Every year on Echoes of the Heart, our Valentine’s Day soundscape, and I mean EVERY year, we’ve played Heidi Berry’s “Cradle.” Even though it is the ultimate love song, this year, we gave it a rest. But if you only hear one love song today, maybe this should be it. An exercise in romantic minimalism, it’s just Heidi Berry’s smokey multi-tracked voice and the electric delayed bass of Laurence O’Keefe from the bands Levitation (grossly underrated) and Jazz Butcher. The lyrics are almost haiku, the vocal arrangement Enyaesque, but without the sentimental gloss. If you’re in love or yearning for love, this is your song.
Heidi Berry released several beautiful albums in the 1990s on the 4AD label including the one this song comes from, appropriately called Love. Happy Valentine’s Day from Echoes.
What’s your favorite love song?
~John Diliberto ((( echoes )))