Speaking In Tongues

This started off with Ever So Lonely by Monsoon shuffling into play the other day, and became a bit more of a deep dive into other appearances by Sheila Chandra on YouTube.

Ever So Lonely was a key song for me in the early 1980s, like Living On The Ceiling by Blancmange, introducing this curious kid to Indian instruments in pop music, Monsoon having the advantage of Sheila as frontperson, a mesmerising presence. 

The subsequent singles did not match the success of Ever So Lonely, to the extent that the record label asked Monsoon to drop the "Indian elements" of their music, like it was just a passing phase or interest, rather than theit core reason for being. 

Unsurprisingly, Sheila and founder Steve Coe called time on Monsoon and returned to his IndiPop label to focus on solo releases.

I discovered Sheila - and specifically Speaking In Tongues - on a mid-90s compilation, but the seeds of this playful accapella music were planted in her earlier solo releases, as can be seen in a Swedish TV appearance in 1984.

 

Monsoon was a studio band, so Sheila didn't really start performing live until several albums into her solo career. At which point, she was unlike anything audiences may have experienced before, even those who were fans of other music on her then-label Real World.

Here's an example of Sheila's incredible performance of Speaking In Tongues II in 1992.

 

A good decade before The One Show, BBC1's staple magazine show was Pebble Mill, hosted in 1994 by Alan 'Titch' Titchmarsh (still plugging his brand of amiable bland today, albeit on ITV). 

Thankfully this clip spares us the preceding interview with wildfire absurdist Ian 'Beefy' Botham, and sees Sheila patiently explaining her music to Titch before performing Speaking In Tongues III.

 

It is well documented that Sheila was subsequently afflicted with burning mouth syndrome, which ended her career as a singer and actress in 2009. Her husband Steve Coe also passed in 2013.

Sheila found her voice through writing and mentoring and I've just discovered this 50 minute interview with Sheila from the end of last year, which covers key moments in her life and the challenges that she has overcome. An inspirational woman.

In September, Real World releases Echo, billed as Sheila's final album, a collection of live performances of songs from her career, trailed with a stunning rendition of Ever So Lonely, Eyes and Ocean.