100 favourite songs: #67: "Midnight Singer" - Laura Veirs

Troubled By The Fire … as a whole is so gently, rollingly contemplative that it’s almost a surprise when the frequent moments of real beauty hit you; “Midnight Singer”, the closing number, is one of those, and there’s a ruminative, sad-eyed quality to it that gives me the shivers every time… - 18/4/04

It’s strange how often my defining memories of song-hearings are rediscoveries of the song, some time after the first flush of enthusiasm. In the case of “Midnight Singer”, it came one afternoon, trudging home from the bus stop after a day at uni; in my memory, it was late spring or maybe even summer, coming towards the end of a hot, sun-swept day with shadows falling heedlessly on the bitumen road and melancholy hanging heavy in the air. Then this song came on, and it was high and heartbreaking and perfect. Its music-box melody and Veirs’ gentle, floating vocals impart a delicate magic to “Midnight Singer”, and it’s one that always seems to be everywhere in the air once the warmer months arrive, the days grow longer, and their ends more protracted and poignant.