When you find out your friend is in a band and has made a record, it’s like finding out that they’re a practicing wizard, a superhero, or secret agent. It often turns music fans/friends into evangelists – “Everyone! Listen to what my friend made!” In the heady days when melancholic northern new wave roamed the Read more about 6.5: Age of Mirrors – Screenplay (1987)[…]
We often find an attachment to certain music during times of emotional upheaval and loss. And it can be a double-edged blade. We love it and find it painful at the same time… because, hey, music is weird – and mysterious. For Graeme, the ending of a relationship led him to this exact place. Around Read more about 6.2: Sarah McLachlan – Surfacing (1997)[…]
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: The Live Sessions – a three-episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio looking at the live music albums that were meaningful to them, and pondering what makes a great live album. During a hellscape of a summer marked by a never-ending work crisis, Graeme learned about the Indigo Girls’ new Read more about The Live Sessions 2: Indigo Girls – Live With The University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra (2018)[…]
When one is at a young age, the way isn’t always as straightforward as we initially think. This is true of the subcultures, ideology and even faith communities we find ourselves in. But what remains after we find ourselves on a different path years later? How do those lessons we picked up from a bygone Read more about 5.5: Steve Taylor – On The Fritz (1985)[…]
Romance! Everyone has an idea of what it means to them. It is certainly attached to intense emotional states, especially when we’re young. By the late eighties, Graeme was in college in doing content creation in a time before podcasts – this time as co-editor of the school newspaper. It was there that his fellow Read more about 5.3: Van Morrison – Poetic Champions Compose (1987)[…]
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: The Soundtrack Sessions – a three-episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio looking at the the intersection between film and music while looking at albums that were meaningful to one of them. As a teenager, Graeme was drawn to the world of orchestral film scores. Thanks to a friend at Read more about The Soundtrack Sessions 3: Ennio Morricone – The Mission (1986)[…]
Why are there so many songs about rainbows? In this last episode of our fourth season, the Deeper Cuts trio indulge in some comfort listening, true to our well-established Muppet Agenda. This time, it revolves around the soundtrack album to 1979’s The Muppet Movie. Saving his money from a paper route, a young Graeme bought Read more about 4.6: The Muppet Movie (Original Soundtrack) (1979)[…]
Sometimes, you find yourself growing up. You realize that some of the things you believed and thought were solid in your life really aren’t – and in fact are even harmful to you. You find you have to question those things to create a new path for yourself. You’ve got to start again. This was Read more about 4.1: Sting – …Nothing Like The Sun (1987)[…]
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: the COVID Sessions — a three episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio taking deep dives into music with deep meaning for us right now as we shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now during the COVID-19 lockdown, a lot of us find ourselves waiting. We’re waiting for Read more about The COVID Sessions 2: Bruce Cockburn – Night Vision (1973)[…]
Spirituality. It’s a pretty open-ended term. But one thing common across the faith spectrum (or the absence thereof) may be the sense of becoming part of something bigger than yourself and experiencing mystery and wonder. It isn’t easily defined and categorized as some systems of faith might have us believe. But it’s significant all the same. Read more about 2.9: Bruce Cockburn – Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws (1979)[…]
The comfort album: in times of trial, it offers just the right song to make things bearable. It give us lyrics that speak directly to us when we’re most in need. They make us feel less alone, and remind us that “this too shall pass” – sometimes very literally. That was Graeme’s predicament at one Read more about 2.5: OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (2010)[…]
Your parents’ music. It can shape your own taste in various capacities. Or it can give you something to rebel against. Sometimes, it can be both. Either way, the music your parents put on when you were a kid isn’t just a soundtrack to your childhood; it’s a part of the tapestry of their personalities, Read more about 2.3: Anne Murray – Let’s Keep It That Way (1978)[…]
What is it about Christmas and holiday music? One thing’s for sure, it definitely takes us back to our childhoods. That’s precisely where Graeme, Shannon, and Rob went on this special holiday episode of Deeper Cuts; specifically, to the 1979 album John Denver and The Muppets – A Christmas Together. They discuss favourite tracks, common Read more about Holiday Special: John Denver and the Muppets – A Christmas Together (1979)[…]
Pop music; we all have to start somewhere. For Graeme, pop music was a big part of his journey as a pre-teen, skipping a grade in school and finding himself surrounded by the monstrous reality known as Junior High School. During that time of awkwardness and alienation, it was Supertramp’s massively popular 1979 album Breakfast Read more about 9: Supertramp – Breakfast In America (1979)[…]
Road trip! It’s a common and very welcome battle cry, even if we’re just taking a journey by ourselves. The best and most memorable road trips are very often, if not always, accompanied by a great soundtrack. For Graeme, that soundtrack was Indigo Girls’ 1992 offering Rites of Passage, an album that he took with Read more about 6: Indigo Girls – Rites of Passage (1992)[…]
If you listened carefully to our “3 minutes more or less” summary of The Sesame Street Record, you might notice that there was one final track in that that’s not in our Spotify Playlist. That’s because the original release of The Sesame Street Record was an LP, on a vinyl record with two sides. The Read more about Bonus Content: The Sesame Street Record’s deleted final track[…]
Chances are, our first encounters with music was that which was aimed right at our hungry little learning minds and dancing little feet. For generations of kids, including our own Graeme Burk, a heavyweight in this department was the original cast recording The Sesame Street Record, released in 1970. Like the groundbreaking TV show it was Read more about 3: The Sesame Street Record (1970)[…]