Since my Song Obsession series tends to follow a stream-of-consciousness format anyway, here's the convoluted backstory of how I discovered (and started obsessing over) a song from an album that I've had in my collection for 12 years — yet somehow never heard.
Three years ago, an acquaintance of mine discovered Music League, an easy way to turn your love of music into a competition. This acquaintance was part of a friend group that was both competitive and musically inclined, and soon we had formed our first league, trying to out-do each other with songs that exuded "Existential Dread" or addressed God & Religion — at least according to the whims of the voters.
You'd think "songs released in 1995" would be a simple enough theme, but I spent more time than I should have compiling a list of potential submissions, consulting rateyourmusic.com, my own collection, and other sources to put together a Spotify playlist that I still listen to somewhat frequently (this one — if you're interested).
And I realized pretty quickly that I enjoyed putting together the playlists of potential Music League submissions each week much more than actually participating in Music League. Sure, the fact that my submission that week (Sparklehorse - Hammering the Cramps) finished a miserable 17th out of 18 places, while the winner (Guided By Voices - Game of Pricks) was one of my potential submissions didn't help. But I'm not a sore loser. I swear.
But we're still not to the topic at hand, so we should fast forward to about a month ago. I was remembering how much fun I'd had putting together a list of songs from 1995 and decided I'd begin a slightly more ambitious playlist for the year 1991. Focussing on rock and rock-adjacent albums, I began my attempt to pull a song I enjoyed from every album on rateyourmusic.com's top album chart for 1991.
The process started easily enough, at the top of the charts. I just had to pick one song per album, and I already considered some of these albums stone classics. Of course, part of the fun here is listening through the album before making the pick — now you may be seeing why I considered this playlist "ambitious".
I'll admit I was a bit surprised to see Swan's White Light from the Mouth of Infinity so high up on the list at #7 since I hadn't considered it one of their strongest. But this was the perfect opportunity to revisit an album I hadn't listened to in a while. My immediate goal was to identify a song that resonated with me, but maybe I'd even develop a newfound appreciation for the album as a whole.
White Light... reveals itself slowly. This was likely one of my original problems with the album hearing it for the first time years ago. I came to Swans via those they'd influenced in the Industrial and Noise genres, and this album is very much something else (the RYM tags of "Neofolk" and "Gothic Rock" seem OK as approximations). While this is Swans — definitively — there are acoustic guitars, melodies, and even choruses!
The album was moving into its final third, but I still wasn't confident in my selection for the playlist. "Song for the Sun" was the tentative choice when suddenly I was gripped by the fading in of strings, minimalistic drums and a simple, but very effective, guitar line. And then Michael Gira's voice, pure and clean. I was entranced.
"Blind" is somehow the most-Swans while also being an outlier, even for the version of Swans that put together White Light... The lyrical themes and overall sound seem at home here, but something about the song cuts through. Sonically, the song seems more layered and punchy (something about the choir-like backing track fronted by a thumping kick drum). But it's Gira's voice that makes the biggest impact. He's actually singing, and the lyrics seem to be the most direct and personal I've heard, at least compared to anything he'd done up to that point. It's almost like it would make more sense on a Michael Gira solo album or something.
Either way, I definitely had my playlist contribution selected for the album. And I was just a little annoyed with myself that I'd been sleeping on this song (and album) for so long.
But here's where a bit of happenstance inserted itself. I'd been doing the listening while working using the Spotify app rather than firing up my digital copy. I'd been obsessing about the song for a few weeks by this point and decided I'd probably have to write about it. Now working on my personal laptop, I fired up my digital copy and was confused that the 10th track was "When She Breathes", the album had only 12 tracks, and "Blind" was nowhere to be found. What the heck?
While it was recorded during the same sessions that produced White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, "Blind" was left off the original release of the album. Instead, it was first released as the final track of Michael Gira's solo album Drainland. The remastered version of White Light... released in 2015 — the only version available on Spotify — includes "Blind" as the 10th track.
Perhaps I could understand why Gira would decide to leave "Blind" for his solo album. Drainland definitely needed the help. But for me, had it been included, "Blind" would have been the hook that kept me coming back to White Light... for the last 12 years, rather than letting it languish amongst the "not quites" in my collection. Not anymore.
P.S. here's my Rock '91 playlist if you're interested. It's still very much a work in progress. I may end up writing more about the process of compiling it down the road sometime, if I can ever get it "finished."