Love For Sale: Hymn To Heroin

Love For Sale: Hymn To Heroin

2016 release. While Cole Porter's name might not be a part of our everyday conversation it's surprising just how well known many of his songs are and how they have become part of our culture. In this album we find out what happens when his lyrics are interpreted by the Tiger Lillies. The original songs have probably endured so well because they are such good examples of the songwriter's art, with economical phrasings and cute rhymes, all ideally suited to performance and open to being covered in a variety of ways. As such, the selection here presents songs performed in a relatively "straight" manner, letting the music or singing give them individual character, while other songs have been more freely adapted by Martyn Jaques, the band's singer and songwriter, to introduce the seedier elements of low living that are one of the band's signature notes. Hence the sub-title, A Hymn to Heroin, which points up the ambiguities in certain of these lyrics that are so ripe for exploiting: that burning yearning in "Night and Day" we all recognize, might also be a craving for something other than another person's love.

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