Songs
The album's oldest composition, "König," was originally recorded for Desertshore and re-recorded some fifteen years later for Camera Obscura. A version was included in the Philippe Garrel fim, La Cicatrice Intérieure (1972). John Cale reportedly wanted to produce the song with a more percussive, synth-based arrangement in keeping with the rest of the material, but Nico insisted it should be kept as a solo harmonium piece.
Another early song re-imagined for the recording sessions was "Tananore," which Nico had performed at a Cale concert in Marseille on April 12, 1975 and kept in her set ever since. Nico had incorporated "My Funny Valentine" into her set since February 1982. "My Heart Is Empty" and "Fearfully in Danger," meanwhile, had been set mainstays since her Library Theatre appearance in Manchester on June 16, 1983.
Nico performed songs from Camera Obscura up until her death, although there are no known performances of opening instrumental "Camera Obscura" or the song "Into the Arena."
Read more about this topic: Camera Obscura (album)
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)