Readers recommend: songs about holes – results
Holes are curious things: they’re made of nothing, yet they exist. It was fun, but occasionally scary to spend so much time in holes this week.
Serge Gainsbourg in Le Poinçonneur des Lilas tells the story of a ticket collector and what happens when he thinks too much about the little holes he makes in tickets each day. I loved the rhythm in the background that imitated the sound of the trains. In Country Death Song, the Violent Femmes tell a terrible story of madness in a menacing and haunting track.
Japanese girl rockers Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re wonder if the manholes in the street lead to the land of the dead in their track Manhole. It is not a typical track from the girls famous for songs about cakes and shoes!
For me, the ultimate hole in the head song is the “hate filled rant” that is Head Like a Hole by the Nine Inch Nails and the anger really comes through the lyrics and music.
Florida based rockers Alter Bridge explain the dangers of not being careful around holes in Slip to the Void. Apparently, once you slip into the void there is no way back; Alice in Chains tell us about what it is like once you are there in Down in a Hole.
Holes can sometimes be protective, and a soldier hiding from danger is the character in Television’s Foxhole. The influential New York punk pioneers have a unique sound and this track sounds so modern, even though it was recorded in the 1970s.
Jack Johnson uses the Eskimo belief that stars are holes that lead to heaven as the inspiration for his wonderful track Holes to Heaven. Even though the holes lead to heaven, there is a nostalgic feel to the song that I really enjoyed.
Steve Earle’s version of the Tom Waits classic Way Down in the Hole is an exploration of a man using religion as way of keeping his personal devil under control, and in the hole. It is a great version of a great song.
Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden is a lovely and atmospheric track. It was created by playing with the words from the title and seeing what happened. Well, a great song happened.
Sheela Na Gig is a Celtic fertility goddess and in this story of rejection, PJ Harvey uses her as a motive for the rejection not only of a particular woman, but of the rejection of femininity and female sexuality by a guy. The empty hole in the lyrics refers to the guy’s mouth.
As I made the playlist, I came to realise that holes are much more than nothing surrounded by something, they are metaphors for a range of emotions and experiences.
From the moment I heard My Roof Has Got a Hole in It, I knew that this would be the final track of the playlist. Miranda Barber has a pure and expressive voice and, of the hundreds of tracks that use holes to suggest the emptiness we feel when love is lost, for me this beautiful song captured such complex emotion perfectly.
The list:
1. Serge Gainsbourg – Le Poinçonneur des Lilas
2. Violent Femmes – Country Death Song
3. Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re – Manhole
4. Nine Inch Nails – Head Like a Hole
5. Alter Bridge – Slip to the Void
6. Alice In Chains – Down in a Hole
7. Television – Foxhole
8. Jack Johnson – Holes to Heaven
9. Steve Earle – Way Down in the Hole
10. Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun
11. PJ Harvey – Sheela Na Gig
12. Miranda Barber – My Roof Has Got a Hole in It
Read all the readers’ recommendations on last week’s blog, from which HoshinoSakura selected the songs above.