Roger's Year in Music 2014, No. 6: The Take Off and Landing of Everything, by Elbow.

Earlier in 2014, I wrote at some length about "This Blue World." the opening track from The Take Off and Landing of Everything.

... On about the sixth or seventh listening, it finally was time to read the lyrics. I was, and remain, flabbergasted. The words don't speak to me in any specific, personal way. They're just extremely moving, in a universal, timeless sense, as though to suggest that no matter where we are today, we remain a composite of everything that came before. There isn't enough beauty in this world, but a song like this gives me hope -- in art, achievement, possibilities and redemption.

And then there's this sentiment, seemingly encapsulating the Instagram Era of beer enthusiasm as it appears to me.

I am electric with a bottle in me

Got a bottle in me

And glory be, these fuckers are ignoring me

I'm from another century

I am a preacher when I've got it on me

And I've got it on me

And glory be these fuckers are ignoring me

We never learn from history

Neil McCormick offers a worthy summary at The Telegraph:

What an extraordinary group Elbow are turning out to be. On their gorgeous sixth album, there is really no one you could mistake them for. Mellifluous and melodious, they concoct sparkling paeans to the joys and woes of human existence that flow with musical compassion, easy on the ear yet full of twists and surprises. Their songs hark back to the elegant pre-rock contours of Broadway show tunes, but interpreted with the post-rock mix-and-match adventure of 21st-century sonic magpies.

It is odd to consider that Elbow arose in the shadow of Britpop, evincing some of the same bluff spirit as fellow Mancunians the Stone Roses and Oasis, when, it turns out, they are barely a rock band at all.