“I’m dying for some action, I’m sick of sitting round here, trying to write this book.
I need a love reaction, c’mon now baby, give me just one look.”
***
It took me some time to grow to love Bruce Springsteen. I was never a huge fan when this song came out, though it was this song that I always loved from the first listen, until the personal replays it gets from me today. But, at the time, the rest of his music, and all of the hype that surrounded him, in general, just did not win me over.
It took time, and it took some digging, and it took really listening to a stack of albums to realize that I’d missed something. I love his music now, and recognize the influence he’s had on not only music in general, but on many artists I love.
My top ten list of favorite Springsteen songs varies era and sound, but this song will always be up at the top. Lyrically (especially the lyrics quoted above), and musically, I have always held a musical crush on this song, and i’m pretty sure I always will.
"I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me."
***
I'd love to someday understand my need for attention and my fear of it going away. I could hop into the analists chair and surmise that this need comes from "daddy issues", and my lack of a positive male role model in my life. Or one could say that certain events in my life have taken things from me that I crave, and that often attention and adoration and/or love seem to sate, if only temporarily.
Maybe we all have this need, and perhaps I just call it out more in myself...I don't know.
I know it can feel damn good to be adored, at least every once in a lifetime.
"It’s only a matter of time, before all the springs in the mind, will start to break, like you have broken me."
***
My daughter, Julia, recommended this song to me and I've had it on repeat ever since. I love that her music taste has similarities to mine, but veers off into its own direction, as well - and that sometimes we overlap, and sometimes we introduce things to each other.
This is an introduction that I love, and that I'd most likely throw on my "Wolf" mix I was earlier contemplating.
The singer visually reminds me of a softer La Roux, and her sound calls to mind Metric, The Raveonettes, and Crystal Castles.
Music, and one's love/obsession with it, brings such bliss to my life.
I’m a sucker for pop culture references in just about anything, and I also tend to get giddy when a show/book/film, or in this case, song, references something earlier within the canon, or the artist’s own discography. It is probably the music geek in me, or perhaps it is that feeling that one is an insider, or in on the joke, or something - a big enough fan to recognize the references.
It reminds me of the way a relationship, whether with a friend or partner, develops its own histories and references. They may seem simple, the inside jokes and references we share with people in our lives, but they are something quite special and unique to me. They are part and parcel of one’s relationship history, and when hard times come in life, I think they are part of the glue that holds us together.
Ashes to Ashes references Major Tom, from Bowie’s song Space Oddity (my personal favorite Bowie song) - a song that was referenced in other songs of Bowie’s, as well as other artists’ songs (for example, in Peter Schilling’s song, Major Tom (Coming Home), or Five Star's song, Rain or Shine.
Bowie himself says that Ashes to Ashes is an epitath to his Seventies self, a way of saying goodbye and closing the door to an era of self, one could say. It makes me wonder what ends of era songs I would choose to reflect parts of my life…hmmm…
“I came here with a load and it feels so much lighter, now I’ve met you.”
***
Sometimes I wish there was a manual, or guidebook, for good relationships. Think about it, there are plenty of books and blogs and rants about bad relationships - how to deal with them, how to get out of them, how to recognize them, how to survive them, how to heal from the aftermath and heartache - but honestly, how many books or blogs or raves do you know about good relationships?
In my “adult” years (I use the term here very loosely) of love and relationships I have to admit to having very little experience with good relationships. I’ve been lied to, used, cheated on, abused, mistrusted, stalked, and quite a few not so bright and shiny things in-between and sadly I know i’m not alone in this. Thing is, it does have an impact on expectation, as well as reaction, when in any relationship.
I don’t like to let the past influence the present, but when dealing with the vulnerability of love, well, it is damn hard not to.
But, I’m learning, and I’m trying, and perhaps along the way I’m writing my own guidebook to a good relationship, because for the first time in my life I am in one.
Tori Amos’ first three albums hold enormous significance to my life, and are instant recall memory triggers anytime i listen to any songs from those albums. Those were the years of so much change and emotional chaos in my life.
Jackie’s Strength reminds me of my failed marriage, the second one, and how much damage it did to my heart. I wanted so much to be brave, to soldier through no matter what the cost to my self, because I had those childhood fantasy/dreams of family, of love, and of what I wanted marriage to mean to me.
I wanted the ‘til death do you part. I wanted the happily ever after. I wanted the real thing, and I wanted to be strong enough to make it work.
It doesn’t always work, and sometimes the real strength comes in knowing when to walk away. It just, well, there are emotional costs whenever something ends, and this is one of the songs from one of my personal times of emotional cost, and loss.
I first discovered Anneli Drecker through a lryics website i’ve visited regularly for years, not so much for the lyrical content, but for the music selection and musical discoveries i’ve made through said site, Always On the Run. I’ve yet to discover an artist/band on this site that I didn’t end up enjoying, or musically falling for.
There is something about this song that reminds me of the song Calling All Angels, by Jane Siberry and KD Lang, that I fell in musical love with back when I first heard the Until the End Of the World soundtrack (a favorite film and soundtrack of mine).
Ethereal and dreamy with a touch of sadness, the song, and Anneli’s voice, are beautiful. Anneli was part of the band Bel Canto, whose songs such as Shimmering, Warm and Bright were favorites of mine back in the early 90’s, when I was still dancing at goth clubs. She has also worked with Royksopp, on songs like Sparks.
I was reminded of this song, and corresponding video, while reading my friend’s post on unnerving music videos on her fantastic music blog. While remembering, and then recommending this video, we starting discussing the video itself, and what we felt and saw in it.
I mentioned that the video had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness to it, as well as a desperation, despair, and a feeling of giving up - especially in the scenes where Alison Moshart is alone with her mirrored reflection watching what she is turning into. To me, this eludes to the loneliness of being on the road/on tour and how it must feel to start turning a bit into something else while living in such a outside of reality kind of life.
My friend keenly pointed out that the blood on the microphone could be conveyed as the emotional vampirism fans exhibit toward artists. I think she is spot on with that.
This is the first Kills song I ever heard, and remains my favorite of theirs. I especially love the lyric “let the weather have its way with you”, which suggest to me the giving up/giving in to things beyond one’s control (weather, fame, love perhaps).
The Tide That Left and Never Came Back :: The Veils
“‘Cause it’s a small town, it misses you, my love.”
***
I'm feeling nostalgic today and a bit blue. I think it has a bit to do with reuniting with an old friend who I’ve not spoken to/heard from in near nineteen years. He was part of a chapter in my life that held such significance to who I am, in the best, and not so shiny and bright of ways.
He was best friends with my first love, and my first real rip your everything out and leave you inside out kind of hearbreak. He was my friend, too. For a summer the three of us spent nearly everyday together. When we broke up though there was damage that happened between us. He had a part in the break-up and a part in the illusions that split apart and shattered, he kept up his part of a deceit, and I think at the time I couldn’t forgive so easily.
Time heals, and even if we don’t forget, we forgive - or I do, or I have, for that matter. Truth is, I miss the both of them, and I miss the girl I was then. Well, perhaps I don’t miss her in all that she was, but I miss pieces of her. I miss the unconditional and blind trust she had in love most of all. She never did come back with her heart completely intact.
This song, The Tide That Left and Never Came Back, it fits that kind of looking back and missing to me today.
"Here on the ground, I cannot hear a sound, just a strong and steady rain, getting louder as you sing."
***
I’m thinking black dirt would be a fitting addition to the Full Moon playlist, which the more I think of it suits the Season, as well. I’ve been contemplating a Halloween/Spooky October mix, and this may work as both.
This song has a sadness to it, a feeling of loss, and of giving up. There is that line about the heart no longer beating, yet the song continues - a hint of living post-something lost. Perhaps it is an afterlife haunting the living, the marks that the no longer here leave on the earth, or on us. Skid marks and shadows that we may miss as we walk by, but that those with the right emotional temperment, or the right kind of lonely, cannot miss.
It reminds me of the after shock of a break-up, too. That hollowed out feeling, the wreck that is left when one’s heart is truly broken. Haunting song, and haunting emotions, I think.
Howl :: Florence and the Machine “If you could only see the beast you’ve made of me.”
***
This morning I finished the second Dresden Files book, Full Moon (Jim Butcher). I’ve been listening to the series on the recommendation of my boyfriend, as well as the knowledge that James Marsters does the voiceover work on the books.
I love when a book, or in this case book series, catches me off-guard and surprises me. This is not a well-read genre on my part, nor would the book covers be something that would have caught my eye. All the same, I’ve become quite taken by Harry’s tales of the supernatural, crime, and intrigue - and am drawn to him the same way he seems drawn to darkness, to beauty, to love and to finding hope in an otherwise hopeless reality.
I tend to make playlists for everything. Give me an excuse or a theme or an event, and i’ll leap (and dance) at the opportunity to try and set it to music. This last book, with its werewolves of many kinds in tow, as well as the explorations of passions and love, has me left contemplating what I’d have playing along. Florence’s Howl is the first on the soundtrack, and the first for my new song-of-the-day entry.
Mark Ronson & The Business Intl :: Bang Bang Bang song is off the newly released album Record Collection released today (U.S.), September 28, 2010 Available here.
“Un deux trois, bang, bang, bang.”
Catchy and clever is what I’ve come to expect from Mark Ronson, and the first song I’ve “spun” off of this new album does not disappoint my expectations; in actuality, this song exceeds my expectations. This is almost a song I wish had come out earlier so that it could have had the opportunity to be a Summer hit, but since I’m listening in the midst of a early Autumn/”Indian Summer” heatwave, it works.
I love the cultural and musical hybrid sound, the melding of language and style, cross-genre and so very danceable - this song is near impossible to not get sticky-stuck in your head. You’ll see, if you hit play you will be humming this tune for the rest of your afternoon. In this case, that’s a good thing.
The album, and Mark’s new posse called The Business International, are said to feature the collaborations of Boy George, Simon Le Bon, Wiley, Miike Snow and a Kaiser Chief, to name a few, as well as MNDR and US rapper Q-Tip, on this song. I cannot wait to throw this album in and get completely addicted.
“What I want from this, is learn to let go, no not of you, of all that’s been told.”
The live version here, as well as the Live from Abbey Road version, are my favorites. I completely prefer them to the album version, especially because the live versions feel so much more raw, real and emotional. The song, about letting go and the emotional turmoil of break-ups and loss - especially anger, which is not often touched on in songs of heartbreak - just cuts so deeply live. The pain and confusion and anger, you can hear it in the blending of voices, and the evoked emotions, of both Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan in this version.
Break-ups, when they are real and they stick (not just the temporary result of a fight or misunderstanding), are so unique and precarious emotionally. The landscape to them, much like the reaction to loss, are not something anyone can predict or define. We all grieve differently, we all heal at our own pace, and we all find ways to let go and find release on our own.
Is this a forever break-up/letting go song though? Is he saying fuck you because he wants her gone, or because he wants her to fight back? Does he want to let go of her/the relationship, or of the things that have hurt so he can then forgive? There are moments of confusion lyrically where I’m not so sure. But, I suppose that makes this song even more honest and relatable. How often do we doubt our decisions in love, especially when saying goodbye?
“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come.”
I’m known to say things like “it will get better”, and most of the time I actually believe it. The worst of times have come into my life, but they have always passed eventually, and everytime something amazing has followed.
It may be terribly naive of me to feel this way, to believe in life itself, but I’m okay with that. I’ve been through too much, and seen both the happiest and the saddest of days, to not know that the good times come around - and change happens, sometimes whether we are ready, or not.
This song reminds me of how I try to feel, and the sentiments I try to hang on to.
Scissor Runner :: Jenny & Johnny from the newly released album I’m Having Fun Now released today (U.S.), August 31, 2010 Available here.
"A scissor runner stole my heart."
I am completely and utterly enamoured with this song, and this album. I’ve been reading about Jenny (Lewis) & Johnny (Johnathan Rice) for awhile now, and the album I’m Happy Now has been one I’ve been anticipating, and counting the days until, the most this Summer. And Summer, honestly, is the perfect season for this fun, breezy, poppy, fuzzy and bright. There is optimism in this, hope, romance, freedom, and a sweet escape that vacations, first loves, and childhood play bring.
I want to drive to the beach with the windows rolled down blasting this song all the way. I want to wear flowy dresses and spin circles around to this song. I want to make out in the backseat at the drive-in to this song. I want Summer to last forever when I listen to this song (which is a lot for me to say since it is my least favorite season).
"I can't see further than my own nose at this moment."
Everytime I hear this song my thoughts are immediately taken to scenes from Say Anything. I'm sure the name Lloyd has a lot to do with it - Lloyd Dobler being such a iconic character, especially to my generation, he is the definitive Lloyd to me (and honestly, the only one I can recall at this moment). I'm also reminded of the line in Say Anything when Lloyd says "I want to get hurt," when discussing the possibility of dating Diane Court with his two female best friends, Corey and D.C.
I'm also prone to start contemplating if any of us are really ever ready to be heartbroken. Is the action of taking a risk with someone, opening ourselves up enough to fall in love, or to even just date someone - is that action an acknowledgement that we are willing to be hurt by someone else? Or, when faced with attraction/desire/possibility of love do we suddenly all become the naive optimist who still believes in love at first sight/soulmates/true love?
And, what of those of us who are jaded by design (or really, jaded by bad experiences)? What happens when someone with low expectations, or just the inner prediction of failure, chooses to fall in love? Are they honestly saying "yes, I will walk into a coming bus? Dive head first into a pool of pirannahs? Just smile and say, yeah, you, go on and hurt me?" A train of thought such as how Lloyd sees Corey when he tells her, via a hand-held cassette recorder, "You probably got it all figured out, Corey. If you start out depressed everything's kind of a pleasant surprise."
Are we all expecting the worse anyway? Do we think we are the exception? Or are we all just a combination of blind foolishness and self-destruction when it comes to love?
For me, I guess I'm a little like Lloyd. I'm willing to get hurt, but I am ever-hopeful I won't be. To be honest I tend to prefer one of the last exchanges spoken in the film,
"Nobody thinks it will work, do they?" (Diane) "No. You just described every great success story." (Lloyd)
“I need love, not some sentimental prison. I need god, not the political church. I need fire, to melt the frozen sea inside me. I need love.”
In 1994 I’d come to a crossroads in my life, of sorts. Well, one of the handful of “crossroads” I’ve had, so far. I had a failed marriage behind me, a young daughter, a job at a record store, and no real idea of what I wanted or where I was going with my life.
I had all these trappings of adulthood, yet I felt completely unprepared, and at times both older and younger than my chronological age. My naive optimism was wrestling with a newfound jadedness towards love, but I was still trying to hold on and believe it was possible.
I needed something to believe in, to strive after, to make me feel alive.
I found some of that, lost some of that, found some of that again, lost it again, and hit other stops and crossroads and starts along the way. That’s life, though, right?
And, no matter where we are, or how lost we find ourselves sometimes, we all need love.
“What are you changing? Who do you think you’re changing? You can’t change things, we’re all stuck in our ways.”
I could probably choose the entire Rabbit Fur Coat album as a favorite, and it would definitely be part of my favorite album list, because pretty much every song on the album resonates deeply with me. It is also representative of a time in my life when everything was breaking apart, and I was trying to hold on for my life and pick myself back up.
I had to find a way to “rise up with fists”, in my own way.
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan :: Come Undone song is off the newly released album Hawk released today (U.S.), August 24, 2010 Available here.
A rented late 50's car, the kind with big fenders, heavy doors, and a bit of a back-fire when you hit the gas. Driving through the desert just a bit above the speed limit, off to anywhere but here with someone who is just three days past being a stranger. Soft sighs and rough hands, as the two toss and turn in the backseat, leaving marks and misguided lipstick stains on each other. This is a late Summer fling, a steamy page-turner, a diary entry just waiting to happen.
This song is all of that and more.
Sensual and tender voiced Isobel Campbell meets up with whiskey-rough and raw Mark Lanegan to create one of the most delicious duets. I am thrilled with this album, and cannot help but find it the perfect soundtrack for this end of Summer time - and all of those hot, humid fantasies that music like this just inspires.
Eels :: Spectacular Girl song is off the newly released album Tomorrow Morning released today (U.S.), August 24, 2010 Available here.
Suprisingly upbeat, Spectacular Girl, off of the new to us today Tomorrow Morning album, is quite representative of the album as a whole. The video, though, unveils the dark underthings of a upbeat exterior, exposing a seemingly everyday office working woman as what is assumed to be a contract killer. I love the duality of the girl in the video, how spectacular she is, and how genuine - we may not all be office workers, or contract killers, but we all have a darker side, a shadowy self, a layer that not everyone sees.
Tomorrow Morning, in its entirity, feels like a morning after - or perhaps a fresh start morning (first of the year perhaps, or at least the first of something). It feels full of self-reflection, self-resolution, and a bit of optmism that one has come not to expect from E.
I think it has always been there, though, just like the dark side of the girl in the video - we all have a bit of both, don’t we?
"You're clothes are dirty, but you're hands are clean, and I'm the best thing that you've ever seen."
I love newly discovered covers, and I love the mixed vocals of male meets female. A well-done duet has always been a favorite of mine, and I've actually had discussions with other musical friends about dream duet pairings.
There is something about the pairing of Even Johansen (Magnet) and Gemma Hayes, on this version of Lay Lady Lay (originally written and sung by Bob Dylan) that reminds me of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's version of Summer Wine (originally written by Hazlewood and sung by Susi Jane Hokum).
Both songs hit on a trailer-park lifestyle (actually visualized in the above video), the slightly dysfunctional (yet desirious) love that stems from that, a humidity - like a late Summer afternoon - that adds to the passion and/or the desperation, and both are great examples of what a well-chosen duet can do to (re)define a song.
We took that road trip to San Francisco, it was late Summer, you and I, and the baby in the backseat. You picked up this album in that record store in Berkeley, and afterwards we shared a slice. She slept most afternoons in her stroller while we walked up and down the streets.
At night we'd take her in when we played pool, or into that bar your friend owned. One night we wrapped her up and took her into the park where they should movies on the side of the wall.
I think it may have been Casablanca.
For a blink of time we were a family, the three of us. On our way back from that trip we contemplated, albeit briefly, just staying. Sometimes I wonder if it would have made any difference.
Was all our "stuff" so necessary to come back for? Would we have had a fighting chance somewhere new?
If I had the opportunity to put together an end-of-the-Summer concert, perhaps held at the beach, a small stage underneath the pier somewhere, I'd want to ask each band participating to do their favorite cover song. At the end of the day, when the sun is down and the headlining act is near the end of their set, perhaps I'd have everyone join on stage at the end and do some kind of sing-a-long, though I suppose that is a rock-n-roll festival cliche.
Some cliches are worth it, though.
I'd certainly invite Mr. Yorn, one of my favorites in terms of covers, especially when he takes on the Ramones, Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen, and The Smiths.
My very late teens/very early twenties were spent nightclubbing in Hollywood. Those nights/early mornings were definitive in my life, and played out as a rite of passage much more than any of my adolescence did. Those nights/early mornings, with all that music (and other things) were my own life’s prom and homecoming dances - no limos, and no real dates, but so much dancing and stolen kisss, and yeah, so much drama.
There were good times and bad times, things I will never forget, things I wish I didn’t remember, but all of it makes up a kaleidoscope of memories that are so much of who I was then. And all those stories…I will keep them with me forever.
I don’t think I’d want to go back, but maybe for a night, or two?
"Tell me now, tell me this, A forest's son, a river's daughter ,A willow on the willow wisp, our ghosts will wander all of the water."
The Decemberists albums play like a stack of storybooks to me, and I'm always so drawn to the plot within the melody, the story within the song.
I often want to drive around for hours, no where in particular, listening to songs like this one. I'd let my mind wander while the miles go by. The markers of neon and soon forgotten street names, burger joints and bars, all of them becoming part of the landscape as it changes, as it movves on. All of it would fade and become a brush stroke in my memories.
Other times I want to sit with blank pages in front of me, playing this song over and over, bringing to life the characters I see and hear in this song.
This song brings to life something like this, for me:
Music was the way Gram had met both Trixie and Mush; well, music and drugs, but music was the true connection that had started, and continued, their friendship. It was also what had sealed the deal between the two of them as a couple, and what kept them going through changes and the obstacles that life slings at people as you go along living.
Gram always knew their paths would cross again, even though it had been years between and the letters had long ceased their arrival in his post box. The last had been a postcard from some nameless beach city out on the west coast; the wish you were here variety with the predictable panoramic sunset and sand shot, the unmistakable scratch of nearly indiscernible pen markings making it clear who it was from even before he red the MT at the bottom. Long ago they'd stopped signing their names individually to him, even though he'd known each of them at different times, separately, and then later together. After awhile the lines between them blurred to him as well, one never far from the other, Mush and Trixie becoming slurred into one name, one word, and then simply into two bold letters.
He'd held onto all of them, the long drug fueled letters from their first trip to New Orleans, the paintings with small printed notes on the back from Trixie's studio in Soho, wrinkled napkins with sketched notions of tattoos stuffed in brown paper envelopes with ever-changing postmarks, along with matchbooks from various restaurants and bars, and of course mixes of music. Mush always sent tapes, a diehard believer that a true mix can only be made on a cassette; the time and skill required he claimed were where the art resides, all part and parcel with the telltale whir from the tape spooling from red to black, before the first chords of a song begin. Trixie differed in opinion, and would hold strong to the counter argument that a mix CD required just as much, if not more, care and finesse to produce the final
Last night we tried to have movie night, where one of the kids picks a movie, and then I pick one. I've been working late hours this week so there was time for only one choice, and since it was late Julia was the one to choose.
She chose 1408.
John Cusack is one of my favorite actors. No, scratch that, he is my favorite actor. I've seen most of all the films he's made, with a few exceptions, and this was one of the exceptions. I'd wanted to see it for awhile, and both Julia and Charles had been recommending it for awhile.
I really liked it. First of all, I was impressed by John's acting in this. Yes, it was a horror film, but this demanded quite a lot from the film's lead actor. Most of it was just him in the hotel room, dealing with a carnival ride of emotions spanning from sarcasm, disbelief, anger, fear, sadness, and desperation. Most of the supporting cast were ghosts, or moments of flashbacks with his wife and daughter, or initial moments with his publisher, attorney, and the hotel staff.
This is the kind of horror film I love - the psychological kind, as well as the ghost/haunting kind. I like good plot, intriguing backstory, and a personal touch to the characters that has you caring - this had all of that.
I did have some issues with a few details - one, there was mention of the character's father twice at the start of the film, yet beyond a ghostly appearance in the hotel room bathroom, there was no explanation of the story eluded to. Also, the end - endings are precarious with horror films, and typically the viewer is thrown for a loop, or a surprise, or a "its not really over" - but some of the ending left me a bit confused, and a bit let down.
Bu,t perhaps it was meant to be open-ended.
All in all, though, it was a great ride, a compelling horror storyline, and a stellar performance by John Cusack.
"Text versus romance, you go and add it all you want, still, we're not robots inside a grid."
Sometimes I find myself so baffled by love. I sound older than my years to say I don't quite understand all the machinations of modern romance, and that often I'm just muddling through it all, trying hard to just be myself in all of it. I was never one for playing games, disguising my feelings, or relying on well-tested tricks to get ahead in matters of the heart.
I think that science and love don't play well together, and that when I try to sort it all out all I do is over-think. And, just as in the critical nature of self-editing as a writer, there is something pure and raw and real that gets lost when you over-think love.
Though, I do love the mathematics, and the science, and the brain meets the heart kind of lyrics that make-up this song; geek music love personified, or something like that.
"This song goes out to all you beautiful, American girls and boys."
Sometimes I run into a song quite by accident, and in that taken by surprise state I want to stop time for awhile and just listen. I want to sit alone with the song, the lyrics, the melody and take it all in. And then I want to write to it, see where it takes me, what characters and images and plots the song pulls out of me.
This song does that to me, makes me crave those moments, and the space to write to all of it.
I see two young boys, well I would call them young, and boys. They are somewhere in-between boys and men, those adolescent years, where everything changes. They live in a small town just outside a city, close enough to see it in the skyline and to visit now and then, but far enough away to feel not part of it.
There is not much to do in this town. A bowling alley with only one working lane, a diner owned by one of the boys Aunt's, a Wallmart that helped to shut down all the smaller stores all once owned by people both of the boys knew. There is a parking lot, one of those non-chain 24-hour convenience store parking lots, and that is where they sit every night in the Summer. They get high and look at the parts of the sky that the city lights up from afar - light pollution, I think they call it, and they silently discuss escape.
"His wild-eyed innocence is just a game, But just the same my head is spinnin', He's got a way to keep me on his side, It's just a ride that's never ending, Tonight with me he'll be so exciting, I want him all for myself."
This song reminds me of my first apartment. It was upstairs, a tiny one-bedroom that I shared with the boy who would become Julia's Dad. We didn't have a television, but we had stacks and stacks of books, and all these milk crates full of records and cassettes.
I always woke up before he did. It took me months to ever feel comfortable sleeping regularly with someone else. I'd wake up tangled up in blankets and one of his limbs, the wall too close to my face, and I'd try to plot out how to get out of bed without waking him up. I learned, after awhile, that he'd sleep through anything - earthquakes, fire alarms, loud pounding on doors, a baby crying, me crying.
Most morning I'd tiptoe out into the kitchen, turn on our coffee pot (we'd bought it at a garage sale, there was something wrong with it, some kind of slight damage, and it would take over a half hour to brew), and then flip on the stereo. One of his friends had leant me a tape with Blake Babies on it, as we'd discussed our mutual love of girl groups and female singers, and I'd fallen in love with it.
Listening to this song now, it feels like a postcard from my past, and I can see (and hear) it all so vividly.
"Look at me, look at me, hands in the air like it's good to be alive."
Catchy, melodic, poetic, and thoughtful - this is one of those songs that caught me off-guard and had me loving it without ever expecting to. I think this is one of the songs on this list that Julia introduced me to.
Loudly, while driving on the freeway, this is the best way to listen to this one.
On Saturday mornings I like to make a pot of coffee and watch a movie, this past Saturday the movie was The Greatest. I've wanted to see this film since I first watched the trailer, and mainly due to both my long-standing love of Susan Sarandon, and my newfound love of Carey Mulligan.
The film is about the loss of a son. It is a film about young love that was just starting to blossom, and was taken away. The film is about family and marriage and parenthood. The film is about grief, about letting go, about forgiveness, and about life.
I knew the story would be sad, and I've seen films that have dealt with death and grief before, so I steadied myself for what was to come. The start of this film brings you in slowly, intimately, and then hits you as hard as the car accident that takes the life of Bennett, and leaves a very broken aftermath within his family, and the young girl he had just (finally) began to date.
There is a scene in the beginning of Bennett's family - Mother, Father and Brother - sat in the back of a limo, driving away from the graveside service, that is one of the most uncomfortable, moving and intimate scenes I've seen in a very long time. There is not conversation, it is nearly silent except for the movie's score playing, and it feels like it goes on for a very long time. We watch the family's reaction, especially the Father's (played wonderfully by Pierce Brosnan, who as an actor is winning me over, unexpectedly, lately), as they pull away - small reactions, expressions, so painful that you almost want to turn away. This is a powerful way to begin a film.
Carey Mulligan is fantastic in this. I've yet to see her in a role that I have not completely loved, and I look forward to what she does next in her career. The levels and shades and differences of grief, and how it looks, and how people deal with death, is developed so wonderfully in this film. Small shards of pain surfacing in each family member, the reverberation it has on the others, and the very personal, and intimate (again I use this word - the whole film felt so deeply intimate) nature of how we deal with the one thing none of us want to deal with.
My favorite scene is near the end when the family is rushing Rose, who is about to give birth to Bennnett's daughter, to the hospital and are all trying to tell Rose stories of who Bennett was. The choices they make in what they tell, the way the stories overlap each other's, and the healing that takes place in that one scene is breathtaking.
Saturday nights have become obscure/cheesy horror/sci-fi night as of late. My boyfriend is quite the connosiur of such fare, and seems to have a neverending supply of choices. Sometimes we mock the small TV screen the entire time, having our own version of Mystery Science Theater, other times we actually get caught up in the usually way-far-fetched plot, and then there are tiems we just laugh - A LOT.
This film was a case of the latter.
From the first few scenes, and lines such as "I'm a scientist, I don't believe in anything", or the talking skeleton discovered later who ends every diatribe with "I sleep now" - we had plenty of fodder for laughter (and future tag line jokes).
The film itself does not take itself seriously. It is, well, not exactly a parody, but more of a tribute to B-grade science fiction and monster movies. As the movie unfolds you can feel the wink at the viewer, but it isn't mocking, but more like bringing us in on the joke.
My favorite characters are two of the three shown above - the talking (and sleeping) skeleton of Cadavra, and Animala, somewhat cloned girl put together by (if memory serves me right) the blending of four different animals.
Land Of Talk :: Quarry Hymns (live) song is off the newly released album, Cloak & Cipher released today (U.S.), August 10, 2010 Available here.
Dissonance, melody, recovery and a gang of musical friends are all part of the foundations behnd Land Of Talk’s sophmore release, Cloak & Cipher. After surviving, and recovering, from a vocal hemmorhage, lead singer Elizabeth Powell returns with an at times haunting, and at other times lilting, vocal range. Members of Arcade Fire and Stars come along for the ride, and listening to the album as a whole, it is a recognizable compilation of sound.
Land Of Talk reminds me a bit of some of the early/mid-90’s not completely-riot grrl girl groups, such as Letters for Cleo, Throwing Muses and Veruca Salt. At times I’m also reminded of a favorite, though not well-known, band called Drugstore (mostly known for their collaboration with Thom Yorke on the song El Presidente).
The stark, and angel with a shot of whiskey quality, in the clip above, when Elizabeth is walking along the street and singing acoustic, is gorgeous. I’m torn between loving the more sonic buzz and hum sound of the album, and the more raw and stripped down sound above - I’m thinking I’m loving both.
Return to childhood imaginary friends, mystical creatures that seem brought to life by some Beatlesque Yellow Submarine dream and cartoon skies, make up the new video by Clinic. Fitting, as the bands sound has evolved into something that harkens the Magical Mystery Tour/Yellow Submarine era of the Beatles, fused with modern indie-pop sensibilities.
Listening to the first single, I'm Aware, as well as a featured megamix of said song, I feel as if Clinic is gifting us with some merging of Liverpool's yesterday and today.
Bubblegum, the forthcoming album set to be released in the U.S. sometime in October, is promised to be a dream state of dulcimers, strings and tack piano. Clinic plans to visit the U.S., as well, with the following dates:
Summer: 8- 16 Brooklyn, NY - Bell House 8-19 New York, NY - Joe's Pub 8-21 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's Fall: 11-05 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel 11-06 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brendas 11-09 Montreal, QB - La Sala Rossa 11-10 Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace 11-11 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall 11-12 Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry 11-15 Seattle, WA - Neumos 11-16 Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret 11-17 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge 11-19 San Francisco, CA - The Independent 11-20 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
I look forward to hearing the new album as I'm really digging this first song. What do you think?
"Little fish, big fish, swimming in water, Come back here, man, bring me my daughter."
The smell of cigarettes and gasoline, the dim lights of a nearly deserted parking lot, the hour so late that it was almost the next day, and this song playing over us. We had one of those strange relationships that is never quite defined: lover, friend, companion, accomplice. I know our times together were stolen - hours between shifts and responsibilities and places we were meant to be. We were unexpected, which helped keep a veil of secrecy around us, though I'm still not sure what we were trying to hide.
There was always music. There was always conversation. Sometimes there was kissing, and other physical trysts. Sometimes there were arguements, or silent sulks. Sometimes there was nothing but two people in a car, driving fast, escaping in silencing, touching hands sometimes as if to remind ourselves that we weren't alone.
This song was part of that time, part of us, and now forever part of that memory.
“I don’t mind the sun sometimes, the images it shows. I can taste you on my lips, and smell you in my clothes. Cinnamon and sugary, and softly spoken lies. You never know just how you look, through other people’s eyes.”
This song has always felt like two songs in one to me. The verses remind me of The Jim Carroll Band’s song ‘People Who Died’ - laundry list of people and tragedies, and the sound/style of it. And then the chorus kicks in, a bit of melodic poetry, and a change of mood/feeling from tragedy to a kind of beauty.
This song reminds me of the late 90’s, the writing I was doing then, the place I was somewhat stuck at in my life. It wasn’t exactly a happy time, not at all, but there was a electric kind of spark to what I was creating - I suppose the rough edges of days will do that to you - will bring out the art.
This was one of my favorite songs at the time, and I still love it - especially the chorus - and the line “you’ll never know just how you look through other people’s eyes.”
“You are the sun, you are the only one. You are so cool, you are so rock and roll.”
This song seems designed for movies, for action scenes, for screaming at the top of your lungs, for driving fast in the middle of the night in the desert towards Las Vegas, for past 3am after hour clubs with dark hallways, and for really hot nights with some kind of lover.
It just feels like sex, drugs and rock-and-roll - cliches aside (or included) - all wrapped up in a song. And, I mean that as a damn good thing.
I’d also include this song in a list of best movie scenes utilizing music (in a non-musical movie) for the use of this song in RocknRolla…it is a brilliant blending of music and film…truly.
“So, just give me an hour, I’ll show you how you feel.”
This song reminds me of a certain summer - the people I hung around with, the things we did, and the music that played. It was kohl black eyeliner, late nights turned to mornings at various parks around the valley, long boots and dark dance floors, and cherry sour kisses.
I still have a case full of mixed tapes from that summer. Sometimes I like to pull them out and look through them, read off the tracklists and remember what that time felt like. I need to get my hands on a cassette player again, one of these days, so I can give them a listen.
Though Earth, Moon, Sun is my all-time favorite Love and Rockets album, I do love Express quite a lot, and it is more memory-loaded for me.
This is one of the bands that I’ve never seen live that I really, really wish I had.
“My baby don’t care who knows, my baby just cares for me.”
In the middle of the night, or maybe it was closer to very early morning, I sat in a Las Vegas casino and discussed music with someone I’d just met. There was all this noise all around us, the clanging of change spitting out of slot machines, the jangly machines themselves, the buzz and hum of the clusters and crowds, and yet it seemed like it was only the two of us there, talking.
Somehow the discussion of love songs came up, and our ideas of what would make the perfect love song. This was the song he chose. He said the song felt like that kind of feeling you get when you first fall for someone, and how, for a moment, everything disappears, or matters less, except for that other person.
A day or two later we ran into each other again, and as we walked off together, he started humming this. It was one of those moments that seem insignificant, but later, on recollection, meant something.
I love when music becomes interwoven in a memory, and adds to the significance of a moment.
Anytime I hear this song I’m immediately transported to a much, much younger version of me, probably age five or six, singing-a-long with my Mom to this song. We are in our old light blue Oldsmobile, a glass bottle of Coke passed between us, being “sharing friends”.
For awhile, growing up, this was my nickname and my Mom would often say/sing “Oh lolli, lolli, lolli” to me.
Hearing it, anytime, makes me feel like a little girl again.
I will preface this by saying that yes, I do like Coldplay. I like them enough that a few of their songs made this list. I will also say that I truly do not understand the overwhelming hatred of this band. So be it, though, I like them and I'm not one to apologize for what I like.
Parachutes, the album that this song comes from, came out the year I was married for the second time. It was also the year that I moved out of state for the first time. It was the year that I took risks and made big changes, which in hindsight were not my best choices, but as with much else in my life, I do not regret.
It was such a vivid time in my life though, and as always, music was right there with me, connecting the scenes, and singing-a-long with me. I remember the first time I heard this song as if it were yesterday.
I think it was one of the albums the two of us bought before we took off for Salt Lake City. I remember it playing in the basement of the house we were moving into, the room a clutter of boxes to unpack, and that sort of excitement and overwhelm that new starts are full of.
We were a new start then, too.
The song, listening now, it was very fitting for all of it.
"We can begin again. Shed our skin, let the sun shine in."
I have a long-standing love affair with the ocean, one that is fully realized and requited, and that never falters even when I’ve drifted far away for spells, living farther away then I ever really care to be.
I’ve written stories set at the edge of the ocean. I’ve had my own stories right there on the sand. I’ve had my heart broken by the sea, and I’ve healed by its side, as well. I’ve fallen in love, fallen apart, and fallen into good and bad things, up and down the coast. Through it all, though, I do not regret a thing.
Like music, the ocean is one of my true loves forever.
"I'm gonna find me a reckless man, razor blades and dice in his eyes. Just a touch of sadness in his fingers, thunder and lightening in his thighs."
I have a musical crush on Chan Marshall's voice. It is a little bit rough, with a slight sting to it, like a shot of whiskey late at night at some anonymous dive bar. It is a bit sweet, with a sensual slur to it, like early morning kisses that start out tentative, but lead elsewhere eventually.
And this song? it is filled with stories just waiting to be written. it feels like a life ready to be lived, chomping at the bit, clanging a set of keys together impatiently waiting to go. It is heart-racing, skin-prickling, delicious moments that you will always remember, the kind of times you whisper to your best friend, or confess to the pages of a locked diary.
“The days are bright, and filled with pain, enclose me in your gentle rain.”
When I was 19 I fell in love with Jim Morrison, and The Doors.
I’m pretty sure my Mom found it amusing, at the time, since she’d been such a huge fan of them herself, at about the same age, if not a wee bit younger.
I remember watching VHS tapes of The Doors live at the Hollywood Bowl, and a behind-the-scenes documentary, listening to their albums pretty much non-stop, and reading books of Jim’s poetry. Then the film came out a few years later, when I was 22, and I fell again.
Sometimes I think their music is just a little part of my bloodstream, passed through from my Mom, and her love of their music.
This has always been one of my favorites of their songs…I love it, and still do.
Clinic's new album is set to be released October 5, 2010. Bubblegum, same title as the sample track above, is said to be a "rewiring" of the Liverpool quartet's frenetic sound, as heard on the 2002 album Walking With Thee, and the 2008 album Do It.
Bubblegum (the album) is said to take a leap beyond the churning riffs and wired vocals to a more dreamlike side of the musical landscape, with the help of dulcimers, tack piano and strings.
Bubblegum (the song) reminds me of the well-read, and ear-marked pages, of a Summer read that you cannot seem to put down. Steamy in a slightly subtle way, indie without being full of its own self, and very sensual sounding. I listen, close my eyes, and can almost picture a Sofia Coppola helmed film flickering across a screen - an off-kilter love story, this song trilling softly in the background of a slightly awkward first time.
“It really gets to be a drag, when all we really need is love.”
Every so often there is a song from my past that I’ve completely forgotten about. A song that slipped into the ether of put away albums, and never quite part of the quintessential era music.
I love The Psychedelic Furs for many different reasons, and for many of their albums and songs.
Some are so known, and in some ways so over-played, yet they are still some of my favorite songs (see Pretty In Pink, Love My Way, Heaven, Heartbreak Beat, Ghost In You).
And then, there are a few that perhaps were not so well-known, but still make my list of oh my stars I love that song.
There is an HD radio station that I listen to sometimes in my car, especially during long commutes, which plays nothing but “alternative 80’s music”. It was on this station, on a recent early morning listen, that this song came on and I was both taken aback, and delighted.
Mirror Moves may have been my most-played, and probably my favorite album of theirs, and one I’m now wanting to listen to, in its entirety. Love it.
“I learned my lesson, it left a scar, now I see how you really are.”
Another cover song that has made it on my list, this is the version that I know, and love (though the original is quite good, but more on the lines of a new discovery to me). Linda’s version is the one I have memories attached to, and remember singing-a-long to.
My Aunt had a collection of albums and 8-tracks that I would listen to whenever I’d visit, especially during the long visits I’d make to my Grandparents’ house (where she lived) over some of my childhood Summer vacations. I used to turn this song up and do the hairbrush as a microphone into the mirror performance - a lot.
I ended up with the sheet music sometime during one of those Summers, and learned to play it on my Grandmother’s organ, albeit a bit of a slowed-down version.
Years later, when I was nineteen, a boyfriend of mine told me I reminded me of a 70’s era Linda Ronstadt, and cited this song, and era of her look.
At the time Linda was better known for her soft/adult contemporary hits, her soundtrack song from the animated An American Tale, and her work with Aaron Neville, and laughed and shook their heads at the comparison.
But I knew this version of Linda, the one he meant, so I took it as a compliment. I remembered thinking she was “rockin”, strong, and pretty damn awesome.
“I make the shapes come much too close, I pull my eyes out, hold my breath, and wait until I shake.”
I think it was my friend Mike who once proclaimed that it was not a mix tape that I made if it didn’t have at least one song from The Cure on it. And, for a very long time, I’m pretty sure he was spot on with that.
I loved The Cure.
I still love The Cure.
Lyrically, musically and something more about their music has always just gotten to me, sunk in deep, and become part of my inner soundtrack. Their songs, they have memory imprints of parts of me weaved into them, and sometimes I can almost see/hear/touch/smell the time and place of my life the song brings up.
Like this one: I see my old red Honda hatchback. I can smell Marlboro lights and Poison perfume, and Studio One hairspray. I can see Sunset and Highland, or Gower, or the end of Willougby, near where that school was (maybe still is). I can feel crushed velvet and lace against my skin, long boots that curved over my knees, and the tight-skinned feel of all that make-up I used to wear. I see the vinyl booths with rips in spots, colored that horrid beige/orange mix that screamed “we’ve been around since the ‘70’s”, and that matched the waitress’ smocks - late night coffee, fried things, salad with too much dressing - and all that middle of the night conversation.
It reminds me of waiting by the phone until it was time to go out again, back when phones had call waiting and answering machine tapes, and were left behind when you walked out the door. Boys with eyeliner and long, gangly legs, who sometimes kissed just to say hello.
