While watching North and South, I kept hearing the song “Northern Lad” by Tori Amos when John Thornton showed up (Had a Northern lad. . .well not exactly had). Then I started watching Spooks and the same thing happened when Lucas of North showed up.
Like Armitage, Amos was born on August 22 (We’re a birthday trifecta!). When she lives in England, she’s a southwestern girl and resides in Cornwall.
As a child, Amos was a piano prodigy and won a full scholarship to study at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her breakthrough song was “Silent All These Years” and she has been Grammy-nominated five times for “Best Alternative Music Album.” She has a dedicated following of fans and I never pass up an opportunity to see her in concert; her ability to transform her songs into electrically emotional and sensual performance is mesmerizing. The setlist changes every night and her song selection spans the entirety of her career, including rarities and covers.
From Amos’s fourth album From the Choirgirl Hotel, “Northern Lad” is rumored to be about Amos’s English husband Mark and its baking imagery suggests that it is part of a sequence of songs including “Baker Baker” from Under the Pink and “Cooling” from the Boys for Pele era.
“Cooling” is one of my favorite Amos songs.
Favorite lyrics:
and I heard every word that you have said and I know I have been driven like the snow
but this is cooling faster than I can hey… faster than I can cooling this is cooling this is cooling
Entire lyrics:
baker baker baking a cake make me a day make me whole again and I wonder what’s in a day what’s in your cake this time
I guess you heard he’s gone to L.A. he says that behind my eyes I’m hiding and he tells me I pushed him away that my heart’s been hard to find
here there must be something here there must be something here here
baker baker can you explain if truly his heart was made of icing and I wonder how mine could taste maybe we could change his mind
I know you’re late for your next parade you came to make sure that I’m not running well I ran from him in all kinds of ways guess it was his turn this time
time thought I’d make friends with time thought we’d be flying maybe not this time
baker baker baking a cake make me a day make me whole again and I wonder if he’s ok if you see him say hi
Favorite lyrics:
had a northern lad well not exactly had he moved like the sunset god who painted that first he loved my accent how his knees could bend I thought we’d be ok me and my molasses but I feel something is wrong but I feel this cake just isn’t done don’t say that you don’t and if you could see me now said if you could see me now girls you’ve got to know when it’s time to turn the page
Tick tock. . .as I stare down at my to-do lists, the multi-tasking pressure starts to build.
From what I have seen so far of Richard Armitage‘s work, I am finding that, after Daniela Denby-Ashe,Hermione Norris is my favorite female co-star for Richard.
Norris plays the ultra-confident Ros Myers in Spooks/MI-5. Ros epitomizes cool under pressure and ruthless efficiency; as the operative leader, she executes the given mission by any means necessary, possessing the physical prowess and mental agility to disarm and eliminate her opponents.
She also has a sly sense of humor, and I love her banter with (or at) Lucas.
Episode 7.2 : Ros burns Lucas, then Tasers him
Episode 7.4: Ros and Lucas work to disarm a bomb and kick up the sexual innuendo about real vs. faking it (no YT link found unfortunately)
Episode 8.8: (YT link) - Scene 1: Lucas and Ros discuss the remarkable usefulness of civets to produce perfume and flavor coffee beans. This is one of my favorite scenes. A polymath is a person who knows a lot about different subjects. Scene 2: Ros and Lucas discuss Sarah Caulfield’s getaway options of Barbados versus Bolivia.
(Props to Ros on servetus’ blog here. I also found a similar blog post on cheeky Ros/Lucas banter on the spooks fan blog here.)
This Richard Armitage + Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” video is delicious. Love the cut to Ros, the glove moment, the intrigued look at 3:16, the kiss on the hand, and the John Thornton look at Sarah Caulfield at 3:28.
Several YouTube users have created North and South videos using Florence + The Machine songs. They tend to use very quick cuts due to the fast pace of the music and cut off the song early.
The “Cosmic Love” one is my favorite (and has the slowest pace). I love how Florence is singing from Thornton’s point of view. The timing of “you left me in the dark” (at 1:36) and “in the shadow of your heart” (at 1:49) is perfect.
Interviewer: You’re the one with the internet fan ring called the Armitage Army. Does that please you?
It fills me with confidence to know that if I ever have to go to war, I have an army of women behind me.
Interviewer: Put a handsome bloke in a period costume and his popularity rating goes off the scale. What’s that about?
Suppression. Not being able to touch someone, or say what you feel, because it’s inappropriate. It tightens the sexual tension. You want to metaphorically rip off their corset!
