2005-10-23 - 4:40 p.m.
I want to give a quick shout-out to Amy Grant’s non-single (but always number one on the space-time continuum rift known as My Brain Circa 1992 Charts) “You’re Not Alone.” For those of you who haven’t been acquainted with the step-touch keyboard solo love of Ms. Grant, imagine this song as one where the turbulent music has been written by a black-muslin sheathed Stevie Nicks and the lyrics penned by Sharie Lewis of Lamb Chops Play-a-long fame. It’s the perfect marriage of the two elements—the song played at the reception when Rhiannon pulls off Charlie Horses’s garter with her teeth.
What I love is the song is a total Stevie Nicks fake-out: when the song starts with the sound of steam shooting out of a pipe, a mysterious keyboard whipping the night into a dangerous frenzy, you expect that it will reveal a brooding Miss Nicks atop a battle-ready unicorn. But once the voice kicks in, you’re all “Fuck! What?” and Amy Grant is revealed in all her crushed velvet glory. Even better is that while the music is all chug-chugging to the sound of a thousand industrial robots playing that keyboard-guitar hybrid that they always had on Kids Inc., you think it’s going to be some sort of Stevie-esque peon to wizards, the universe, and a woman spinning in circles. But nay—NAY! It’s about lifting yourself up, the person standing next to you with their hand on your shoulder!
Amy! Amy, you sweet thing! What happened?! It takes a little time sometimes to get your feet back on the ground—so come back, come back! Bring us back to the faux-industrial magic that was Heart in Motion!
