Honest to god, I don’t know what it is about this song but every time I hear the opening string salvo it makes me want to bawl. Lighthouse Family were big in our country for all of one minute in the late 90s with this song, which sits on a similar feelgood-but-don’t-tell-anyone-I-like-it plane to Des’ree’s ‘‘. Yesterday, I met up with a friend in London who I haven’t seen in six years and she very kindly let me go back to her office to load up my iPhone with some much-needed new music, seeing as there’s only so much Bon Iver, Laura Marling and nonstop Jamiroquai I can listen to after two months abroad. Scrolling down her iTunes, I happened upon Lighthouse Family’s greatest hits at which point I’m all ‘They have more than two songs?’ and she’s all ‘Don’t laugh, they’re quality!’
Quality indeed. I woke up to this on the couch I’ve been calling home for the past 7 days and it’s a great way to get out of bed. There’s a great dynamic between the white guy who obviously does the arrangements and the black guy -his name is Tunde for those of you playing at home- who provides those smooth-as vocals. For a one-hit (sorry, first of many hits) wonder, it’s got a hell of a lot going on aside from the chorus that everyone knows. That bass line is the work of some pop genius for sure, and if you listen beneath the lyrics you’ll hear this wicked Hammond Organ bubbling chords as if completely aware that they’re not supposed to be there. This works like ‘Would I Lie To You?‘ works, not because it has to but because the sheer grace of God compels it to.
So it’s nice that I’ve picked an inherently British tune while I’m enjoying the spoils of London like free art, claustrophobic public transport and cider for miles. Lighthouse Family have been making people happy/teary since they met at Newcastle University in 1993. If you’re having a bad day, this’ll cheer you up quick smart. It is what it was designed to do, I, Robot style. Altogether now, ‘We are gonna be, forever you and me…’
Sent from J’s iPhone outside the National Gallery, London.
Lighthouse Family – ‘High’
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[...] of vaguely interested one-liners, ‘Hey, what up?’ and the like, as prefaces to those blogs he so kindly taps out on his iPhone in the galleries and on the public transport of Europe), [...]
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