Soundtrack Of My Life

"Black Horse & The Cherry Tree" - K T Tunstall

When I checked out this recording after seeing it mentioned in a newspaper comments section, it wasn't particularly the song that did anything for me. What it was that impressed me about this was the performance and the context. She was right at the start of her career, had only been informed at relatively short notice that she'd got a spot on Jools Holland's show, knew she was going to be performing not just for a decent size TV audience but in front of a good few experienced, successful musicians in the studio...and she came up with something of this complexity. It could have been a fiasco. There are about 3,285,417 things that could have gone wrong and turned it into a toe-curling shambles, but she absolutely nailed it. This is the musical equivalent of a high-wire act with no safety net.

If you can't access the above video, here's a later version that's a little more polished.



I prefer the earlier version though - it was a lot less slick and she took longer to build up all the levels.