"This is going to take a long time"

Our Friday traditio, which is also my first post for the month of August, is "Only You" by Yazoo, usually known simply as "Yaz." The singer for Yaz was the incomparable Alison Moyet. The only other member of the group was Vince Clarke, who also in Depeche Mode and Erasure. Somehow it seems fitting to me to post something a bit elliptical today.

I don't mind saying that I find this video is what makes what is a pretty simple song quite profound. The video, I think, rescues the song from being merely sentimental. The video doesn't last for the duration of the song and is from the season premiere for the fifth and final season of the television show Fringe. "Only You," like a lot of Vince Clarke's compositions, in the words of television reviewer Ryan McGee, "is a synthesizer-based ballad. In other words, it creates beauty from inside the cold confines of technology." I don't know about you, but right now I need that kind of reassurance, the reassurance that beauty can be created from within "the cold confines of technology."

In the words of Rush's song, "The Spirit of Radio," - "All this machinery making modern music/Can still be open hearted/Not so coldly charted/It's really just a question of your honesty... One likes to believe in the freedom of music/But glittering prizes and endless compromises/Shatter the illusion of integrity."

This is going to take a long time
And I wonder what's mine
Can't take no more (can't take no more)
Wonder if you'll understand
It's just the touch of your hand
Behind a closed door