«Chimes at Midnight»
When Madrugada regrouped to celebr… Read Full Bio ↴Madrugada
«Chimes at Midnight»
When Madrugada regrouped to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of their classic debut album «Industrial Silence» in 2019, they quickly realised that interest in the band had not waned in their absence. It had, in fact, increased, not least on the European continent.
What’s more, they realised that they loved being back together. Being in Madrugada had never been quite this much fun.
Says vocalist and guitarist Sivert Høyem: «It was if as the last piece of the puzzle had snapped into place. I’d never felt so self-assured on stage before. It was no stress at all, whereas in the past it had always been very stressful to me».
The tour was a triumph, with the band selling out shows in the their native Norway, plenty of festival dates and a host of concerts throughout Europe, where the band now sold out halls that were twice the size of the places they used to play back in the day.
10 years on from when the band called it a day after guitarist Robert Burås passed, the three remaining original members – Høyem, Frode Jacobsen (bass) and Jon Lauvland Pettersen (drums) – felt rejuvenated and ready for more.
They wanted to play more shows. In order to do so, new music had to be made. The trip they were on couldn’t be strictly nostalgic. And so it was that Madrugada, a band that usually takes its sweet time to agree on just about anything, ran straight off the stage and back into the rehearsal room in December 2019.
Jacobsen: «We were on a tight schedule. We booked time at Sunset Sound Studio in Los Angeles at the end of February, and had about a month and a half to come up with the material and whip it into shape. It went rather swimmingly. We were still high from touring, raring to go».
Høyem: «Everyone brought something – melodies, ideas – to the table. And then we’d all be let loose on it. We had the «Industrial Silence» album in our bloodstreams after playing it live on the tour, and I felt there was a direct line back to our formative years. Everything came out sounding like Madrugada».
The band worked in their own rehearsal space/studio in Oslo, in another studio, Velvet Recordings, 45 minutes outside the city, and spent a further week woodshedding in Berlin. 70% of the material they came up with, is spanking new. But they also rescued a couple of older songs from oblivion. «The World Could Be Falling Down» hails from the time of their first album. «Slowly Turns The Wheel» first reared its head somewhere between the third and the fourth.
Lauvland Pettersen: «The process was very different from when I recorded my last album with the band [«The Nightly Disease», 2011]. That was a case of ‘second album syndrome’. We didn’t have much going in, and had to come up with the goods on the clock. This time the material was not only written, but thoroughly arranged too».
The band arrived in Los Angeles in late February, happy to be recording in a legendary studio where classic albums by Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Doors and the Rolling Stones had been conceived.
Lauvland Pettersen: «It was a boyhood dream come true, for sure. A terrific gift: I’m here, I’m with my dear friends and we’re having the time of our lives».
Producer Kevin Ratterman (Ray LaMontagne, My Morning Jacket, The Flaming Lips) was waiting for them, and the plan was once again to get in the flow and work fast.
The band had given themselves two weeks to put the music, recorded live in the studio, to analogue tape. They met their deadline, and a good thing too. No sooner was the last song on the album, «Ecstasy», in the can, before the world as we knew it shut down. It was March 2020, and the plan had been for Madrugada to go home, rest up for a week and return to do overdubs and mix the album in a studio in Silver Lake. Instead, they had to go home, and stay home.
Høyem: «It was a ‘last flight out of Saigon’ kind of scene. And the tickets weren’t cheap».
Up until this point, the making of «Chimes at Midnight» had been a whirlwind affair. When it became obvious that the world would remain in a state of emergency for quite some time, it was important not to lose momentum. The album would have to be finished by unorthodox means:
Namely by Zoom and via big screen-TVs, with Ratterman and the American team on one end in Los Angeles, and Madrugada on the other, in Oslo, Norway. Frustrating? Oh yes. But the esprit de corps remained strong.
Jacobsen: «The technology enabled us to do overdubs in real time, with Kevin producing us from the other side of the Atlantic. Unusual, to say the least, and quite interesting. But the process became a lot slower».
It goes without saying that Høyem, Jacobsen and Lauvland Pettersen are painfully aware that one of Madrugada’s founding members, Robert Burås, very sadly isn’t around to work his magic anymore. But what other developments have the nigh-on 14 years since their fifth and hitherto last album, «Madrugada» (2008), and «Chimes at Midnight», begot?
Høyem: «The songs are a reflection of who we are in the present time. We’re older. We’re all fathers. I believe I have a more nuanced view of life than I had 20 years ago, a greater ability to feel several things at once. Madrugada’s aesthetic was very New York City and Berlin, we were a punk band that played the blues. All those elements remain. But this time around it felt appealing to explore the more dreamy aspects of what we do. The city we recorded in encouraged us to do so».
Jacobsen: «Chimes at Midnight» is not a conceptual album, it doesn’t point in one particular direction. That makes it somewhat different, in my mind. But it’s made to played live, just like the other albums».
Lauvland Pettersen: «It’s got maybe more of a singer/songwriter vibe to it, I think. If I want to write a ballad and give it the full orchestral treatment, I’m welcome to do it. It’s been therapeutic too. The shows were pure pleasure, and the album’s given me a feeling of closure».
Høyem: «‘Chimes at Midnight’ was born of an atmosphere of true joy and goodwill. To me, it’s a passionate album».
The members’ respect for their shared history is at the top of their minds at all times.
Jacobsen: «I’ve always had romantic ideas about bands in general, and our band in particular. I never wanted to make music outside of Madrugada. I wanted to make it with the people I started out with».
Madrugada are
Sivert Høyem
Frode Jacobsen
Jon Lauvland Pettersen
with
Cato Thommassen and Christer Knutsen
Album discography:
«Industrial Silence» (1999)
«The Nightly Disease» (2001)
«Grit» (2002)
«The Deep End» (2005)
«Madrugada» (2008)
«Chimes at Midnight» (2022)
Biography from their site: https://madrugada.no/#biography
Theres's another band from the 70's that use the same name:
2) Madrugada was a band from Bergamo, Italy, formed around 1970, and had a long life that lasted until 1978. The group derived from some 60's beat bands like I Condor, that included bass player Alessandro Zanelli and keyboardist Franco Orlandini (from Mat 65 and who later worked with Equipe 84 and Claudio Rocchi), and later changed name to Le Lunghe Storie, and along them from Le Bugie and Gruppo 3. But the basic nucleus came from Terza Classe, which also gave birth to Perdio.
Though not properly a progressive rock album, their first one, only released in 1974 by Philips, contains some interesting parts.
It contains seven tracks, some of which were arranged and signed by Roberto Vecchioni (a singer-songwriter that's still very popular nowadays), while three songs were composed by Mauro Paoluzzi.
The first side shows some influences by a West Coast styled sound, with multivocal parts very well executed but not particularly original. Second side contains the long Mandrax, led by Gianfranco Pinto's keyboards, that's probably the best album track.
Except for a limited use of acoustic guitar on Uomo blu the band didn't use guitars and their sound was strongly based on keyboards and richly arranged vocal parts.
Second album came three years later, this time the trio was helped by some guest musicians like Lucio Fabbri on violin (Piazza delle Erbe and later PFM), the jazz saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi, and Luciano Ninzatti (from Eugenio Finardi's band Crisalide) on guitar.
With a much better production and sound, this can be considered the best of their two albums, with long tracks like the opening Romanzen or Aragon showing a very good composition quality. Another nice song was È triste il vento, that had previously been played by another group from Bergamo that had a close connection with Madrugada, Perdio.
Like in the first album there are some odd different-styled tracks, like the folky Noter de Berghem and the silly Katmandu (that was also released on single with È triste il vento, but with no success), but Incastro can be surely appreciated by progressive music fans. Unfortunately it didn't have a good promotion by the record company.
In concert, Madrugada played on tour with Area, Claudio Rocchi and Biglietto per l'Inferno, and in Lugano (Switzerland) with Kevin Ayers. Moreover they played in many concerts for political movements like Avanguardia Operaia and the Radical Party and the Re Nudo magazine. The band split at the end of the 1970s.
Pinto and Zanelli collaborated with Mauro Paoluzzi in his shortlived Pangea project, which produced only a promotional album in 1976.
Keyboardist Pinto has collaborated with many Italian and international artists (Patty Pravo, Roberto Vecchioni, Adriano Pappalardo, Riccardo Fogli, Gianna Nannini, Brian Auger), and in the late 90's with the reformed progressive group Perdio.
He works in a music school in the Parma area and still plays now in studio, with live bands and in the piano bar circuit.
Bass player Billy Zanelli formed the semi-punk group Judas, with an album on Spaghetti label in 1978, and later played with Roberto Vecchioni.
Discography
LPs
Madrugada (Philips, 1974)
Incastro (Philips, 1977)
CDs
Madrugada (AMS/BTF, 2006 / Universal, 2010)
Incastro (AMS/BTF, 2006 / Universal, 2010)
Singles
Katmandu / È triste il vento (Philips, 1977)
Hands Up
Madrugada Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Or start it off again
There's no sign of weakness in me
Do I compel you like you compel me?
And nothing stays the same
And no one said it would
I would not think of such things if I could
If I could help myself,
So put your warm little hands where I can see them
Put those hands on my face
Tell me you love me
And no one else
Or close those little hands
Now they're fists
Now they're little fists
Punch a hole in me with those fists
If you ever wanted to punch a hole in me
And find out what's in me
There's really nothing in me
And nothing stays the same
And nothing ever happens to you that will happen to you again
Or is this the way it was?
Was it this same room, this same fight, this same scene?
With us dancing on the kitchen floor
And the wind climbing in through the open window
I used to hear distant cracks out in the city night
I could swear some one was being shot down
Now we hear that all the time
So do you like where we're headed?
Does it make sense in your eyes?
Do you miss me, baby, when I fall asleep?
Do you reach out for my arm?
Do you find it's too far away?
Do you?
Now tell me I'm handsome
I will tell you we are really not old at all
There's no use to complain
Still you and no one else
So put your warm little hands where I can see them
Put those hands on my face
Now if you get any out of this
Then that's the thing that makes me sleep all day
And I'll explain my love for you
On another day
The lyrics of Madrugada's song Hands Up reflect the struggles of a relationship that has been damaged by past conflicts. The singer is resigned to the fact that "there's no use to complain" or "start it off again", and acknowledges that "nothing stays the same". The lines "Do I compel you like you compel me?" suggest a sense of unequal power dynamics within the relationship. The lyrics also contain a sense of vulnerability and insecurity, with the singer asking the other person to "tell me you love me and no one else" and questioning if they miss each other. The image of "little fists" emphasizes the feeling of a tug of war or unresolved conflict between the two individuals.
The song also touches upon changes in the world around them. From the distant sound of gunshots to the constant occurrence of violence in their surroundings, nothing remains the same. The line "I used to hear distant cracks out in the city night / Now we hear that all the time" highlights how the world can change, and how things that might have appeared distant or out of reach in the past can suddenly become alarmingly close.
Overall, the song Hands Up is a poignant reflection on past conflicts and a plea for connection and understanding. The lyrics suggest that the singer hopes for resolution and healing, but is also resigned to the constant changes and challenges that come with being in a relationship.
Line by Line Meaning
There's no use to complain
Stop complaining, it won't help
Or start it off again
Don't restart the argument
There's no sign of weakness in me
I am strong and not weak
Do I compel you like you compel me?
Do I have as much power over you as you have over me?
And nothing stays the same
Everything changes
And no one said it would
No one promised that things would stay the same
I would not think of such things if I could
I wish I wouldn't worry about change, but I can't help thinking about it
If I could help myself,
If I could control my thoughts
Put your warm little hands where I can see them
Show me your hands
Put those hands on my face
Touch my face with your hands
Tell me you love me
Express your love for me
And no one else
And not anyone else
Or close those little hands
Make a fist with your hands
Now they're fists
Your hands are now fists
Punch a hole in me with those fists
Hit me with your fists
If you ever wanted to punch a hole in me
If you ever wanted to hurt me
And find out what's in me
And discover what I am made of
There's really nothing in me
There is nothing interesting inside of me
And nothing ever happens to you that will happen to you again
Every moment is unique and can never be repeated
Or is this the way it was?
Is this the same as before?
Was it this same room, this same fight, this same scene?
Did we have this argument in this room before?
With us dancing on the kitchen floor
While we were dancing in the kitchen
And the wind climbing in through the open window
And the wind entering the room from the open window
I used to hear distant cracks out in the city night
I used to hear distant gunshots in the city at night
I could swear some one was being shot down
I thought someone was being killed
Now we hear that all the time
Now gunshots are frequent and not surprising
So do you like where we're headed?
Do you like the direction we are moving in?
Does it make sense in your eyes?
Do our actions make sense to you?
Do you miss me, baby, when I fall asleep?
Do you miss me when I am asleep?
Do you reach out for my arm?
Do you reach for my arm?
Do you find it's too far away?
Do you find that you can't reach it?
Now tell me I'm handsome
Tell me I am attractive
I will tell you we are really not old at all
We are not too old to feel alive and passionate
Still you and no one else
I only want you and no one else
Now if you get any out of this
If you can understand any of this
Then that's the thing that makes me sleep all day
That is why I sleep during the day
And I'll explain my love for you
And I will describe my love for you
On another day
Another time
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: FRODE JACOBSEN, JON LAUVLAND PETTERSEN, ROBERT BURAAS, SIVERT HOEYEM
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@TheGoodkarm
There's no use to complain
Or start it off again
There's no sign of weakness in me
Do I compel you like you compel me?
And nothing stays the same
And no one said it would
I would not think of such things if I could...
If I could help myself,
If I could
So put your warm little hands where I can see them
Put those hands on my face
Tell me you love me
And no one else
Or close those little hands
Now they're fists
Now they're little fists
Punch a hole in me with those fists
If you ever wanted to punch a hole in me
And find out what's in me
There's really nothing in me
And nothing stays the same
And nothing ever happens to you that will happen to you again
Or is this the way it was?
Was it this same room, this same fight, this same scene?
With us dancing on the kitchen floor
And the wind climbing in through the open window
I used to hear distant cracks out in the city night
I could swear some one was being shot down
Now we hear that all the time...
So do you like where we're headed?
Does it make sense in your eyes?
Do you miss me, baby, when I fall asleep?
Do you reach out for my arm?
Do you find it's too far away?
Do you?
Now tell me I'm handsome
I will tell you we are really not old at all
There's no use to complain
Still you and no one else
So put your warm little hands where I can see them
Put those hands on my face
Now if you get any out of this
Then that's the thing that makes me sleep all day
And I'll explain my love for you
On another day
@mimiteas
This is the song I heard one day on the radio and wrote down the name of the band and the song... Oh, what a discovery it was! ❤️ I'm so lucky (and grateful) to stumble upon a gem like this! 😊
@rxwh
I would highly recommend "majesty" and "into the sea" by the same singer.
@mimiteas
@@rxwh oh, thank you for the suggestions, but I am a fan for a couple of years now. 😊 I could write a whole list of favs from Madrugada and Sivert. 😁
@kezdorb
How do you like Electric my most favored, hard to pick :)
@kezdorb
But the part start here at 3:10 is the most beautiful melody and words ever, for me: So do you like where we're headed?
Does it make sense in your eyes?
Do you miss me, baby, when I fall asleep?
Do you reach out for my arm?
Do you find it's too far away?
Do you?
@iremkucukbulut
Great bass line, great band, great tune
@TheGelinu
I wish someone would sing to me that way. And that voice.. yum.
@piroskabanky
Madrudada Is the best ever In all of histoy s music. What a tune
@frixosfrixoy1756
όχι μόνο σου αγγίζουν την ψυχή, είναι εθισμός, αρρώστια, λατρεύω.....
@rgerdeman
My favorite witch in the world sent me this song today. I love her dearly. She calls me coal hands. Thanks for making cool songs. Love it.