Beautiful View

What a beautiful view you are,
eyes deep ocean blue.
What a radiant sun you are,
lighting everything I see.

So don't be scared,
the silence is a wall between us.
Can't you see that all I want is you?

For this evening’s “music night” at The Wild Reed, I share a video of acclaimed Australian singer Wendy Matthews performing the song "Beautiful View" at The Basement in Sydney, Australia.

In 2001, this particular song served as the title track of Wendy's seventh studio album. Since then, she's released two other albums, Café Naturale (2004) and She (2008). For her complete discography, click here.

Wendy Matthews has a reputation as an artist par excellence with a sublime, expressive voice that never fails to move those who hear it.

Both acoustically and physically, Wendy Matthews moves with an enviable minimalism. Her music is an unhurried journey of clean melodies, infectious energy and simple grace.

. . . Wendy has an immense talent and capacity to capture and define a diverse range of styles in her music. She takes songs from every genre and makes them her own, from jazz to blues, from rock to gospel, from soul to outright infectious pop and then, of course, there are the beautiful ballads.

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"Beautiful View" just happens to be one of those beautiful ballads. Enjoy!

. . . What incredible skies they are,
wrapped 'round us tonight.
You're all the sleeping stars
and I'm the satellites.

Let all those fears
rest in your imagination.
I just want to lie here in our constellation.

What a beautiful view you are.
Don't change.

Let all the dark clouds
rain beneath your mind's horizon.
Can't you see there's nothing but skies of blue
and they're you?
Don't change.

What a beautiful view you are.
Don't change.

Wendy is adept at reaching both frenetic youth and mature audiences alike. If older ears are captured by her soul and unfazed class, a more cynical youth is convinced by her disarming ease of delivery, wooed by a voice of stunning emotive capacity yet void of sentimentality.

This outstanding capability has ensured the strength of her following – not only with the public but also the music industry. To date Wendy has won seven ARIAS – the all time record.

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To view Australian country singer Adam Harvey's recent duet with Wendy Matthews on the song "Easy," click here.

For the best introduction to Wendy's music, I recommend either the 1999 compilation album, Stepping Stones: The Best of Wendy Matthews, or the 2007 compilation album, The Essential Wendy Matthews.


See also the previous Wild Reed post:
• Wendy Matthews

Musical artists previously featured at The Wild Reed:
Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson, Jane Clifton, Enigma, Yvonne Elliman, Lenny Kravitz, Marty Rhone, Don Henley, Propeller Heads and Shirley Bassey, Stephen Gately, Nat King Cole, Enrique Iglesias, Helen Reddy, Australian Crawl, PJ and Duncan, Cass Elliot, The Church, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, Wall of Voodoo, Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, Pink Floyd, Kate Ceberano, Judith Durham, Wendy Matthews, Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1927, Mavis Staples, Maxwell, Joan Baez, Dave Stewart & Friends, Tee Set, Darren Hayes, Suede, Wet, Wet, Wet, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Cruel Sea, Shirley Bassey, Loretta Lynn & Jack White, Maria Callas, Foo Fighters, Rosanne Cash, Jenny Morris, Scissor Sisters, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, and Dusty Springfield.