‘Whispering Pines’ – a video
December 06, 2012
‘Whispering Pines’ is a song from the second Band album (1969), also known as the Brown album, written by Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel. The song reminds us with its images of the forest as a lonely, sunless place, where the seasons change in their own way, in their own time, that the first three Band albums were written while the group were working and living amongst the forested hills and wooded mountains around the town of Woodstock, New York. Pines surround Woodstock, but this is a song about pines near the sea, on the edge of the wilder unknown, with waves crashing in, seagulls crying, foghorns sounding through the night, creating a deep, timeless sense of loss, and loneliness. The end of the song, where there the two singers Levon Helm and Richard Manuel perform a kind of abandoned gospel duet, reaches its resolution with the words 'the lost are found', which has been used by Claudia Brücken as the title of her new album. The Lost Are Found by Claudia Brücken is a collection of songs reflecting spiritual turbulence written and sung by people who like Richard Manuel have a certain 'hurt in their voice.' A collection of less well known pop songs and discreet classics that in their own delicate way mirror the anguish and outcast determination of the blues.
Taking on a song that could surely only be sung by the masterful Manuel is a brave thing to do, but it was a song that seemed important to cover not only because it gave her album its title but also because it richly symbolises the atmosphere of the album, and its own overall sense of loss, and isolation. The Lost Are Found contains songs set inside dreams, and lonely rooms, in empty houses, in the shadows, in the middle of dark woods, inside hostile cities, under a cold, cold sun. The song supremely demonstrates the ability of the great song to investigate and celebrate the nature of the soul, and even heal it when it has been wounded. ‘Whispering Pines’ is acknowledged as one of the saddest songs ever written, and yet has the gorgeous quality of being able to cheer you up and calm you down - exactly the aim of Claudia and her producer Stephen Hague when putting together the album, to capture the exquisite experience of how a haunting, heartbreaking and somehow homeless ballad can make you feel better about your own life, help you deal with personal disapointments even tragedy, and face up to troubling times with an optimistic strength.
The video was filmed on purpose in an empty forest packed with hidden secrets, near a deserted English coastline, where something is about to happen, and was directed by Martin Gooch and Ray Moody.
To buy your personal copy of The Lost Are Found go to There(there) or iTunes:
Signed CD | limited and signed vinyl | download
You can catch Claudia Brücken live early 2013! Secure your tickets here:
www.livenation.co.uk