YOU MAKE ME FEEL BRAND NEW

Sometimes when the noise of the increasingly insane world gets too much, I drown it out of my mind with a song up in the office where I recently installed a record player that had been collecting dust on my work top for almost two years.

Late at night, sitting in my late father's old chair, I sit and meditate in the space after selecting a semi-random song of choice and find myself dissolving in the darkness with just the blue light of the tiny amp (from Chinah!) to keep me company and reminding me that I haven't ascended quite just yet.

I could tell you about how nothing beats the atmosphere of English pastoral classical music on vinyl or chamber music by Mozart and Haydn, as well as Duke Ellington's classic jazz album 'This One's For Blanton' with Ray Brown on Pablo and that would be true enough but I'll save all that for another time I think.

The current highlight of my recent late night record meditations has been The Stylistics 'You Make Me Feel Brand New' (1974) which I've always considered a perfect pop record from Philadelphia, my very favourite stable for soul music.

What was it about this hypnotic track I found so especially moving at this particular juncture of my life? Especially in the midst of a week where the entire globe appears to be descending into a new found circle of hell. Perhaps it's that distinctive, twangy Amaj7 guitar chord that leads into the opening refrain before the tenor vocal of Airrion Love arrives to introduce the first soulful utterances that transition via a three semitone key change into an increasing state of self-realised wonder.

My love

I'll never find the words, my love

To tell you how I feel, my love

Mere words could not explain

Precious love

You held my life within your hands

Created everything I am

Taught me how to live again

Then, much like a slow groove relay race, Love passes the baton to countertenor/falsetto, Russel Thompkins Jr, who masterfully increases the emotional temperature of the track by being even more openly vulnerable in expressing gratitude to the 'you' of the track.

Only you, care when I needed a friend

Believe in me through thick and thin

This song is for you

Filled with gratitude and love

God bless you

You make me feel brand new

For God blessed me with you

You make me feel brand new

I sing this song 'cause you

Make me feel brand new

Truth be told, forced to choose between The Stylistics 'Brand New' and Bloodstone's 'Natural High' (featured in Tarantino's 'Jackie Brown') I would find it hard to settle definitively on either. However, having had a little existential wobble at the start of the week I instantly embraced the notion of feeling brand new once again in a sort of soul filled baptism which appealed greatly to me lyrically. So, at least for now, I'm sticking with Stylistics 'Brand New' and thank them for providing a nearly six minute moment of uninterrupted peace in a stormy, chaotic world where I believe we all need to find safe harbour inside our own souls.