June 16, 2009

Down so Low, Linda Ronstadt

album: Hasten Down the Wind,
artist: Linda Ronstadt
song: Down so Low
year: Mid Seventies

So it’s a tearjerker. So it’s sentimental blues with traces of country music. It remains a great song.
What a singer. Eventhough this girl can scream, she’s not a screamer. She has a natural talent for dosage of the volume. She can switch instantly from a pumped up and elongated shout, to a low volume whisper - and we don’t hear the faintest crack or breathing error (this version is the live version). With this particular song it’s not only about Ronstadt’s near to pefect singing-skills, or what a powerful performer she is. It’s not even because of this brilliant song [written by Tracy Nelson in 1968], the modulations in it, the surprising rythm and counter-rythm, the weird transitions. 
For me it’s the combination, and the contrast, of musician and composition. The cleanness of her voice (with that voice it would have been so easy to just ‘dumpty-dum-de-dum' along) set against the roughness and despair the lyrics convey, set against the stammering of the rythm and music. It still gets to me even after a zillion years.