhere - that, to me, is maybe the most beautiful thing i've ever heard, and i burst into tears every time she sings it.

I remember not thinking about Sade for years, until I noticed a bunch of live videos on Youtube that had ten million views apiece, e.g. this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au8rHGvytn8

They're one of those bands that are much bigger in the US than the UK. The more I hear the more the strike me as a hidden gem - the stereotype in the 1980s was that they made smooth music for Porsche-owning businesspeople who had compact disc players, but in 2023 we are all Porsche-driving businesspeople with compact disc players. Obviously no literally. But metaphorically. On a more serious level I've always found it hard to get into The Blue Nile because their production smacks of the period whereas Sade has a timeless quality. I can see the band being popular with modern internet kids.

It's odd how bands you ignore when you're young creep up on you. I'm still thrown by the resurgence of interest in Slowdive. Of all the bands! Slowdive. I would never have predicted Slowdive coming back into fashion, not in a million years. But Sade is still sort-of in fashion because they're still the same band, they didn't stop.

I learn from discogs.com that some vinyl pressings of the first album had SHAR-DAY written on the LP labels.

Sade are great. I’m glad you are on the right side.

except this business of timelessness ;)

i mean, time is a major theme for this band, but it's definitely mortal time.

i love all of the albums but none have quite flashed 'this is a major work of art' at me like soldier of love has. still i don't think it's perfect. the last song doesn't quite gel for me.

map i've been appreciating your sporadic dispatches in this thread. it's prompted me to play the album front to back a couple times for the first time in many years; probably since it was new. it really has opened up, keeping the themes of your insights in mind. thank you.

same -- love the posts, map

ty, glad it prompts a relisten.

"babyfather" is wonderful, it's honestly not my favorite thing here because of the subject matter but it's very seductive.

"babyfather" is a major-key, positive, chill song that sounds bright. but ironically it might be the most painful song for me to listen to on this album because of the failures of my own father.

“be that easy” <333

i am still listening to this in the car on repeat! not much new to add, other than i went back to love deluxe for a few weeks and noticed that "cherish the day" shares some of the thesis of "be that easy," with a different emphasis. for a long time i heard those first words of the chorus, "i cherish the day," with an implied "when" after it. as in "i cherish the day (when something unnamed but wonderful happens)". i think this is a construction i picked up from a religious upbringing (as in, "the day of the lord's return" or whatever). anyway, i only recently realized that she means "the day" as in "the daytime" as in "the present". and the song is a meditation on the sacredness of the conscious present. similarly, the thesis of "be that easy" is that after a lifetime of being propped up ("that's just like you to tell me i've nothing to fear") or torn down ("i am a broken house"), she sees clearly that what life is is a "falling", stripped to its essence of being-in-time ("full of air / sun on my face wind in my hair"). as a falling, it isn't just the day, it's a succession of days arranged in this beautiful arc of grace. i hope that's not overdescribed. anyway, now i'm curious to go back further and listen for other traces of this kind of meaning-of-life-is-the-present-moment stuff in the 80s records.

"in another time," the whole effect of the song is right there in the title. how to make a peaceful time in the future speak to the hurt of the past, like clean water clearing out a stagnant pond or a breeze bringing in something new that smells safe and alive. that whole outro with the violin and the piano and then the saxophone is this gentle wave that crests right in the last few seconds.

"bring me home," i just want to highlight this line: "the small step i need to take is a mountain / stretched out like a lazy dog." makes me shiver every time. like, can someone call and check on sade i'm a little worried about her. i mean obv the song is from the pov of someone seeking death, not a personal reflection, but that kind of image can't come from anything else but deeply felt experience imo.

I'm loving this live blogging.

I haven't read all of this thread but I just recently re-listened to love deluxe/lovers rock and I was very struck by how out of time Sade's musical progression is. I haven't listened to Soldier of Love or the 80s records in a bit but it struck me that as much as Sade was influenced by things going on musically around them (I get a strong Ibiza vibe at times on Lover's Rock for example) they also seem totally out of time. Or maybe more correctly in their own timeline. Like the hints of Soldier of Love already exist in Lover's Rock 9 years earlier and the same goes for Love Deluxe/Lover's Rock. Unlike say, Portishead where Third feels like an entirely new thing strung together by Gibbons' voice Sade feels very in touch with their earlier music over the long stretches of time between their records.

excited to read through the rest of your thoughts map.

map forced me to buy a copy of Soldier of Love (I'd burned several tracks + remixes long ago). I'm loving it, certainly their best since 1988.