Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Best Cocteau Twins Song?

I listened to Head over Heels and Treasure obsessively in the 80s and my fave was "Five Ten and Fifty Fold". Looking back these two albums expressed my deep trauma, depression and loneliness and weirdly the ephemarality of it was like musical heroin.

I really believe both albums contributed greatly to me managing to tap into deep, hidden, painful shit, REALLY feel it, accept it and then somehow transcend my personal circumstances, because of the irresistible glimpses of beautiful soul. Like it was shit but not all was lost....keep striving to be yourself, whatever.

Earlier it was ' Pornography' by the Cure and "Closer" by Joy Division and then " Second Hand Daylight" by Magazine.
 
Steel Icarus said:
Bluebell Knoll for me. Does weird things to me and transports me to a specific time when it felt like possibilities and wonder were permanent and infinite.
Click to expand...
I've been listening to Sunburst and Snowblind/Head over Heels this week. But Bluebell Knoll is my favourite album. Absolutely transporting. I like to put it on in the car on a beautiful day, or else when it's autumnal and misty.

stavros said:
Sugar Hiccup is the exception for me, although only because it was my introduction to them, on a 25 year Rough Trade compilation.
Click to expand...
Posted Sugar Hiccup on the 'What are you listening to' thread the other day.

CT reminds me of a specific time in my life when I got into their music, but it wasn't when it came out, it was '99/2000. Beautiful (and poignant) memories of stuff that was happening with this as a soundtrack.

There's one album my ex had that I loved, but haven't been able to track down. It's ages since I tried, I'll have another look for it. Don't know the title, but can picture the album cover. Red. And purple.
 
chainsawjob said:
I've been listening to Sunburst and Snowblind/Head over Heels this week. But Bluebell Knoll is my favourite album. Absolutely transporting. I like to put it on in the car on a beautiful day, or else when it's autumnal and misty.


Posted Sugar Hiccup on the 'What are you listening to' thread the other day.

CT reminds me of a specific time in my life when I got into their music, but it wasn't when it came out, it was '99/2000. Beautiful (and poignant) memories of stuff that was happening with this as a soundtrack.

There's one album my ex had that I loved, but haven't been able to track down. It's ages since I tried, I'll have another look for it. Don't know the title, but can picture the album cover. Red. And purple.
Click to expand...
Was it this one:
Cocteau_Twins—Heaven_or_Las_Vegas.jpg
 

Attachments

  • images.jpeg
    images.jpeg
    7.8 KB · Views: 3
kalidarkone said:
I'm on a mission now!
Click to expand...
That's sweet of you! I mean it's possible I'm misremembering it, but I did look nearer to the time, 20 years ago, and nothing came up. Don't think it's either of those, sorry. I remember the cover being mainly red, with a bit of purple, and I don't think any writing at all on it. Just swirly abstract stuff, like all their covers! It was also a paper/cardboard one iiirc, which was unusual back then.
 
I recognise Heaven or Las Vegas, and Milk & Kisses, so I'd remember if it was either of those. That last one you posted, with the horizontal lines, I don't recognise. Can't read the album title.
 
stavros said:
Sugar Hiccup is the exception for me, although only because it was my introduction to them, on a 25 year Rough Trade compilation.
Click to expand...
Huh, same here. Although I then didn't really go on to listen to anything else by them for a good decade or so after that, after first hearing that giant compilation as a teenager I didn't properly get into them until I was about thirty and very into someone who was very into them, so Pearly Dewdrops Drops was more of my proper introduction to them. And... I want to say either Persephone or Pandora off Treasure, but if I can't remember for certain which one it is I don't think I can claim it as a favourite song. This thread has now reminded me of the, in retrospect somewhat unlikely, fact that, during the non-Cocteau Twins-listening phase of my life, I once hosted a Cocteau Twins-themed party at my house. Fond memories of the peppermint-flavoured pig jelly someone made for that.

Also been reminded of the excellent Patricia Lockwood article on It'll End in Tears by This Mortal Coil:
harpers.org

Heaven or St. Louis, by Patricia Lockwood

From an essay that considers the album It’ll End in Tears by This Mortal Coil, and is included in the collection Long Players, which was published in August by Bloomsbury. Full disclosure: I initially purchased this album for gay reasons. There’s a sort of hot Pre-Raphaelite ghost clutching...
harpers.org harpers.org

Another disclosure: I did not, at the height of my musical listening career, listen to albums in a normal way. My usual practice was to lie down on the floor like a huge fetus, place my ear against the speaker, and pretend I was in a warm aural womb where God was growing me through an umbilicus that could only be described as my own tenuous grip on reality. You might expect this attitude to prepare me to hear Liz Fraser’s voice for the first time. It didn’t.

No disrespect to the many other fine musicians who worked on the album, but for me it was about that voice—rooted, aerial, as flexible in its upper registers as it was rich in its middle, revolving around an unchanging axis of pitch, poured into various blown-glass containers of made-up language. It was like what a woman totally alone on a planet, unexposed either to other human beings or traditional forms of music, might decide to do with a nameless substance she had discovered in her own throat: Play with it, stretch it, see what it could become. Toss it away, let it come back to her; teach it tricks, teach it words; drop it into a dry riverbed and let it flow uphill. Was this what was going on in Scotland?

I paused after her first song and experimentally hooted like a crystal owl. No, I couldn’t do it. Harder than it seemed. Impossible, actually. When the album was over, I uncurled myself from the speaker and sat up to examine the hot ghost on the jewel case, then flopped back down and pressed play again. Forgive the dramatics, but I had never been so completely the target audience for something before—motionless on the floor, gay, made of gauze, clutching myself against a background of dissolving stars, something valuable in my throat, I could feel it.
Click to expand...
 
Voley said:
Been on a bit of a Cocteaus binge of late (after hearing her new band who are superb).

Stuck it all together here if you want a listen. Bit difficult to get it down in length so there's, erm, about two hours of it. :o

Click to expand...

Cheers for that , will listen later 😎 I should have been into the Cocteau Twins when they first appeared but somehow missed them.
 
I only really know Pearly Dewdrops´ Drops, but this (mostly) 13 year-old thread has inspired me.

My friend Simon, who died in 2001, was a big Cocteaus fan, so it´s about time I seriously checked them out.
 
Every so often a certain CT track would become an earworm in my head, I used to go through my collection listening to the first few bars of dozens and dozens of tracks trying to find it. It used to drive me mad cos I knew it was one of theirs.

Finally I just realised I was missing an album :facepalm:

Anyway love this song as I find it massively uplifting!

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Voley
Cocteau Twins
2
Replies
41
Views
669
SpookyFrank
SpookyFrank
VivaE
A celebration of poetry to song
Replies
20
Views
455
hitmouse
hitmouse
Humberto
  • Poll Poll
Best Mr. Tambourine Man
Replies
25
Views
390
Humberto
Humberto
tommers
  • Poll Poll
Best Dire Straits Album
2 3
Replies
73
Views
1K
tommers
tommers
Shippou-Sensei
Is this song being deliberately erased? Luiz Bonfá
Replies
5
Views
361
Lurdan
Lurdan
Back
Top Bottom