In my close to half century of listening to music there are two sequences of notes that – from the very first time I heard them – affected me so deeply that I can only presume they speak directly to whatever twisted and shriveled thing within me that passes for a soul.
The first may be found in a number of tracks by the British music/art/prankster duo of Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, known by a variety of names such as the JAMs, the KLF, K2 Plant Hire and the Timelords. A pattern of seven notes, played twice, repeated in several keys baroque style, I first heard it in Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent) from the album The White Room at 2:13.
It had appeared earlier however on the Chill Out album in the ancestral version of Last Train, Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard. It features twice, at 2:04 and 4:29.
Finally it can also be heard at 2:23 in Go to Sleep – the intermediate version of Last Train from the unreleased original version of The White Room.
The other sequence is the guitar riff from Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Love Missile F1-11. There seem to be dozens of mixes of the track (I’m personally aware of at least five) so I’ve picked one where the riff is particularly apparent, occurring in its full form at 2:51.
I cannot say what it is about either sequence that speaks to me so deeply, but should heaven exist and should I end up there I would not be at all surprised to hear either of them while passing through the pearly gates.
