Song Of The Day 1/29/2013: Steve Nieve - "Confident Again"

As a piano player --  I was going to call myself a "pianist" but "piano player" sounds more "of the people," and I think "pianists" are the types who can bust out Rachmaninoff at will, which I cannot -- Steve Nieve is one of my biggest heroes. He's played for Elvis Costello for close to four decades, and since Costello's my favorite musician of all time, I'm familiar with Nieve's work. After Costello's songwriting and unique vocal style, Nieve's keyboards drove the Attractions more than anything else in the band during their heyday, although you'd be within your rights to argue that it was Pete Thomas' drums instead.

Nieve's released a few solo albums, including Mumu in 2001. "Confident Again" is not what I would expect from a Nieve solo piece. It's fragile and elliptical. I think it's Nieve singing, though I couldn't find confirmation of that. And tellingly he does not sound all that confident. There's something poignant about it, though. It's the first song on Mumu, but in spirit it kind of sounds like the final song of an as-yet-unmade sequel to Pink Floyd's The Wall, where Pink stares down middle age, comes to terms with his mother, and decides to live the rest of his days tending to an organic farm on the outskirts of Surrey, holding expectations of no one. None of that description conveys how lovely this song is.