Emily Barker: Speaking in tongues

As usual, the internet is to blame.

Already complicit in the murder – or at least the involuntary manslaughter – of the record shop, the music press and the CD, another important part of rock ‘n’ roll has found itself at peril: the rock legend.

Freeing all that lovely information from its shackles into the public domain has an almot infinite number of positive aspects, but it has also blown a raft of wonderful myths to pieces.

Now we know that of course The Beatles didn’t smoke a joint in  Buckingham Palace, that obviously Keith Richards just made up that story about having a total blood transfusion, and that, naturellement, the sticky story involving The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull and a Mars Bar is just to grim to be true.

So maybe a few years ago the story of how Emily Barker has been plucked from obscurity and had her song used as the theme to a BBC show watched by millions could have had its own minor spot on the Myths Shelf.

Now, we just assume she’s a hard-working musician who wrote a good song and knocked on enough doors. It’s a shame. I prefer the myth. The internet has simply ruined our most heart-warming daydreams.

Emily Barker // Little Deaths

This is not her TV-show song. This is Little Death, a song whose misty near-invisibility is almost spiritual in its ethereal beauty.

Apparently, it’s only a demo, but I can find no reason to re-record, re-edit or return to it in any way. It sits, perfectly formed, a snapshot of an orange-hued, shimmering moment. And why change something like that?

www.myspace.com/emilybarker