it's midnight at the starlite diner

My eyes can't look at you any other way

2011-01-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

#940 - Detlef Schrempf :: Band of Horses

“So take it as a song,
or a lesson to learn,
and sometime soon be better than you were.
If you say you’re gonna go,
then be careful,
and watch how you treat every living soul.”

Band of Horses was a slow developed love for me. For a good long while I knew, and loved, No One’s Gonna Love You, but anything else I’d heard seemed to disappear into the background. After a little time, though, I started paying atttention, and the background music began to pull me in.

This song, especially, drew me in and mesmerized me.

It is a stunningly beautiful, simple, and lyrically moving song. There is a bittersweet feeling to it that seems to make me quietly melancholic when listening, but also hopeful in that way that music seems to only be able to convey. That feeling that one is not alone in their emotions and fears, hopes and dreams, and sadness.

Sometimes music understands more than anything else.

As long as we're together

2011-01-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

#941 - Absolute Beginners :: David Bowie

“As long as your still smiling,
there’s nothing more I need.”

So many songs of David Bowie are part of the soundtrack of my life. Chapters of the life I’ve had so far are full of memories that are associated, or triggered by, so many of Bowie’s songs. This one, is both a memory song from my past, and a song I’ve re-discovered/re-fell in love with recently - so it is now becoming part of the memories I’m making now.

Somewhere in one of my crates of vinyl albums I have the 45” single of this. I played it over and over and over again after I first bought it. I absolutely loved the song. It reminds me of the Summer of 1986, my late teen years, when pretty much all of my money went to buying albums and music magazines, and going to the movies.

I remember seeing this film a few times in the theater. It was playing at this small shopping mall theater where I used to walk to and waste an entire day seeing everything they would play.

Recently I heard this song again, stumbling on it online (probably posted by a friend who I know absolutely loves this song, too). This time around I think the lyrics sunk in deeper, and it felt more relevant somehow. I think we are all amateurs when it comes to love, stumbling through it, trying it on, and trying so hard to not screw anything up.

I think we are all absolute beginners when it comes to love.

and I think I need a little poison

2011-01-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

#942 - Bright Yellow Gun :: Throwing Muses
“I have nothing to offer but confusion.”

It was the mid-nineties. It was in my mid-twenties. I was working at Tower Records. I was the Mom of a two year old who was trying to pick herself up after a failed attempt at marriage and “family” (at least the kind of “family” we all saw on TV). I spent any free time I had going to concerts, and losing myself in the music (the job helped on both accounts) and I remember re-discovering Throwing Muses when this album came out - and falling immediately ears over heels for this song.

I also remember listening to this song and discussing with a co-worker how underrated Kristin Hersh was, and how she was as, if not more, brilliant as so many of the female musicians getting so much attention via the Lilith extravaganza/explosion (not that I don’t have much love for many of those artists, too).

Dancing In The Dark

2010-11-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

Dancing in the Dark :: Bruce Springsteen

“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 Wanna Be Adored

2010-11-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

I Wanna Be Adored :: The Raveonettes

"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.

P.S. This is a keen cover song!

Your Body Is A Machine

2010-11-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

Your Body is a Machine :: The Good Natured

"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.

Ashes To Ashes

2010-11-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

Ashes to Ashes :: David Bowie

“I'm happy,
hope you’re happy too.”

***

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…

Green Eyes

2010-11-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Green Eyes :: Coldplay

“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.

and, this song reminds me of it.

Jackie's Strength

2010-11-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

Jackie’s Strength :: Tori Amos

“You said we were the real thing.”

***

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.

Angel Bossanova

2010-11-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Angel Bossanova :: Anneli Drecker

“Where has my angel gone,
far across the sea?”

***

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.

The Kills - Black Balloon

2010-10-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

Black Balloon :: The Kills

“Let the weather have its way with you.”

***

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

2010-10-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Black Dirt

2010-10-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

Black Dirt :: Sea Wolf

"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

2010-10-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Bang Bang Bang

2010-09-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

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 you

2010-09-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Rootless Tree (live) :: Damien Rice

“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 time coming

2010-08-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

#943 - A Change Is Gonna Come :: Sam Cooke

“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.

Jenny & Johnny :: a mini-review

2010-08-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

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).

Im ready to be heartbroken

2010-08-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken :: Camera Obscura

"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

2010-08-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

#944 - I Need Love :: Sam Phillips

“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.

and I will rise up with fists

2010-08-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

#945 - Rise Up With Fists!! :: Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins

“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.

Come Undone (Hawk mini-review)

2010-08-24T16:54:00.001-07:00

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.

Spectactular Girl (Tomorrow Morning mini-review)

2010-08-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

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?

I'll show them to you

2010-08-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Lay Lady Lay :: Magnet & Gemma Hayes

"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.

You're my Summer babe

2010-08-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

#946 - Summer Babe (Winter Version) :: Pavement

"My eyes stick to all the shiny roses."

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?

What do you say, baby?

2010-08-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Oh, isn't it wild?

2010-08-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

#947 - Nightclubbing :: Iggy Pop

“Nightclubbing we’re nightclubbing,
we’re what’s happening.”

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?

These hazards of love never more will trouble us

2010-08-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

#948 - The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) :: The Decemberists

"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

1408 :: a mini-review

2010-08-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

1408

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.

Zeros and ones

2010-08-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

#949 - Science vs. Romance :: Rilo Kiley

"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.

Hearts too young to euthenize

2010-08-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

#950 - I Got High (live) :: Clem Snide

"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.

Love me, love me tonight

2010-08-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

#951 - Temptation Eyes :: Blake Babies

"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.

Me & my friend saw a platypus

2010-08-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

#952 - Handlebars :: Flobots

"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.

The Greatest :: Mini-review

2010-08-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

The Greatest

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.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra :: Mini-Review

2010-08-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

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.

Oh Saturdays, I miss you already.

Land Of Talk :: Cloak & Cipher :: Mini-Review

2010-08-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

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.

You know I'm aware

2010-08-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm Aware :: Clinic

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?

I lost my heart under the bridge

2010-08-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

#953 - Down By The Water :: PJ Harvey

"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.

They were all in love with dying

2010-07-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

#954 - Pepper :: Butthole Surfers

“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.”

My heart is blue

2010-07-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

#955 - Rock & Roll Queen :: The Subways

“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.

Give you some songs & sunshine

2010-07-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

#956 - All In My Mind :: Love & Rockets

“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.

Liz Taylor is not his style

2010-07-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

#957 - My Baby Just Cares For Me :: Nina Simone

“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.

Call my baby lollipop

2010-07-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

#958 - Lollipop :: The Chordettes

“Lollipop, lollipop.
Oh lolli, lolli, lolli.”

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.

Its tangled up with me

2010-07-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

#959 - Trouble :: Coldplay

"I never meant to cause you trouble."

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.

At the edge of the ocean

2010-07-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

#960 - Edge of the Ocean :: Ivy

"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 chase the sky forever

2010-07-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

#961 - Silver Stallion :: Cat Power

"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.

And when the hardest part is over we’ll be here

2010-07-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

Really loving the new song, and looking forward to the release his solo album.

After watching this, and quite a few of The Killers videos, as well as seeing him live - I think I'd like to see him try his hand at acting in a film.

I know it is terribly cliche to have musician turn actor, and vice versa, but I think he has something.

Before you slip into unconsciousness

2010-07-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

#962 - The Crystal Ship :: The Doors

“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.

Dark hair thrown back in wild abandon

2010-07-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Sneak peek at something good...

Bubblegum :: Clinic

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.

I definitely look forward to hearing more.

They're no fun at all

2010-07-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

#963 - Here Come Cowboys :: The Psychedelic Furs

“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'm gonna say it again

2010-07-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

#964 - You’re No Good (live) :: Linda Ronstadt

“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 never thought this day would end

2010-06-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

#965 - Close To Me :: The Cure

“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.

“I’ve waited hours for this…”

Put 'em on me

2010-06-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

#966 - I Want Your (Hands On Me) :: Sinead O’Connor and MC Lyte

“I want you call me to you,
I wanna move, will you?
I really wanna feel you.”

Late nights, back alleys, unidentified side streets and non-marked buildings, the smell of clove cigarettes, kohl eyeliner, black stockings and all that music. This song reminds me of clubs in Hollywood in the very late ‘80’s, and dancing.

Lots of dancing.

There are other memories attached to this song, and that time; other feelings, reminders, faces. But, listening to it today, dancing is what I remember the most.

Rock on gold dust woman

2010-06-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

#967 - Gold Dust Woman :: Fleetwood Mac

"Do you know how to pick up the pieces,
and go home?"

Rumours was one of those albums that I remember hearing in my house as a child. I think it was one of my Mom's favorites for a while, and it became one of mine, as well. It is still one of my favorite albums of all-time, one that I can listen to from start to finish, side one to side two, and completely enjoy.

This song, though, always stood out to me.

It is one of those powerful songs that I like to throw on when I'm feeling weak, or heartbroken, turn up as loud as my speakers (and ears) can stand, and sing-a-long. The lyrics, and the feel of the song, feels like strength, survival and freedom to me - and I think that is why it is one of my "turn to when I need strength" songs.

Especially the line I quoted above.

Stevie Nicks is one of my musical heroes, which perhaps I'll one day craft a list about - her voice, her style, her lyrics, the way she has survived, and evolved.

I also love Hole's cover of this song.

And now our laughter just goes on and on

2010-06-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

#968 - Lay Your Hands On Me :: Thompson Twins

"But I have never felt the grace,
that I have felt in your embrace."

Back in 1985, when this song came out, I thought it a near perfect love song. I'd listen to it and imagine a fictional love affair, often sketched with a co-star/lover who was a recent crush, either from my everyday life, or torn from a page of a magazine. I always thought this sounds like love, especially the above quoted lyrics.

Then I think I forgot this song. I have the album in a crate, stored away at my Mom's house - with no turntable its hard to bring them back into my house. All those albums just waiting to be played again. Someday, I promise.

Recently, prior to constructing this personal favorite list, I heard this song again. There is this radio station that plays nothing but 80's alternative music, and this was part of their rotation. I still knew (know) all the words, and I drove on to work, turning it up, and singing along.

And I realized, I have that kind of love, and I felt pretty damn lucky.

Sing to me

2010-06-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

#969 - Sing :: Blur

“I can’t feel,
‘cause I’m numb.”

We all have coping skills, and default reactions, that have been developed over the years and become part of our particular make-up. Most of these evolve over time, honed due to circumstances, survival instincts, and the lifestyle(s) we’ve lived/lived through/live in. Some of thes are positive skills, and some of them, well, they are more akin to the baggage we carry our issues, fears and heartbreak around in.

I’ve created some positive ones in my life, I do know that, but my default - and not a shiny default - is to go numb.

Its as if my whole being goes into shut-down mode, gathering up all resources and holding them close inside, leaving me a shell that I suppose cannot be hurt (or fools itself into thinking it can’t be hurt). Once in that numb state, though, it is very difficult to pull out of so I tend to self-battle to not fall into that default place. Sometimes I can stop it.

Music,in all its incarnations, and often singing, often helps me in this (and in so many other things). One of the many reasons music has been, and will always be, so important to me.

2010-06-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

One More Cup Of Coffee :: The White Stripes

One More (Cup Of Coffee)

Louise kept a running list of things that she could still stand about Jake. A torn out sheet from one of his composition books, toward the back so it would take some time for him to notice, though she knew he’d see it eventually. The little jagged remains of paper will rat her out, proof of damage, like the bruises he leaves on the soft bits of her pale skin. He will find them, but not today, so she crumples it up and stuffs it at the bottom of her raggedy blue purse.

She sits outside in the cold, just around the back of the store, legs tucked up under her and the remains of a half-smoked cigarette pressed between her lips. (Next week I will quit, I swear) She had that moment, around quarter past six, where she thought of leaving (again). Sometimes all it takes is a crooked smile from a stranger, or the wide-eyed wonder of a child staring up at her, holding their mother’s hand, that makes her think to go.

I’m not sure he’d miss me much, anyway. And he doesn’t know about you, yet, now does he?

Louise changes her mind, sitting out there leaned up against the dumpsters, break time ticking away on the old wristwatch she wears (her father’s, the only thing he’d left her), and her skirt a little tighter; one more week and she’ll be showing.

She reasons that all it will take is one more thing, one more reason, to add to the list; that is all it will take to make her stay. She closes her eyes tightly, half-wishing and half-remembering, until the picture clears and the curtain of her mind recedes.

He makes a damn find cup of coffee, warm, but not too hot, with just the right amount of sugar (not that fake shit that kills small animals) and milk, and something else, some kind of secret ingredient. He told her once his Gran taught him how to make it, her perfect cup of coffee, but made him promise to keep it secret. One morning in bed I’d asked him to tell me, that I’d keep it safe and he smiled at me then, silent for a few minutes, then reluctantly he’d pulled me to his side, and whispered,

“She said it was a teaspoon of the sun from the break of a morning sky, three tears shed for the things that have left you, and a wish for something more.”

I think I would have liked his Grandmother.

I'll put us back together at heart

2010-06-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

# 970 - Don’t You (Forget About Me) :: Simple Minds

"Tell me your troubles and doubts,
Giving me everything inside and out."

Probably one of, if not the, quintessential song of the 80’s, and most likely the most memorable song associated with a John Hughes’ film.

The minute I hear it I see that opening scene of The Breakfast Club, with the cars driving up, and those first glimpses of each one of the characters. The movie is so deeply part of my make-up that its hard to remember the experience of watching it for the first time, though I remember the day, and the friends I was with.

This song reminds me of high school, of the friendships I had then, of the growing I did in those four years, and yes, of all those terribly awkward moments that make up that time in one’s adolescence.

It also reminds me of connection, of understanding, and the desire we all have to not be forgotten, to be seen, and to be understood.

And despite the very nature of this song being an almost anthem of a decade, and known by so many people, it still feels very personal to me when I listen to it.

Its alright...its okay...She & Him hit the road with Volume Two

2010-06-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

photo by Sam Jones

She & Him on the road...

Volume two, from the dynamic duo of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, known as She & Him, has been my own on the road soundtrack for the last month. Living and working in Los Angeles can make one a bit frazzled, especially if one's daily commute consists of never-ending traffic, re-occuring air (and agitation) pollution, and the stresses that seem to be born and bred here - worries on getting by, surviving, competing, maintaing the composure to be yourself.

On a good day one can use a bit of soothing, nostalgic-laden, candy-coated musical relief...and on the rough days, sometimes it can be the only paste keeping you together.

She & Him is a whole lot of all of that.

Songs such as Don't Look Back and I'm Gonna Make It Better bring back memories of Sunday drives in the back of my Grandparents' car, or the occasional family road trip - the music that I'd pick up on my portable radio, listening while roadside attractions, gas stations and nowhere in particular diners flashed by my window. There was always hope in the sound of the music, even if the lyrics hit on heartbreak or a hard-to-get romance; ever and always a sung-a-long promise of possibility.

Like the road ahead, full of twists and turns, and brake lights, but there is always a destination sought that we know can be achieved - and that is a kind of hope, too.

This Summer, She & Him's Volume Two will continue to keep me going, and keep my cool. I'll keep it in my favorite rotations, letting the promise of hope and ease and delight accompany my daily trips In The Sun.

And don't miss catching She & Him's own road trip stops:

The tour dates are:

7/1 Boston, MA @ House of Blues
7/2 Philadelphia, PA @ Great Plaza at Penn’s Landing
7/3 Oxford, ME @ Nateva Music Festival
7/4 New York, NY @ The Beach at Governors Island
7/6 New York, NY @ Terminal 5 – SOLD OUT
7/7 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club – SOLD OUT
7/9 Atlanta, GA Atlanta @ Botanical Gardens – SOLD OUT
7/10 Birmingham, AL @ Sloss Furnaces
7/11 Louisville, KY @ Forecastle Festival
7/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl**
8/26 Salt Lake City, UT @ Twilight Music Series
8/28 Omaha, NE @ Anchor Inn
8/29 St. Louis, MO @ LOUFest
8/30 Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
9/1 Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium

You can't go on thinking nothings wrong

2010-06-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

#971 - Drive :: The Cars

"Who's gonna come around
when you break?"

I suppose this song may very well be dismissed as adult slow rock, or whatever one calls that genre of music that plays on the overly cheesy, slow song/love song radio stations (everyone knows the kind, where everything is either heartbreak or diva sung anthems of love).

It is also very likely one of those songs that has been terribly over-played over the years, and arguably not one of the best songs from Ric Ocasek and the band, but it still definitely does make it to my list of 1,000 favorite songs.

Some of the reason is solely based on my own nostalgia, and memories of a first boyfriend. We spent many nights either driving around in his car, or parked somewhere in his car - watching movies at the drive-in, sorting out a place to be alone (we both lived at home), making out, and having those conversations that make you feel less alone in the world.

This song was playing one particular night, and it mattered - that night, the music, us.

I'm also rather fond of the video, with Ric's real life wife, Paulina Porizkova, and directed by actor Timothy Hutton.

Dance away the heartache

2010-06-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

#972 - Dance Away :: Roxy Music

"You're dressed to kill,
and guess who's dying?"

I love the connections I can trace back with certain songs, and the trail of music and association I follow of how I came to love a certain song. Sometimes the journey to falling for a song is almost more nostalgic to me than the memories evoked.

I was a huge Duran Duran fan in junior high and high school. I collected just about everything about them - albums, singles, remixes, magazines, imported fan books, t-shirts, photographs, posters, etc. I read everything I could find on them, and knew all kinds of random and useless information about them (favorite toothpaste? nicknames? favorite color?). I suppose all the trivia really wasn't necessary to know, except that it was fun to talk amongst friends and I suppose compete on who knew more, especially on each of our chosen favorites.

But, the "trivia" I did learn that stuck with me, and actually impacted some of my musical taste, was just that - their musical taste. Not that every mentioned band or singer from the band became part of my music collection, but some of them definitely did.

Roxy Music was one of those bands.

I think it was during a guest spot on Mtv as VJ's did I first hear Roxy Music. It was either this video, or the one to Avalon. The sound, the visuals, the fashion, the entire mood of all of it, captured me - and I wanted more. I ended up falling in love with the albums Avalon, For Your Pleasure and Manifesto - and later loving Bryan Ferry's solo work.

His music, both solo, and with Roxy Music, is some of the most sensual pop music I've ever heard - and I still love it.

You're lying in beauty now

2010-06-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

#973 - Pushing Up The Daisies :: The Colourfield

“And life goes on and on and on and on,
life goes on and on and on and on,
and on and on.”

Although this song, and the album it came off of, was a discovery of mine in my last year of High School, it reminds me more of my first few months of living in my first apartment. I lived with Julia’s dad in this small one-bedroom apartment. We didn’t have a TV, so all of our personal entertainment came from our stereo and mutual music collection, his guitar playing, and a wide assortment of friends who would come and go often.

We had dinner parties all the time. We took road trips to San Francisco. We had music playing all the time. For those first few months living together, in that apartment, was pretty wonderful. Those were the best time of our relationship - it would never be that good again.

This was one of the albums that I brought along when we moved in together. It was soon a favorite of both of ours, and I can vividly remember it playing while I cooked dinner in our tiny kitchen. We had one of those ironing boards that came out of the wall that we would use as a table, when it was just the two of us having dinner.

I remember this song playing on that first Valentine’s Day together. He had set-up a scavenger hunt for me to follow with handmade gifts.

I know I put this on a mixed-tape we took with us, driving up the coast to stay in a little roadside motel just outside of Santa Barbara. That same trip I got sick after we rode the ferris wheel together; the lights and movement, and the salty sea air turning my stomach. It would be weeks before I’d find out my ill reaction was due to being pregnant.

Those months were life-changing, and this song brings flashes of those days back as the melody swirls around through my headphones.

Can you please release me?

2010-06-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

#974 - Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT Remix) :: Metric

“I fought the war,
but the war won.”

I don’t often prefer remixes to songs, unless of course I’m actually on a dance floor, but this one is truly an exception. The MSTRKRFT remix of this song takes it to the next level, and brings out an intensity and passion and fire to it that it just screams for.

Is the song about sex? Love? Self-destruction? The edge, or loss, of sanity? The war within all of us? Or between those of us who entangle with one another? Or perhaps it is all of this, and none of this, depending on your perspective. I know I’ve felt all of the above before…and after.

It definitely makes me want to dance.

Say it ain't so, Joe

2010-06-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

#975 - Up All Night :: The Boomtown Rats

“Staying up all night.”

There is a certain energy, an electrical under the skin buzz, that takes over when you are up all night. In the middle of the night, the wee hours, everything feels just a little different. The glow of the street lamps in a suburbon neighborhood, or the glare of a neon lit liquor store as your car cruises down a still not deserted city street, it changes the look of the world - if only for those few hours.

Struggling, or living with, insomnia makes one accustomed to the still hours between night and morning. I know, in the past, I’ve stayed up all night many times in the past - sometimes writing, sometimes negotiating with the fates for sleep, sometimes with friends, or a lover, sometimes with chemicals, and other times with just my own sleepless nature.

Nowadays it is often due to a restless mind, stresses that nag at me and spin through my head, a story I’m needing to spill out onto a page, or my son who shares my battle with sleep/insomniac-tendencies. Sometimes those hours, though, are the best to me - stolen hours where the silence helps me dig in deeper to who I am, what I think, feel, and want to create.

And thankfully there is always music and coffee to get me through the next day, after being up all night.

Move on out captain

2010-06-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

#976 - Beyond the Sea :: Bobby Darin

“It’s far beyond the stars,
it’s near beyond the moon.”

This song reminds me of my Grandfather, the music he used to listen to, especially during dance number shows like The Lawrence Welk Show, that he would often call me in to watch with him. He always seemed to get dreamy-eyed when the dancing began, especially to this song, and a few others of its style/genre/spirit.

He was a big man, rough around the edges, quick with jokes and a bit clumsy on his feet (a family trait, I think, if I’m any proof of that). I’m not sure if he ever did much dancing in his life, though I think somewhere underneath his surfaces he wanted to.

Maybe somewhere, wherever he is now, beyond the sea, he’s dancing.

I play my stupid songs

2010-06-07T14:28:00.000-07:00

#977 - In The Garage :: Weezer

"I've got Kitty Pryde,
and Nightcrawler, too,
waiting there for me.
Yes I do, I do."

This is one of two of my all-time favorite Weezer songs. When I first bought this album it was this song that I played over and over again, and it is still the song I turn up loudest, and sing-a-long to, when I play the album now.

I don't know what it is that I love so much about it.

It might be the comic book references, or the self-proclaimed "I'm a geek" feel to all of it. The whole feeling of being accepted, and having this space where you can feel that - play your guitar, write your stupid songs, collect whatever it is you love - its hard not to relate to that.

For me, it was my room. Posters all over my walls, vinyl albums, magazines, books, comics, and stacks of composition books with writings and journal entries in them. That was where I was me more than anywhere else when I was growing up (especially during mid-t- late adolescence). It was that place I did not have to be anyone for anybody else - and there is so much freedom, and creativity, that comes from having that kind of place.

I think that is why I love this song so much - for recognizing that space, and what and who we are within it.

Let it fade

2010-06-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

#978 - Come Down :: Bush

"'Cause I don't want to come back down from this cloud,
it's taken me all this time to find out what I need."

Sometimes I think I enjoy the music from the '90's better now than I did back in the '90's, or perhaps my tastes have veered in different directions since then (or, as it seems, in various directions).

I remember this song as a background song, a soundtrack playing while I hungout with certain friends, or drove around Los Angeles with the radio on. I do not have any particular image, or memory, that comes to mind from those days when I hear this song. What I do have, though, is a newfound love of the song, and the lyrics, now.

It was recent that I heard the song again, and something about the lyrics (especially the quoted chorus above) that struck a chord with me. I have gotten to a time, or an age, or a chapter in my life where I really know myself and what I want in this life - and for once I feel very happy with the person I am, and the people I've chosen to have in my life. I guess, it just took a long time to get here, and this song strikes at that in some ways.

A re-discovered song from the '90's that resonates more with me today? Yeah, suppose that is why it made this list.

Played my favorite song

2010-06-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

#979 - I Love Rock and Roll :: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

"So put another dime in the jukebox, baby."

Listening to this song, right now, as I write this causes me to realize that I may very well love this song even more today than I did when it first was released - and I loved it from the start, so very much.

This played all the time on the radio station I listened to in 1981. I was in junior high, and I listened to the radio feverishly everyday after school (and on my clip-on transistor radio that attached to my bicycle, when I rode around the neighborhood. This was a huge song at the roller rink, and I remember skating around those slick wood floors, singing-a-long with my friends.

This was also one of those songs that were often a part of slumber party-hairbrush as a microphone-concerts, and turn-it-up until your car speakers nearly blow freeway sing-a-longs.

I just turned it up here in my office, unplugging my headphones, and three of my co-workers started singing-a-long - loudly - dancing around, everyone saying at least once "damn, I love this song".

Honestly, it is just one of those songs.

Sometimes it frightens me

2010-06-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

#980 - Suddenly Last Summer :: The Motels

“It happened forever,
for a short time.”

Some songs that I love have a story in my head that play along with them when I listen. Some of these in my head stories have existed for years, and though they may slightly evolve in images and imagined plot, the early visuals that came to mind originally still play a part.

This is one of those songs.

What I see play out in my head, I suppose, is my own version of the music’s video. Visions played out the way I see them whist singing along. A girl, not much past adolescence, at a bus station in some forgettable town. She is saying goodbye to something (not someone), possibly running away from someone (not something). The bus pulls away and she never sees someone chasing behind after, trying to stop her - and that was the one thing she wanted - for someone to stop her, ask her to stay.

I remember it being a bit jarring to see the actual video for the first time. The images seeming to conflict with how I saw the song, felt the lyrics, imagined it coming to life. I prefer the way it plays out in my head - just like I more than not prefer the way I imagine characters in a book I’m reading, and find myself disappointed when a film version casts the characters so differently.

I used to shoot you down

2010-06-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

#981 - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) :: Nancy Sinatra

“Seasons came and changed the time.
When I grew up, I called him mine.
He would always laugh and say,
‘remember when we used to play?’”

Yes, this is a cover song (which I’ve tried to step away from for this list - perhaps for a future list of favorite cover songs…), but this is the version that I know, and love.

During a Summer in my childhood I spent time visiting friends of my family in San Jose. My friend Laura, born two days before I was, had moved away with her family, but we’d all kept in touch, and these Summer visits happened back and forth for a few years.

I can’t recall exactly how old I was during this particular visit - 10 maybe - or a lot of what we did during the visit, except for afternoons spent in their swimming pool, and their nextdoor neighbor, Jean.

She was our mothers’ age, I think, but so different than anyone else we knew “that age” (pretty much other mothers). She was divorced (something we’d not yet encountered in our own family, yet), she drove a convertible, she had a black tiled swimming pool, she was loud, and she laughed and swore a lot.

She also had a room just for her stereo and record collection; a room she let us hangout in during that one Summer.

Nancy Sinatra’s album ‘How Does That Grab You?’ was one that we would play often, and this song was my favorite track on it. I remember lying back on the floor in that room, letting this song wash over me, making up stories of true love gone bad in my head. I think somewhere in those imaginings I pictured this song being sung by Jean herself, as she drove off into the night in her convertible, leaving her lost love behind her.

It made me very happy to hear this song play during the opening scenes of Kill Bill Volume 1.

Who do you think you are

2010-06-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

#982 - Mr. Big Stuff :: Jean Knight

"I'd rather give my love to a poor guy that has a love that's true,
than to be fooled around and get hurt by you."

I've loved this song for as long as I can remember, and have so many memories of running around with a hairbrush microphone, as a little girl, singing to this song. My Aunt had the 45" and we'd play it in the Summer, when I'd stay at my Grandparents house, and dance around her room to it.

I also had these neighbors briefly (I think they only lived on our small cul de sac for a few months) who had this stereo in their garage. The two sister and I would crank the collection of 45"s we all had, and make-up dances to go along with them. It was always this song, and Please Mr. Postman, that we played the most.

This was the one I always chose.

Don't be surprised what you discover

2010-05-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

#983 - You’ll Find A Way :: Santigold

“Go Ahead,
you know you want it.”

I love the energy of this, the lyrics, the almost caffeinated feeling that this song instills in me. It is a great “wake up in the morning and hit the freeway” song, as well as a “it is finally Friday, let’s slip into something more fantastic” tune.

The sound is reminiscent of some 80’s pop - think Blondie, Kim Wilde, Missing Persons- fused with some modern indie pop acts, such as Metric, The Ting Tings and a less political-skewed M.I.A.

This song has Summer in its veins, dancing in its undertones, and throw yourself your own car concert (road trips, daily commutes, and everything in-between) in its smirk and wink. I keep hitting repeat, and repeat, and repeat again.

But its gone from your eyes

2010-05-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

#984 - Eyes Without A Face :: Billy Idol

"I spend so much time,
believing all the lies,
to keep the dream alive."

I'm pretty sure we've all been there, haven't we? Closing our eyes, and our perspectives, to keep something going - to "keep the dream alive". The heart can make us cloudy, hazy, foolish and blind. But, sometimes the hazy heart is right.

This song always reminds me of breaking free of something overdue to be free of. Trading lies in for truths, having the face come clear/your vision clear, shattering the dream to help put it back together into some kind of reality.

The change in tempo, and break in the melody, when he "steals a car and goes to Las Vegas" is more of that freedom. Seizing your life back, and finding release in your own ways. I love the line "reading murder books, trying to stay hip", more imagery of killing off the lies, to get back on to one's life.

I've always loved this song.

Transition to another place

2010-05-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

#985 - New Life :: Depeche Mode

"You think you only know me when you turn on the light."

Early Depeche Mode brings to mind late nights sat in my room listening to the radio, fingers aimed and ready on my portable cassette player, trying to record all my favorite songs of the week. They remind me of a first kiss on a Disneyland ride, Star Hits magazine, Licorice Pizza record store, and sleepovers at some of my closest friends houses.

I lost my taste for the band for quite awhile during the late 80's/early 90's due to some not-so-great associations with the band and someone(s) in my life at the time. It is kind of a shame when someone, or an experience, taints your perspective on a song and/or band. But sometimes it is inevitable, and impossible to change - memories and people attach to music, just as times in my life do.

Time heals though, and I usually am able to come back and forgive certain songs and bands for their memory triggers (or maybe I forgive the person, or time and place) - perhaps a bit of both?

This song, though, reminds me of good times and some of my memorable (in a good way) adolescent experiences.

Is all I need to calm the pain

2010-05-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

#986 - Love Resurrection :: Alison Moyet

“Just a little divine intervention.”

What a voice Alison Moyet has - powerful, sexy, beautiful, show-stopping really. I discovered her voice first back when she worked with Vince Clarke with the band Yazoo, and the song Don’t Go…and later Only You (another favorite of hers that I love). I bought the album Alf, which this song is off of, on cassette soon after it was released - wanting more of her amazing voice.

This was a radio hit (and video hit, a combination that was pretty much a given in the 80’s) - but also was one of the songs I loved the most on the album.

The juxtaposition of religion and sex, and the need fulfilled in both, is intriguing to me - the layers of meaning in a song (something I’ve mentioned being drawn to in an earlier post).

No matter what we all say, and do, in life - we all are looking for something to love, and believe in. Whether that be another person, family, pet, project, or some kind of faith/religion - or some combination of the above.

I tend to be a big believer in love - so this song, I appreciate it…

You don't know how bad I got it

2010-05-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

#987 - Wouldn’t It Be Good :: Nik Kershaw

“You must be joking,
you don’t know a thing about it.
You’ve got no problems,
I’d stay right there if I were you.
I got it harder,
you couldn’t dream how hard I got it.”

In some ways one could say this song could pair up with The Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want, in as far as the “grass is always greener” perspective. And perhaps Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill in the “can we trade places” vein.

That said, this song takes a more adolescent approach to the theory, stating in that “you don’t understand at all” tone of voice about how it would be oh so better to be in someone else’s life (or in these lyrics, “shoes”).

No wonder I loved this song so much as an adolescent. I still carry some love for it now, though I’ve gained a heap of perspective in how we all struggle, we are all conflicted, and we all have our own green behind the fence, our own sense of bliss and sadness and chaos, and sometimes life just sucks.

A car goes by

2010-05-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

#988 - I Go Crazy :: Flesh For Lulu

“This city’s mad in the head,
and sick in the soul,
all the stars flew away a long time ago.”

This is one of those songs that remind me of Los Angeles, Hollywood in particular, and days past that I spent running around under the street lights and ever-changing clubs. I close my eyes and can picture the street signs, liquor stores and pizza places across from dance clubs and concert venues, hookers walking next to tourists walking next to next week’s rock band.

And the band of us, piled into a tiny hatchback car, looking for something, and everything, and nothing.

There was an energy, an electricity, that ran through the nights spent in the city, and through all of us, back then. Some of them were chemical, or alcohol, induced. Some of it was the pulse of the city, the dreams low-circling the sidewalks, and the spotlights flashing on and off behind walls and security gate enterances.

Just beneath all the chaos and clutter there was always an undercurrent of emptiness. We were all looking for something to fill it, the people we knew, and the strangers we’d pass, we all carried with us that hunger.

We were all going just a little bit crazy.

I'm waiting for you

2010-05-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

#989 - Milk :: Garbage

“I am weak,
But I am strong.”

If I were to make a list of the most sensual/sexual songs I love this one would definately be near the top (this version, remixed by Massive Attack, especially). I love the feel of it, slightly cloying, almost a feeling of aural humidity, mixed with vocals that seem to swirl around the musical refrains.

The lyrics are contradictions, weak and strong, good and bad, heat and cool - just like love, and lust. The swirling, dizzy feeling that takes your breath, but also ignites you into something stronger - that infectious, irresistable pull to another body and soul.

This song is delicious.

I'll pick up the pieces and mistakes

2010-05-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

#991 - Fall Hard :: Shout Out Louds

“If you fall hard,
I fall harder.”

A band I love and a song I have recently fallen for. Songs tend to mean all that much more when someone sends them my way, or at least they mean something different, perspective and view a bit more personal.

The sound and style reminds me of the band the Ocean Blue, mixed with a little Belle and Sebastian. It calls to mind road trips up the coast, the ocean breeze tickling bare arms leaned out the window. It reminds me of ferris wheels on the end of the pier, and summer nights that stay light late.

And the song reminds me of love, hope and wishes.

Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

2010-05-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

#992 - You Can't Always Get What You Want :: Rolling Stones

"But if you try sometimes,
well you just might find,
you get what you need."

Is it merely a question of perception that determines what we want versus what we need? Do our desires match our expectations, or do we somehow along the way confuse settling with satisfaction? Do we ever get what we want, or are we forever forced to not get truly satisfied?

(I can't get no satisfaction, sung later by the same band...interesting)

I often wonder if we all suffer from a similar disability of sight. Do we always wish for something on the other side of the fence, something unknown and mysterious? Do we convince ourselves that someone else always has it better, or is better? Is it true that we only realize what we have when it is gone?

Or, do we fool ourselves into aspirational wants, and lose sight of what we really need?

For a simple rock song, it certainly pokes at some pretty heavy thinking, at least to me.

Why don't we ever believe ourselves

2010-05-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

#993 - Worn Me Down :: Rachael Yamagata

“Worn me down to my knees,
I did anything to please,
but you can’t stop thinking about her.”

To live in the shadow of someone else’s past love is one of the roughest roads to traverse upon when in a relationship. It is a constant competition, even if unspoken, to somehow come out ahead, and to finally overtake the memory of a ghost of a girl (or boy) who still haunts the one who holds your hand now.

It is exhausting. It is emotionally brutal. And, it does wear you down.

I did it once, for awhile, with someone who meant the world to me. I think I knew it going in, too - actually I know I knew it. The consequence of being a friend first, I suppose. But I think I played that trick with myself that so many people do, I believed I could change the person, the past, the memory, and the situation.

Lessons learned, even if it hurt - I now listen a hell of a lot better at the start, and I speak up when things hurt. And, I refuse to live in the shadow of someone before me. I don’t mind baggage, hell I have an airline carousal of my own baggage, and I don’t mind issues (again, I have quite a few of my own) - but I won’t tolerate someone who is using me to get over someone else, and I won’t be someone’s second best.

I don’t choose to be worn out that way anymore.

You only have to look behind you

2010-05-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

#993 - Destroy Everything You Touch :: Ladytron

“Everything you touch you don’t feel,
do not know what you steal.
Shakes your hand,
takes your gun,
walks you out of the sun.”

Science Fiction, other-worldly, spinning through space kind of music. I close my eyes and picture the Tardis circling through time, Leeloo falling into Dallas’ cab, or Alice leaving the infected behind to run off to a post-goth club with Neo pre-being-the-One. This is part of the soundtrack I have set aside for when I write one of two novels I’m attempting to get through.

This song, especially, reminds me of some post-apocalyptic wasteland, where there is still art and music - humanity and expression surviving all else.

There goes the fairy tale

2010-05-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

#994 - If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags) :: Maria McKee
If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags) (live) :: Maria McKee

“If love is shelter,
I’m gonna walk in the rain.”

I have a big, probably semi-dysfunctional, love affair with songs about heartbreak. I love the rip your heart out and throw it on the ground where you lay kind of songs, full of bitterness, loneliness and regrets. I tend to cry my eyes out to songs like this, and there is something healing about that. Maybe it is that inner need to feel connected, even in pain (or maybe, especially when in pain) - so music about heartbreak acts as a cord to the collective sorrow we all feel when we lose love, or love in vain.

I’ve loved Maria McKee’s voice since her days with Lone Justice, and think she is terribly underrated as a singer. She is the voice of the five whiskeys down, corner of the bar in your favorite dive, feeling the sting of somebody leaving - and somehow, in all that despair, her songs have this inner lining of hope. Maybe that’s the soul in the heartbreak? Or in the fact that you would not be crying at all if you did not risk it all for love, and isn’t that part of living? That risk?

Love songs gone wrong sometimes bring me to life.

2010-05-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

#995 - Dance This Mess Around :: The B-52’s

“Remember when you held my hand?
Remember when you were my man?
Walk talk in the name of love,
before you break my heart.”

There’s something about this song that I’ve always loved, and that has always transcended what I think of when I think of The B-52’s. Although one could argue that this is kitchy and campy, I think it has more of an edge then say their Love Shack era. But then, for me, I always favored their first album, and their earlier recordings, to anything that came after (and not in the “I liked them when they were new/cool/no one knew who they were before” kind of music-snobbery, just in a what I like kind of way).

This song reminds me of going dancing in the very late 80s at a 70’s themed club in Hollywood, and of certain friends, and certain albums, I listened to during ‘88 and ‘89. It reminds me of smoky rooms, disco balls, fishnet stockings and boots, and that mixture of sweat/Boones Farm Strawberry wine/chemicals spinning around in one’s bloodstream.

Its not time for me to go

2010-05-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

#996 - Stay :: Belly

"But I love him dear,
and I love him dear,
and I've loved him hundreds of thousands of years."

Back in the early 90's, when Julia was just a baby and we still lived with her father, there used to be this coffee house that we all went to that I truly loved. It was not even a full block from the apartment we lived in, and no matter what time of day or night you stopped in, you always saw someone you knew. There was live music in the back, random and interesting conversations everywhere, and coffee.

This album came out around then, and often it was playing from the kitchen. Sometimes I stayed around after closing, often because Julia's dad was working a shift there, or someone else I knew was. This album played often, more than often, and I cannot hear any of the songs off of Star without being reminded of the Winged Heart Cafe. This was my favorite song off the album, and one that I often paired up with Kate Bush's Man With The Child In His Eyes, as timeless/eternal/ageless love.

The song also reminds me of reading Richard Bach's Bridge Across Forever, which I read right around that same early 90's time, and which also ties into timeless/eternal/ageless love.

And everytime you overdose

2010-05-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

#997 - Last Dance :: The Raveonettes

“Your addiction and you are in love,
not starcrossed.
I wait my turn.”

This is a more recent favorite, and a song that I love for a few, very differing, reasons. From a musical and stylistic perspective I love the feel good pop feeling of the song, the infectious melody, the feigned cheerfulness in the singing, the catchy lyrics - I love that it feels that way, but that the song itself is very, very dark. A love song, of sorts, about being in love with an addict, and being second to addiction. A song about mortality, and about being in that waiting zone of limbo, watching someone fade away. I find the contradictions interesting, and the song more than just surface listenable.

On a personal level, I love it for telling it like it is. Sometimes my musical loves are of the I get this, I understand this, I fucking relate to this variety - because really, songs like that, well they make you feel less alone in the world, don’t they?

Reality isn’t always pretty, not even wrapped up in a catchy indie pop song like this one.

I am not impressed

2010-05-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

#998 - Impressed :: Charlie Sexton

I'll never kill you this I swear,
then kill myself just to be fair.
I'll never need another queen,
we'll never face the guillotine.

I have a lot to thank John Hughes for, not only for some of the movies that shaped my adolescence (and helped me feel so less alone), but also for introducing me to some of my favorite music from the 80's. His music was featured in some scenes in Some Kind Of Wonderful, which I believe is the first place I heard him. I then remember hearing some of his music on KROQ, late at night, and then later reading about him in some music magazines.

I remember being surprised that he was just a year older than me (he was 16 when the album came out that this song is from, Pictures for Pleasure), and I also remember thinking he was damn fine looking. I went out and bought the album at Music Market, one of these meccas of music (oh how much vinyl they had!) that Kate and I would frequent, often trying out albums/bands for the first time just from the covers and names. I believe we both loved this album, and it probably held residence in both of our bedrooms, and stereos.

This was my first favorite song of his. I loved the references to all the great love stories (Romeo & Juliet, Nicholas & Alexandra), as well as some of the juvenile ones (Barbie & Ken, Mickey & Minnie Mouse). I loved the idea that it was a love song denouncing all the fairy tales/fables of love, and saying "ours is better".

Your mama don't know what I got in store for you

2010-05-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

#999 - Rock This Town :: Stray Cats

Well, we found a little place that didn’t look half bad.
I had a whisky on the rocks, and changed half a dollar for the jukebox.

This song always reminds me of my first adolescent crush. It was junior high, eighth grade, and there was this boy who stole my newly teenaged heart. I went to a small private parochial school, and we had very few students in our grade level. In a very short time you knew everyone well, too well really, and there was not much mystery or excitement that went on. He was a new student, the son of the new church minister, and he had a band. He dressed “rockabilly” and his band played nothing but Stray Cats songs, and he was a bit full of himself - but at the time, I thought he was all that, and more.

I went to some party through the church’s youth group, I think one of the younger group leaders held it (I remember they were all college age, and took us to do activities that had nothing to do with “bible study”) in their parents’ basement. His band played, and they played this song, and it was truly awful - but wonderful, all at the same time.

Reminds me that there's time to change

2010-05-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

#1,000 - Drops Of Jupiter :: Train

did you fall for a shooting star,
one without a permanent scar?

There is not a single time that this song comes on the radio that I do not sing-a-long with it. It doesn’t even matter where its playing, I will be there, singing.

One of my favorite memories of this song was one night, when my daughter Julia was in high school, I was picking up her, and two of her friends, from a party they’d been to. It was the middle of the summer, and it was late at night.

They were all exhausted, and the car had grown silent as they had tired of talking about the some of what had happened with each other. I flipped on the radio, and after an advertisement or two, this song came on. We all started singing along, a bit softly at first, but then all of us were singing - loudly - together.

This was during a very short period of time when my daughter and I did not get on so well, but in that moment we connected - a musical bridge was thrown across the great divide that sometimes happens in those years between 15 and 16, between mother and daughter. We all sang-a-long.

And, I guess I’d like to think that everyone sings-a-long to this one, no matter where they are, or who they are with.

2010-05-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

"I've been roaming around,
I was looking down at all I see.
Painted faces fill the places I can't reach.
You know that I could use somebody."

Use Somebody (live) :: Kings Of Leon

Growing up in the shadows of broken homes, television show (non) realism, and the echoes of childhood fairytales it becomes quite the feat of strength and persistance, and belief, to be in love. We are encouraged to be independent, to not need anyone, to play games and act coy, and not let it out how much you care. It is some kind of strike against feminism, and the good fight those who came before us (of the female variety) to admit to needing someone, or letting on that you are vulnerable to a man.

On the other hand we are also encouraged to spend all of our adolescent to adulthood years, while single that is, pursuing a relationship. Time out with other female friends are almost always set and planned at places where a relationship might be sought out, or at least the company of someone for the night. Everything depends on the attention one gets while out - from the initial plan of where, the clothes chosen, even the music played on the way. There is always the overwhelming expectation of meeting someone, or at least being noticed by someone.

Of course, flipping back the page to the other side again, these are the same friends who often treat you strangely once you are in a relationship. They talk amongst themselves, behind your back, accusatory of many "crimes" committed - "she never has time for anyone but him", "she puts up with xxxfill in the blankxxx", "I don't like him", "she's stupid because xxxfill in the blankxxx", "it will never last".

And then there are the familial expectations that follow a woman everywhere. Around the water cooler conversations, when female, almost always start off with "are you married" or "are you dating anyone?" or "do you have kids?". I can hardly remember the last time someone at work asked me anything that was not focused on a relationship, or family brought on by a relationship.

What if you were to say no to all the questions? Or what if you were to say the truth, the real truth, about whatever you are currently in? What if you said "well yeah, I'm with someone but I'm still unsure about where its going", or "I think he likes me, but I think I text him too much", or "I am so in love right now I can hardly concentrate on anything, including work or even what this coffee tastes like", or "I think I'd rather swallow glass shards and razor blades than date anyone, but thanks for asking"

And what if you sent out post-cards to all your friends when you did fall in love that said "hey, yeah, he's not perfect, I'm not perfect, but I really dig him so I'm giving it a go", or "I may not have as much time right now, but I'm trying to balance it all, I am. It would help if you did not constantly say negative things about love and drag me to singles bars everytime we did try to hang out though", or "Hi, I'm a strong woman, I'm still a feminist, I am still independent, but I really love this person and they make me happy, and yeah, I need that".

Love does not have to be the damn poison apple, nor does it have to be the be all and end all to happy ever after, and it does not have to turn you into some weak, cartoon-cliched princess - it does not have to be everything, but its okay if sometimes it is.

Painted faces fill the places I can't reach

2010-05-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Use Somebody (live, cover) :: Bat For Lashes

monterey avenue
five and dime
she would hide lipstick cases
pretty pink pearl
in the deep pockets
of hand-me-down jackets
three older brothers
calling names
always growing

but there's a girl in here
you know
under the long sleeves
grass stain knees

she tells secrets to imaginary
friends and foes
sometimes they fight each other
duel at dawn
those times she can't sleep
bottle crash
you dirty whore
clash crash smash
silence

but her mother smells of rose water
lights candles for the neighbor's sick boy
and aunt louisa
with her nine month sin

someday the hatch will open to the sky
and she'll sprout wings
grow bold
packages of promise tea
and a one-way escape hatch
for her and me

close your eyes and you will see

Look at the stars

2010-05-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Where I'm seeing you there,
with your hands in the air,

waiting to finally be caught."

Between The Bars (live, video) :: Elliott Smith
Between The Bars (live, video) :: Metric
Between The Bars (video) :: Madeleine Peyroux

Another night with the same patterns, the same ice clinking in a cold, damp glass, and those same un-named expectations. I look next to me and wonder how I got here again. No matter how much older I've become I still feel those pangs of adolescent nerves pulsing just under my skin. This does not feel all that different than some High School dance in a dimly lit gym - we all stand to one side, lingering, hoping for something to happen.

The anxiety builds as the room becomes smaller. The drinks come and go, we lose track, and the music rises and falls. At some point we all decide what will happen by the end - don't lie to yourself, we all think about it. There are trade offs and negotiations that go on silently, sometimes outside, leaned up against the wall, smoke billowing between exchanges of lights and a witty repose.

There are pieces of ourselves that we lose in those dark rooms, and parts of ourselves that we lessen, trade down, and let be slashed at - as if some drunken fumble in a backseat, or a set of numbers typed in to our phone, mean anything at all. It is all a case of loneliness, of time ticking away, and of the same self-deprecating game that being single sometimes becomes.

Every so often we find something real in all that masqueraded personas, but what have we lost to get there? Can it be repaired, your soul?

"If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose"

:: Charles Bukowski

The world was hers again

2010-05-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Splendour in Silver Dress :: Velocity in May Music Mix

Teardrop (Mad Professor Mazaruni Mix) :: Massive Attack
Come Clean :: Eisley
Mansions of Los Feliz :: Eels

Colours :: Editors
Velocity Girl :: Primal Scream
It's Up To You :: Shop Assistants
Dearest :: Buddy Holly
Domestic Scene :: The Radio Dept.
Metal Heart :: Cat Power
Wanted :: Abbie Gale
Only You :: Alison Moyet

A&E :: Goldfrapp

Shells :: Mirah
Zak & Sara :: Ben Folds
You Make Me Feel Good :: Yo La Tengo
Congratulations :: Mgmt
Wild World :: Mike Bailey (from Skins)
Rise Above :: Dirty Projectors

All My Stars Aligned :: St. Vincent
Lavender Cowgirl :: Thea Gilmore

Velocity in May Mix ~ Zipped Up

All things go, all things go

2010-05-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

"I was in love with the place,
in my mind, in my mind.
I made a lot of mistakes,
in my mind, in my mind."

Chicago (video) :: Sufjan Stevens

Chicago (video, live at KCRW) :: Sufjan Stevens

This song has such personal history and memories attached to it, for me, and no matter when I happen upon it, and no matter where I may be, I have to pause to listen, and remember.

Some of the recollections are candy-coated postcards full of wish you were here
sentimentalities, and lipstick traces left on cool skin. There are phonebooths and train stops, half-drunk promises of things like love and forever, and an image of a girl and boy playing at being something together.

I close my eyes and listen, and between the verses I see that coat I found right before my second trip, the one that reminded us of Penny Lane, the one that helped to inspire all those scrawled notes about really falling in love with a band (and all those half-schemed dreams to follow the music down highways, and anywhere towns - to run away, together).

I lost it at the airport, that coat. I walked a way for a moment, turned my head, and it was gone (in a way, that same day, so were we).

Then there are the darker alleyway shadows, stray-cat scratches and tear-stained cheek kind of moments this song brings to mind. Mistakes realized nearly too late, clinic waiting rooms, losses and plane tickets, and goodbyes that should have precluded any hellos.

All of it, and none of it, and whatever falls in-between - somehow that city played its part in it all. And, locked in some harmonic memory, this song about that city.

Certain songs they stay with us forever. They affix themselves onto our hearts, swim sideways through our veins, and become part of the make-up of who we think ourselves to be. We collect soundtracks all our own, re-writing the order as we go, and the meaning. And sometimes we forget things, some pages of our stories blur and fade, but often - at least for me - a song can bring it all back. Certain songs last longer than lovers, than apartment leases, than dreams...

this will forever be one of those songs.

"Chicago is a city of contradictions, of private visions haphazardly overlaid and linked together. If the city was unhappy with itself yesterday-and invariably it was-it will reinvent itself today."

:: Pat Colander "A Metropolis of No Little Plans"

Keep Art Alive :: Nina Friday

2010-04-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

"Suspicious"

Keep Art Alive; art by Nina Friday

Keep Art Alive :: The 10 Questions Project :: Nina Friday

1. What music (or other art form) inspires you when you create your art?

I have quite a collection of music, but most inspirational is my classical selection of Mozart, Vivaldi, etc, as well as my good old Russian 80's underground music, KINO, NOL' , etc

2. Long-distance road trip: What three people do you invite along (Fictional or non-fictional, dead or alive)?

Hmm, well, for sure my dear Rick Ruiners, my dear friend Claudia Leo and Hawkeye Pierce :)

3. What is your favorite breakfast cereal?

I'm always on a run , so I take my breakfast in a snack bar form.

4. What is one thing that is currently hanging on your bedroom wall?

A vintage clock that doesn't work. :)

5. What smell/scent evokes strong memories for you?

Spring air filled with blooming lilac.

6. Coffee or tea?

Morning - coffee, night -tea. :)

7. What has been the most impacting compliment, or criticism, you have ever received?

It usually comes from my biggest fan -Rick, if something is not working -he tells just how it is, first I get mad , then I am grateful I listened, that guy has never gave me bad advice on anything.

8. Three words that best describe you?

Fun, trusting, determined.

9. Cartoon character crush: Who was, or is, yours?

Not so much an animated cartoon, but a comic book character -SANDMAN. :)

10. The world is ending in ten minutes, and you get to listen to one - and only one - song: Which song do you choose?

I don't think I would care at that point, lol.

***

Find out more about Nina at her website: Facebook and Myspace.

Current work for sale can be found here.

I would like to thank Nina for participating in the Keep Art Alive :: The Ten Questions Project, and for being inspirational to my work, and writing.

Go now go and check out more of her work, and buy something if you can.

Keep Art Alive and show your support.

I never thought I'd need so many people

2010-04-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

"I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlor,
drinking milkshakes, cold and long,
smiling and waving and looking so fine,
don't think you knew you were in this song."

Five Years (video) :: David Bowie
Five Years (live, video) :: David Bowie
Five Years (live) :: Placebo

Mortality is a slippery truth, translucent most of the time, and chameleon-like. We feel it so rarely, the honest and real feeling of our mortal selves. On the surface we say we know it doesn't last forever, that nothing ever does, and that our days - each stacking on the other - are numbered; but do we really believe it? We live our lives as if we have all the time in the world, as if we'll have time (eventually) to live our dreams, to tell the ones we love that we love them, to take that trip, grab hold of that love in our life, quit that job that makes us miserable, take that risk, say what we really feel.

What if we woke up tomorrow and the news said we had five years, no more, no less. What would we do differently? Would it sadden us, our grief holding us hostage within ourselves, making us unable to move? Would it motivate us, making us race and run to do those things we've put off so much? Would it make us reckless, jumping off bridges and pulling strangers round an alleyway, kissing and screaming and dancing in the street? Or would we continue to be us, in our lives, and just embrace it more, appreciate it more? Would we leave behind a story, with all our favorite characters (even the ones who don't realize their significance to us) typed and painted and coloured in brilliantly? Would we do something big enough to leave a mark behind?

Why not live like that today?

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.”

:: Richard Dawkins

In the stillness of remembering

2010-04-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

"Thunder only happens when it's raining,
players only love you when they're playing.
They say, women, they will come and they will go,
when the rain washes you clean, you'll know,
you will know."

Dreams :: Fleetwood Mac
live video
cover (The Morning Benders)

Memory, and the feelings and consequences of remembering, seem to be a pervading theme right now, to me. The music I have found myself drawn to over the span of a week's worth of days seems to be veering in the direction of memory, lessons learned, and I suppose an over-arching subtext of learning to let go. Music is my muse, I've said it time and again, and perhaps it is that strange hand of musical, and lyrical, fate guiding me into issues I need to explore. Or, it could be me that is reaching out, and leaning towards the sounds and subject (whether on the surface, or tucked deep into my own interpretations of a song) of the very things I'm sifting and sorting through myself. Is it fate, or is it free will? I tend to be somewhere stuck in the middle, a believer in a little bit of both.

But, I digress, that pervading theme I mentioned, it is memory, isn't it? And perhaps the illusion of memory, the perception we gift everything, and the tint of the glasses we see what's happened with. Its like that game played in Summer camp, or grade school rainy days, where an event, or a picture, is recalled by a group - or a message is re-told, like in the game of telephone - everyone's impression, and memory, is a little bit different. That doesn't change much as we grow older. In some ways I think it becomes more pronounced, the differences in our recollections, and the colored lenses of our see and interpret the world glasses. We have our own pasts to come in and interfere, our life stuck issues that tilt the image, and our fears and insecurities that can turn the picture upside down, and inside out.

Is it the past, those early rejections that may have happened in our own homes, within our families, or maybe on the playgrounds and halls of school, that instill in us a more jaded perception? Can you recall the first time you were rejected? Does it still live somewhere in the tangled web of your memories? If you asked the person who rejected you would they see the moment as the same? Did one win the game, and the other get thrown into the storm? Did one carry with them a knapsack of blame that it must have been something I've done? Or, did it become an expectation, that we are all temporary, and just part of a game? Or, did both people, in some ways, get hurt in it?

How do we wash clean the marks of early rejection? Is that memory, the memory of pain, able to be washed away at all? Is the wash away the perception that everyone plays the game, that we are only loved within its constructs and constraints, and then tossed away - or maybe we run for the door ourselves - when the game is over? Or do we remember it differently, somehow? Do we recall the way we tried to hide the rules, cheat the game, change the player into something else entirely, and hideaway from the inevitable rains?

I don't know how I remember any of it exactly, the rejections, the endings, the ends of each game. I tihnk the way I recall those times, those endings, become painted by how I feel the day I look back. Sometimes I'm more fragile, breakable at a mere sideways glance, and internal bruises reach for the light of recognition and all I can remember is being thrown away. Other days, when I'm more myself (although self, like memory, is ever-changing, and colored by perception, too) - stronger, more sure of my place in this world, I remember being the one to walk away, or at least a mutual "it just isn't working, but you were wonderful" kind of goodbye. It never is that clean, though, and it never is that cruel - it is always somewhere in-between - like that space between fate and free will.

In the stillness of remembering, how do you remember?

"The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware.”

:: Eugene Ionesco

Like the sunshine

2010-04-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Joely?" :: Clementine

"Yeah Tangerine?" :: Joel

"Am I ugly?" :: Clementine

"Uh-uh." :: Joel

"When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. my favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, 'You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too." :: Clementine

[kisses Clementine] "You're pretty." :: Joel

"Joely, don't ever leave me." :: Clementine

"You're pretty...you're pretty...pretty..." :: Joel

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

"Change your heart.
look around you;
change your heart
it will astound you."

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime :: Beck
video

There are a million reasons why I relate to this movie so much, and why Clementine resonates with me so deeply. This scene, and the conversation they have, is one of the biggest ones. There is this near constant undercurrent of insecurity that plagues me incessentally. Most of the time I can manage to ignore it, or if it isn't disregard, it is that I'm so used it being part of my make-up that I just plod along with it in tow. It does not seem to affect my daily life much, and I've learned to push through its naggings, especially in the realm of work and parenthood, and just tell myself that I'm good at what I do. I'm a good employee, and I'm a good mother, these things hardly come into question for me.

But, that internal beast of insecurity is impossible to shut up when I let myself care about someone. I have typically such a thick wall around me when it comes to relationships, and love, that the insecurity tends to sleep, or turn off, when I deal with things like dating, or talking with someone who I deep down know there is no potential with. But, the few times I've let the walls down, and let my heart get into the picture, and fall for someone - well that insecurity is shaken violently awake and all the years of hurt, pain and rejections - those ever-echoing feelings of never being enough, or being too much, come front and center, poking at me, making it impossible to ignore.

That's when the over-thinking starts, and the doubts, and the questioning everything I do. I feel like I start to ready myself for failure, feeling as if I screw up anything that really matters to me, and that I am just going to mess it all up again. It is so defeating, so painful, so heartbreaking to feel this way and I truly hate it, but I don't know how to stop it. I try to breathe through it, but my breath gets caught in my throat, choking me. I find myself (even more) sleepless. I start to feel needy, and irrationally sad. And then I start deciding that things are falling apart, even when they are not at all. Around this time I shut down, go quiet, sink lower than anyone ever seems to really notice.

The only buoy in the water of all this self-doubt is the need to be reaffirmed. I'm an honest person, and I try to be open, so I will usually try to reach out - try, not always succeeding. And it is then, in those moments, that I am at my most fragile. It is then when I truly need to be held and told that I'm alright just as myself. But that - that part - feels so impossible to ask for.

It really hurts, somedays, to be this way.

re-blogged from an earlier incarnation of my writing - seems appropos to my life and resonated with me today.

Tonight's Train

2010-04-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

"Nothing at all, in my head, to say to you,
only the beat of the train I'm on.
Nothing I've learned all my life on the way to you,
one day our love was over and gone."

Train Song :: Feist & Ben Gibbard

video
song

The carnival train is leaving
every night at revolving times.
You can tell by the tinkling of ice on glass,
that the bar is still open for business.
So, you run to the platform,
suitcase in hand and a half-cocked smile.
Board and go, darling.

For those of us who brave the night air,
well, we take what we can to get by.
Sometimes its a tune played a degree too loud,
enough of a noise to drown out the asperity tinging the air.
Block out the way his eyes glass and redden (again),
as his voice sharpens itself into a dead cruel point.
Time to run, darling.

Other nights its a book of jokes and a box of tricks pulled out,

humor and laughter and fast movements

anything to distract the beast.
Make sure he is constantly looking around, averting his eyes,

harder to hit that way, aren't you?

And sometimes, yes sometimes, the loud gaffaws carry him,

until he's passed out cold.
Poison the water, darling.

But tonight, we will get on the ride, hop that train,

go off into the rainbow land of never-ever.

Take a bag of oranges and a thermos of cocoa,

smile at the elephants and clowns 'round the back.

We'll read books with bright pictures, paint the side walls with recycled decay,
and tattoo on our pale skin the girl of a thousand days.

Ride the rails, oh darling, darling.

Fill yourself with quarters

2010-04-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

"You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends,
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights,
arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under.
Oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over,
surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch,
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults.

Make up something to believe in your heart of hearts,
so you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves.
So, you swear you just saw a feathery woman,
carry a blindfolded man through the trees.
Showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters.
Showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters."

Mistaken For Strangers :: The National

This song is amazing, cathartic, and somewhat timely and relatable; though I think part of me realizes that for years and years, possibly a lifetime, it is me who has mistaken myself for a stranger.

Do we fill ourselves with things to become recognizable, defined, a little less strange to everyone around us? Do we even know what it is we fill ourselves with anymore? I want to know what I'm filled with, what I'm made of, and what those around me are pieced together with. Tell your story, fill yourself with song, and keep your heart in tact.

We are all strangers to someone. We are all beloved to someone. We are all filled with so many somethings and someones.