Ane Brun : The Puzzle
José González, Feist and most recently The Noisettes. All have prospered off the back of an advert that used their songs. W
hen the advert for Sky HD which featured Brun’s version of Cyndi Lauper’s 'True Colours', people sat up and took notice of this Norwegian singer/songwriter. Her fragile yet powerful, quavering yet piercing voice was a welcome addition to the soul-laden vocalists that the chart was awash with. The haunting quality of Brun’s voice is so evocative it would bring a lump to the stoniest of hearts.
'The Puzzle' is a wonderful example of Brun’s broad talent. The opening verse is brilliantly performed exemplifying all the purity and beauty of her voice and paying tribute to our own genius singer/songwriter Beth Gibbons (of Portishead fame). Where Merriweather failed to convince that he could not understand the complexities of emotion, Brun has no such problem as wonderfully poetic lyrics – “I walked into love/I walked into a minefield/I never heard of” – frame the song.
The metaphor of love or a relationship as a picture puzzle that is difficult to assemble is simple but effective. The plain image of the pieces of the sky capture the timelessness of closeness feels like – “they were tiny and the clear blue sky/went on forever”. The elegiac opening lines, strengthened by the strings and soft piano, and bleak image of the remains of a friend or perhaps partner are powerful, but the tragic image is subverted by the transposition into a more playful one by the jaunty lines – “her remains were spread out…went on forever”.
A poem set to music is the most accurate summation of this song and its perfect combination of striking vocals, illustrative lyrics and painful yet beautiful instrumentals make it even more triumphant.
5/5
Words: John Elmes
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