Happy Birthday, Iva Davies of Icehouse!

A very happy birthday to Mr. Iva Davies, founder, lead singer, multi-instrumentalist, and immensely talented songwriter of the Australian band Icehouse.

I am feeling great love and nostalgia for this 1980 song from their debut album. Not only is Icehouse the name of the group, having changed it from their original name Flowers, but the song itself is also titled "Icehouse." Although Icehouse was never truly seen as a New Romantic band (yet they were tagged with the catch-all New Wave title by some), I sure felt they belonged with other fantastic New Romantic groups like Ultravox. The "Icehouse" song and their debut album (as well as their sophomore album "Primitive Man") was an atmospheric, synth-heavy affair with a marvelous use of texture. The accompanying video resembles New Romantic classics like Ultravox's "The Thin Wall" and "The Voice," and even Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Draw Of The Cards," all directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy. Follow this haunting, touching narrative that beautifully supports the chilling, profound lyrics and aching, moving melody.

It's always cold inside the icehouse
Though the rivers never freeze
There's a girl outside the icehouse
I can see her clearly though the trees

Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She's got so long to wait for him
Because he needs another year to get there

She'll wait another lifetime out there

There's no love inside the icehouse

The devil lives inside the icehouse
At least that's what the old ones say
They say He came along time ago
He came here in the winter snow
Now it's colder every day

But she's still dreaming through the summer
And she's hoping through the spring
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse

 
Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse
There's no love inside the icehouse
The icehouse

Happy Birthday, Iva! Thanks for sharing decades of your music with us.

https://icehouse-ivadavies.com/

Currently listening to...

...Icehouse sing "Great Southern Land," a lovely, melancholy ode to Australia, "hidden in the summer for a million years."

This video from 1982 begins with a 2011 introduction from smooth-voiced frontman Iva Davies.

Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
Stranded like a runaway, lost at sea
City on a rainy day down in the harbour
Watching as the grey clouds shadow the bay
Looking everywhere 'cause I had to find you
This is not the way that I remember it here
Anyone will tell you it's a prisoner island
Hidden in the summer for a million years

Great Southern Land, burned you black

So you look into the land and it will tell you a story
Story 'bout a journey ended long ago
Listen to the motion of the wind in the mountains
Maybe you can hear them talking like I do
". . they're gonna betray, they're gonna forget you
Are you gonna let them take you over this way . ."

Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
You walk alone like a primitive man
And they make it work with sticks and bones
See their hungry eyes, it's a hungry home
I hear the sound of the stranger's voices
I see their hungry eyes, their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
They burned you black, black against the ground

Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
Stranded like a runaway, lost at sea
City on a rainy day down in the harbour
Watching as the grey clouds shadow the bay
Looking everywhere, I had to find you
This is not the way that I remember it here
Anyone will tell you it's a prisoner island
Hidden in the summer for a million years

Great Southern Land, in the sleeping sun
You walk alone with the ghost of time
Well, they burned you black, black against the ground
And they make it work with rocks and sand
I hear the sound of the stranger's voices
I see their hungry eyes, their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
You walk alone, like a primitive man
You walk alone with the ghost of time
And they burned you black
Yeah, they burned you black
Great Southern Land

http://www.icehouse-ivadavies.com/

Currently listening to...

...the classic Bowie song "Heroes." I first heard this song one Friday or Saturday night when I was a young boy... my parents would go to bed and let me stay up to watch "Midnight Special" or "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" or whatever was on after 11PM--or even after 1AM! There I was, on the shag carpet in front of the TV, when Bowie's silhouette appeared, long and slim, seeming to float in a wash of bright light. The image was stark and otherworldy. But what really got me was the sound--that sound. How to describe it? A magical, heart-stopping wall of sound that seemed to pulse from another dimension, a rumbling, reverberating drone... a roaring that could be a billion heartbeats, the grinding of time itself. I mean, come on... what else sounded like this at that time? Nothing. Bowie and genius Brian Eno created a sonic texture never heard before.

And then there's Bowie's stunning vocal performance... screaming out with emotion, his voice breaking as he howls out images that evoke concentration camps or the divided Berlin, where the song was recorded. I have heard "Heroes" probably a million times over the years, but I can still think back to that time when the sound of the music and his voice were startling, improbable, but so inexplicably fresh. Watch him perform "Heroes" and see and hear for yourself... try to feel it again like it is the first time.

As you can imagine, "Heroes" has become one of Bowie's signature songs and he has performed it many times over the years. Below is a dedicated, energetic version he performed at Live Aid in 1985...

Growing old gracefully, here is Bowie performing a soaring, anthemic version of "Heroes" in 2002...

Of course with a song this great, many artists and bands have been compelled to cover this song over the decades. Some versions I love as much as the original (it is a song that is hard to ruin, afterall). Below are some highlights of this much-loved and oft-covered song...

Peter Gabriel sings a devastatingly beautiful, trembling, painful version of "Heroes." A studio version of this can be found on his "Scratch My Back" release.
At the 2:40 mark, listen to a genuine goosebump moment as Gabriel cries out and everything falls away but those high strings, hanging there, shimmering...

Australia's national treasure, Iva Davies, does a lovely and faithful version. His elegiac studio recording of "Heroes" can be found on "The Berlin Tapes," a marvelous collection of cover songs from various artists, beautifully interpreted by Davies...

English band Kasabian offers up a fantastic, down n' dirty psychedelic cover...

And just for fun, here is Gregorian doing a perfectly dignified version...