Road Songs for Lovers by Chris Rea (2017)
Edit introduced me to Chris Rea back in 2006. Despite his decades-long career, Chris’s music had never entered my radar. I immediately enjoyed the smooth, steady rock rhythm and his raspy, mellow voice. In 2017, we learned that Chris was producing a new album AND he would perform in one of our favorite cities, Budapest!
The album, Road Songs for Lovers, was produced when Chris was in his late 60s. He was inspired by one of his hobbies – driving. In an interview, he explained that the songs came to him as he drove through the U.K. “Happy on the Road”, the first song on the albums, expresses his joy for road trips, while in other songs Chris imagined the lives of people he saw driving in their own cars. In “Two Lost Souls” he imagines a woman and a man whose lives were drifting when they met. They decided to take a road trip together and disappeared into the darkness of the night, perhaps to a happy destiny together. In “Breaking Point”, Chris describes a man driving alone in his car, escaping his life, toward an unknown destination. The song “Rock My Soul” was based upon a couple he saw who he imaged had been together for many years. Although they were in the same car, they were in different places – “he sees the clouds; she sees a big wide sky”. “Last Train” is, perhaps, the most poignant song. Chris, himself has caught the last train to somewhere and reflects about where he is headed – “nobody knows where it’s going; nobody knows where it’s been; the only thing for sure, this is the last train”.
In November, 2017 we drove the 4.5 hours from our home in western Romania to Budapest. We have always loved road trips, so to go on a road trip to see the Road Songs for Lovers tour was quite appropriate. We played a mix of CDs in my old Ford Escort and as we sped along the highway, nearing Budapest, we played the Chris Rea CD (pictured here).
For us, Budapest was a cultural and culinary sanctuary and we visited a few times each year. For this visit we rented a beautiful (and very reasonably priced) apartment in the center of the city. We walked until our legs gave in, visiting areas of the city we loved and always someplace new. A visit to the medieval Buda district on a hill overlooking the Danube River was always a must as was a stroll through the old ghetto neighborhood.
The concert was on the second night at the Laszlo Papp
arena. Concerts, for me, are always a thrill. I love the energy, walking into
the venue and I always need to check out the stage before the show. Chris and
fellow musicians put on a great show. Although he is somewhat frail in recent
years, you could feel a strong soul in his voice. He performed many of his old,
well-known songs and also many songs from the new album. As fate would have it, we went on a road trip immediately after the show. We needed to get back to Romania for work the next day, so we sped through the night, crossed the border and got home a few hours before dawn. Who knows what kind of song Chris Rea would have written had he passed us in his car?
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