Mirrorball

Why do I start the Mirrorball topic with a picture??
Do you know "perfect" moments. Well, this was one. I drove home from work and there was this great great sunset and I listened to Mirrorball.
Perfect moment!

That's wonderful, really! But I have to ask... what's with the big fat W? :S

So it seems I'm not the only Elbow-Fan with a faible for picture postcard glances...(Postkartenblicke!)
I even have (at the moment still offline) a part in my fansite with nice photoes...Maybe I'll get it online on the weekend again...
I notice a lot times that the wind engines along the motorways seem to turn in time to the music...

Jonny wrote:

That's wonderful, really! But I have to ask... what's with the big fat W? :S

Oh boy... Yeah, Mirror!!! Jeeez!!!

ElbowFreak wrote:

Jonny wrote:

That's wonderful, really! But I have to ask... what's with the big fat W? :S

Oh boy... Yeah, Mirror!!! Jeeez!!!

I'll change it for you.

@ Damamash, thanks, I could have edited myself, but I thought noone would understand Jonnys answer.
Doesn't matter!!

We are soooooo off-topic again!

So, how GREAT is MirroRball!

It's great.

I found some "psychedelic windmills" that might fit to Mirrorball...at least they turned in time to most Elbow-Waltzes...

(click enlarges)

@TL: that looks soo cool. Especially the "black" sun.

TamedLamia wrote:

I found some "psychedelic windmills" that might fit to Mirrorball...at least they turned in time to most Elbow-Waltzes...

(click enlarges)

Ahh, what a lovely tune...one of my favorites! I wish I had some artistic talent - I think Mirrorball is one of those songs with a really cinematic feel, and it would make for a great short film or even an animation of some kind to illustrate it, but sadly I don't have the ability to make any such thing!

My mate said the other day "why have you not asked me what my favourite Elbow track are?" I was quite surprised because i did not know she was actually listening to them part from when i was around.
she said "it's mirrorball of course!" bless her cotton socks!

I do love the line "we kissed like we invented it/every step i take is to lead me to your door"
it is lovely.

Mirrorball is one of the best tracks on TSSK in my opinion.

I am a giant fan of Elbow and am single handedly converting all my friends. I live in France and listening to their music is making me homesick. Mirrorball is a very special song that has brought together two lonely people.

"Mirrorball" has a lot of personal meaning for me, and I'm not ashamed to say that I've nicked the song's title for a novel that I'm writing.

The novel doesn't have anything to do with Elbow, but the song title, and yes, even the lyrics, fit the general outline of the story.

This is my Mirrorball moment. Not with my boyfriend but with my friends. On this beautiful beach on one of Ireland's islands i just sat on the sand, watched the sun set and listened to the guys chatting and the waves and I was just completly happy and at peace. Corny I know but there it is.

Alright. Instead of starting a new thread I'll post this here instead.

Ok, so these should sound the same, right? Listen (Skip to about 3:10):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n21qIEOE8tE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMD7FIpq11Q

I'm just the kind of person who'd bother to pay attention to that kind of thing... anyway, anyone know anything about this? :/

PS: My "Mirrorball moment"



Taken on the Isle of Seil, Scotland, around the time TSSK was released. I believe Elbow visited the same beach when recording Cast Of Thousands.

Hi Lorne, lovely photo & welcome!

Just a guess, but there could be various reasons for the difference. One sounds like a well-captured live recording - Abbey Road perhaps- so the variation could be due to on-the-night artistic noodling, shaking it up a bit to prevent boredom of playing so often or the result of a cue that's a tad out. Plus, there's always the outside chance of a very-well disguised mistake. Elbow are incredibly tight live, but they're still human beings, not robots.

mrswoman wrote:

Hi Lorne, lovely photo & welcome!

Just a guess, but there could be various reasons for the difference. One sounds like a well-captured live recording - Abbey Road perhaps- so the variation could be due to on-the-night artistic noodling, shaking it up a bit to prevent boredom of playing so often or the result of a cue that's a tad out. Plus, there's always the outside chance of a very-well disguised mistake. Elbow are incredibly tight live, but they're still human beings, not robots.

They're both album versions and identical apart from that. Guess it doesn't matter much anyway.

In that case, mebbe it's just a wee edit glitch on one of those YouTube uploads. It wouldn't be unheard of to throw out an audio track, especially it it's been dropped down in an odd way - in more than one chunk for instance. Strange, but not unheard of!

This sounds like the difference between the CD and vinyl releases.

A few months back, I was invited to a friends, who is a vinyl nut, for a few beers and a feast of aural delights via his new, very expensive hi fi equipment.
The centrepiece of the evening was a thorough listen to TSSK and I couldn't believe the difference to songs that I thought were so familiar. Whole levels of detail became apparant, backing vocals that I'd never heard, acoustic guitars, piano all sorts of stuff, in short it sounded like a whole new record and even more of a masterpiece.

heshofcheese wrote:

This sounds like the difference between the CD and vinyl releases.

A few months back, I was invited to a friends, who is a vinyl nut, for a few beers and a feast of aural delights via his new, very expensive hi fi equipment.
The centrepiece of the evening was a thorough listen to TSSK and I couldn't believe the difference to songs that I thought were so familiar. Whole levels of detail became apparant, backing vocals that I'd never heard, acoustic guitars, piano all sorts of stuff, in short it sounded like a whole new record and even more of a masterpiece.

I agree, vinyl can add a whole new dimension to a recording. Wish I had the 'new, very expensive hi fi equipment" your mate's got, but even on my crapola turntable, I think you can hear things in a different way. And you may be right as to this being the cause between the different sounds on this track. Don't have TSSK on vinyl but that would be a good one to get, methinks!

Yeah, there's some bloke at my work who swears by vinyl, picking up the background noises and subtle sounds that are lost in the digitising.

But then again, the 'turn it up' process was bringing back an improved sound wasn't it ?

ChrissyBoy wrote:

Yeah, there's some bloke at my work who swears by vinyl, picking up the background noises and subtle sounds that are lost in the digitising.

But then again, the 'turn it up' process was bringing back an improved sound wasn't it ?

Exactly, the idea if I'm not mistaken was to try and bring some of the same depth of sound to a digital recording. But as much of an improvement as it was - and I definitely did notice it on TSSK - there's a warmth to the tones on vinyl that I don't think can come through the same way on CD. Don't even know if "warmth" is the right word to describe it, I'm not really an audiophile or tech-head, but I just hear a different and somewhat fuller dimension to the sound on a vinyl recording than I do on even the best-quality CD recordings.

so this is my first post in this forum... hello, everybody!

just wanted to say that i agree with a lot of voices i've heard, saying that peter gabriel's cover of mirrorball is somewhat under-inspired and over-produced.
But: it was good for (at least) one thing - his cover version introduced me to elbow!

i've been a friend of gabriel and genesis music for quite a long time now, and when the tracklist of scratch my back was announced, i gathered all the *original* songs....

and mirrorball got me hooked right away.
so i copied TSSK album from itunes, and --- to say it BLEW ME AWAY doesnt even get close!
i couldn't help feeling like being flushed away by a giant sea wave, no chance of escape.
for a week or two i was feeling like being in love! and i'm still riding the wave... it's so amazing...
thought i was too old for that...

i daresay that TSSK is for me personally the most inspiring and influential album i got hold of in the past ten years.

so that's my mirrorball-story...

cheers!