Number of Weeks? 1
What else was going on? The North Sea Flood kills over 2000 people
Download Outside Of Heaven
from amazon.com
from amazon.com
Fisher's first UK number 1 is the first one on the countdown so far which I've really disliked. It's another slow ballad dedicated to unrequited love. Lyrically it's actually pretty strong (apart from the opening lines - "I pass your house with misty eyes/ there stands the gate to paradise") but Fisher's vocal performance oscillates between a reedy tenor before eventually culminating in a melodramatic crescendo at the finale: neither are particularly well-equipped to convey the power of the lyric. There's also some fairly wierd orchestration going on about two thirds of the way in (1:16-1:50). There's a constant refrain of backing vocalists singing "Outside of Heaven" and a piano and violin playing atonally with one another. I'm sure an accomplished musicologist could explain why this technique is interesting but to these untrained ears it just appears... well... somewhat creepy. Perhaps that's the point. It's meant to be the pained lament of one with an unrequited love, perhaps we have a foreshadowing of something like Sting's obsessive love in Every Breath You Take
. I know which one I'd prefer to listen to, however.
. I know which one I'd prefer to listen to, however.
What happened next? It won't be long before we'll be meeting Fisher again, as he would go on to have another number 1 later in the year, and become the first artist to score two official chart-toppers. Between 1953 and 1956 he would score 9 chart hits, with several songs re-entering the charts at various points. In his personal life, he married Debbie Reynolds and he would also go on to become Elizabeth Taylor's second husband.
No comments:
Post a Comment