«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)
Salt
Madrugada Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Now the wind has swept us all
Down to this mission wall
And the love, the love we pray to keep
Has buried us so deep
And me singing this same sad song
How I fell into her arms
She said: You can never be free
You can never be like me
Now I'm a mad dog and I'll be
Now you honey on my tree
Whether sweet tomorrow
In the mellow wallow
Oh there's still time to borrow
And in the mellow wallow, yeah
We will never have it all
Tonight I'm screaming at the wall
Peel the paint of my window rail
Touch, material has no choice
Peel the paint off with my voice
'Curse this city's deplex song
Now I'm sleeping on the floor
Honey I'm soaking wet and
Oh they're coming out, they're coming out, they're coming for me
As long as we are free
We'll be doomed to live and die
Under the great suburban sky
And I'll always holler
In the mellow wallow
Oh there's still time to borrow
And in the mellow wallow
Jesus
Heaven, heaven head of hell
You are treating me quite well
Washed me up upon a shore
Now I'm scratching down your door
All the words become my hands
Cold and broken on the floor
Peeling gooseflesh off your back
Pulling back your long black hair
Now this beauty is my queen
Skinny arms so very slow
A perfume neck and a blanket so small
Oh, what beauty, oh what bridge
I will sleep tomorrow
And in the mellow wallow
Oh, there's still time to borrow
And in the mellow wallow
Oh, and I fall to be controlled
Lost and swept away
I will always wait it out
Won't you listen now
Let me sleep tomorrow inn
We'll never have it all
Now the wind has swept us all
Down to this mission wall
And see, the rhythm is your hand
Speed the rhythm, speed the band
This is the bright amphetamine sky
The song "Salt" by Madrugada is a hauntingly beautiful and melancholic ballad that explores the themes of love, loss, and the struggles of life. The lyrics seem to describe a relationship between two people who are deeply in love but are doomed to live and die under the "great suburban sky." The chorus of the song, "In the mellow wallow," seems to suggest that the singers of the song are resigned to the fate that life has dealt them.
The opening lines, "No life, no life without a fall, now the wind has swept us all, down to this mission wall," set the tone for the rest of the song. The characters in the song seem to be trapped in a cycle of pain and suffering, unable to break free despite their best efforts. The lines "And me singing this same sad song, how I fell into her arms, her warm and loving arms" seem to suggest that despite everything, the characters still find solace in each other's company.
The theme of hopelessness and despair is further reinforced in the lines "You can never be free, you can never be like me, now I'm a mad dog and I'll be, now you honey on my tree." The characters in the song seem to have resigned themselves to their fate and are just waiting for the inevitable.
Overall, "Salt" is a powerful song that captures the struggles and complexities of life. The haunting melody and the poignant lyrics make it a must-listen for anyone who has ever felt lost or alone.
Line by Line Meaning
No life, no life without a fall
Life is full of ups and downs, and one cannot truly appreciate it without experiencing both.
Now the wind has swept us all
Life is unpredictable and can change suddenly, without warning.
Down to this mission wall
Sometimes life can lead us to a dead end or a difficult situation, without any clear way out.
And the love, the love we pray to keep
Love is powerful and something that we hope to maintain and cherish throughout our lives.
Has buried us so deep
Love can consume us and make us lose sight of other things in life.
And me singing this same sad song
The singer has been singing about their troubles or heartache for some time, perhaps without any resolution or change.
How I fell into her arms
The singer experienced a deep connection with someone they loved and fell into their embrace.
Her warm and loving arms
The embrace of the person the artist loved brought them comfort and happiness.
She said: You can never be free
The artist's loved one tells them that they will never truly be able to escape their problems or their past.
You can never be like me
The artist's loved one sees themselves as different from the artist, and perhaps as having greater freedom or fewer burdens.
Now I'm a mad dog and I'll be
The singer's loved one has become aggressive or unstable, and will continue to be so.
Now you honey on my tree
The artist's loved one sees the artist as belonging to them, like a piece of property.
Whether sweet tomorrow
Despite the troubles of today, there is always hope for a better future.
In the mellow wallow
A state of relaxation or contentment, possibly brought about by substance use or other means.
Oh there's still time to borrow
There is always time to try something new or make a change in one's life.
We will never have it all
No one can have everything they want in life, and sometimes we need to accept what we have.
Tonight I'm screaming at the wall
The artist is expressing their frustration or anger to no one in particular, perhaps feeling unheard or powerless.
Peel the paint of my window rail
The singer is taking out their anger or frustration on their surroundings.
Touch, material has no choice
The singer recognizes that the physical world has no control over itself or its destiny.
Peel the paint off with my voice
The artist is using their own voice to make a change or an impact in their environment.
'Curse this city's deplex song
The artist is expressing their dislike or disappointment with the complexity or chaos of urban life.
Now I'm sleeping on the floor
The artist has hit rock bottom or reached a low point in their life.
Honey I'm soaking wet and
The singer is either literally wet or metaphorically vulnerable and exposed.
Oh they're coming out, they're coming out, they're coming for me
The artist feels like they are being chased or pursued by something or someone.
As long as we are free
Freedom is always at risk and must be protected.
We'll be doomed to live and die
Without freedom, life loses its meaning and value.
Under the great suburban sky
Even in suburbia, where things may seem peaceful and ordinary, there are still challenges and struggles to be faced.
And I'll always holler
The artist will never stop expressing themselves, even if it is only to the void.
Heaven, heaven head of hell
Sometimes things that seem good or promising can end up leading to trouble or misery.
You are treating me quite well
Things may seem to be going well for the singer, but it is only temporary.
Washed me up upon a shore
The singer has been thrown into a new situation or environment that they did not choose for themselves.
Now I'm scratching down your door
The artist is trying to gain access or find a way into something or somewhere they are not welcome.
All the words become my hands
Words have the power to shape or create the physical world, at least in the imagination of the artist.
Cold and broken on the floor
The artist feels helpless or defeated, perhaps emotionally or physically injured.
Peeling gooseflesh off your back
The singer is getting under someone else's skin or making them feel uncomfortable or vulnerable.
Pulling back your long black hair
The artist is getting intimate or personal with someone - perhaps in a romantic or aggressive way.
Now this beauty is my queen
The singer has claimed ownership or possession over the person they desire or admire.
Skinny arms so very slow
The person the singer desires is frail or delicate.
A perfume neck and a blanket so small
The person the singer desires is small and vulnerable, but also alluring and fragrant.
Oh, what beauty, oh what bridge
The artist is entranced or captivated by the person they desire, and sees them as a significant connection or gateway in their life.
I will sleep tomorrow
The artist is putting off dealing with their problems or facing reality until later.
And in the mellow wallow
The singer seeks comfort or escape from their troubles through relaxation or inactivity.
Oh, there's still time to borrow
There is always time to take a chance or try something new before it's too late.
Oh, and I fall to be controlled
The artist is aware of their own tendency to submit or give in to the will of others, even when they don't want to.
Lost and swept away
The artist feels lost or adrift in their life, without clear direction or purpose.
I will always wait it out
The artist is determined to persevere through their difficulties, even if it takes a long time.
Won't you listen now
The singer is making an appeal to someone for understanding or help.
Let me sleep tomorrow inn
The artist is prioritizing rest or escape over facing their problems.
And see, the rhythm is your hand
The singer sees the actions they take as instrumental in shaping their own future.
Speed the rhythm, speed the band
The singer wants to push for change or progress in their own life and in the world around them.
This is the bright amphetamine sky
The world can be a vivid and intense place, with many highs and lows.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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