First category: Music that I instantly like. I hear it and feel like I've known it forever.
Bands/musicians in this category: Nick Drake, Kings of Convenience, Feist.
Possible pitfalls/outcome: This music could stay on my playlist for awhile (Nick Drake) or I may find myself quite bored with it suddenly (Feist). Kings of Convenience is yet to be determined.
Second Category: Music that grows on me over time through exposure and sometimes, quite honestly, hard work.
Bands/musicians in this category: Beastie Boys, Tom Waits, Nirvana
Possible pitfalls/outcome: Sometimes it turns out that what I thought was like turns out to be appreciation (Beastie Boys) or my like is deep and enduring (Tom Waits, Nirvana).
People can sometimes fall into the same categories.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Duets I would like to find the perfect person to sing with: Fairytale of New York
While I would love to have found a way to work this one into my church carols night, I don't think everyone would go for it!
Yet, there's something so wonderful and gritty and essentially Irish about it. It's bold, it's crass, but above all it's heartfelt. And honestly, I find it very hard to go past heartfelt. Hope tinged with regret, honesty tinged with whimsy, a jaunty Irish jig tinged with a dirge. It speaks of hard-living, soft hearts and name-calling that could only come with knowing exactly the right buttons to push.
There's a deep sadness to this song but somehow there's still something very sweet about it; the sense that these two people are broken, that the world is broken, but there's something that somehow just works between them. It may start as a fairytale, but it ends as, well,...life.
Watch the clip here.
Yet, there's something so wonderful and gritty and essentially Irish about it. It's bold, it's crass, but above all it's heartfelt. And honestly, I find it very hard to go past heartfelt. Hope tinged with regret, honesty tinged with whimsy, a jaunty Irish jig tinged with a dirge. It speaks of hard-living, soft hearts and name-calling that could only come with knowing exactly the right buttons to push.
There's a deep sadness to this song but somehow there's still something very sweet about it; the sense that these two people are broken, that the world is broken, but there's something that somehow just works between them. It may start as a fairytale, but it ends as, well,...life.
Watch the clip here.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
You Just Kinda Wasted My Precious Time...
...don't think twice, it's all right.
As the somewhat disaffected-sounding Bob Dylan gives his indifferent imperative, one cannot help but suspect there's a touch of the ol' irony in there. This song wreaks of disappointment, perhaps a benign acceptance, albeit with a heart that has become a little calloused as a result, and hopes for something different.
I first encountered this song while watching a wonderful movie called 'Dogfight'. The movie was one of those late night TV discoveries. The premise: a marine (the night before he goes to war in 1963), Eddie Birdlace (River Phoenix), has to find a date to take to a party called a 'dogfight' where prizes are given to those who bring the ugliest girls. He chooses Rose (Lili Taylor) who is extremely shy and sensitive, and also a pacifist. It's not a conventional love story (though I suppose in some ways it is: opposites attract, person becomes more attractive as you get to know them) and told with such genuine feeling that I was completely captivated by it. Watch it!
But back to the song. It is tinged with flippant regret, or lack thereof, and a subtle, or not so subtle, 'Screw you, Babe!' The contradictions capture the fullness of human emotion, the ways in which we manage to cope with heartache and a melancholy submission to the reality of life.
Surprisingly, I think you should listen to it. See what I did there? Irony.
Read the lyrics for 'Don't Think Twice it's All Right' here
As the somewhat disaffected-sounding Bob Dylan gives his indifferent imperative, one cannot help but suspect there's a touch of the ol' irony in there. This song wreaks of disappointment, perhaps a benign acceptance, albeit with a heart that has become a little calloused as a result, and hopes for something different.
I first encountered this song while watching a wonderful movie called 'Dogfight'. The movie was one of those late night TV discoveries. The premise: a marine (the night before he goes to war in 1963), Eddie Birdlace (River Phoenix), has to find a date to take to a party called a 'dogfight' where prizes are given to those who bring the ugliest girls. He chooses Rose (Lili Taylor) who is extremely shy and sensitive, and also a pacifist. It's not a conventional love story (though I suppose in some ways it is: opposites attract, person becomes more attractive as you get to know them) and told with such genuine feeling that I was completely captivated by it. Watch it!
But back to the song. It is tinged with flippant regret, or lack thereof, and a subtle, or not so subtle, 'Screw you, Babe!' The contradictions capture the fullness of human emotion, the ways in which we manage to cope with heartache and a melancholy submission to the reality of life.
Surprisingly, I think you should listen to it. See what I did there? Irony.
Read the lyrics for 'Don't Think Twice it's All Right' here
Subjectively Speaking: Songs You Should Like
There are some songs that are so beautiful that you simply must stop whatever you are doing and listen to them. Listen to them with your whole being. Lay down on the floor, close your eyes and put it on repeat. And wonder if there is anyone else out there who feels this way about a song.
Sometimes the songs are more poignant because they are associated with something else: a place, a person, a kiss, or even a film. Sometimes it is because they are associated with nothing real at all. They allow you to forget everything and to simply be.
These are the songs that melt my cynicism, or confirm my cynicism, and make me so conscious of my heart and everything that it holds. And yet, I know if I listened to only these songs it would be unbearable.
Sometimes the songs are more poignant because they are associated with something else: a place, a person, a kiss, or even a film. Sometimes it is because they are associated with nothing real at all. They allow you to forget everything and to simply be.
These are the songs that melt my cynicism, or confirm my cynicism, and make me so conscious of my heart and everything that it holds. And yet, I know if I listened to only these songs it would be unbearable.
*This is a repost from my old blog, but leads well to the next post...
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Rod Stewart Hearts Tom Waits, but..
...I can only assume that Tom Waits would not 'heart' Rod Stewart.
Tom Waits, the gravelly voiced lyrical genius, can write a killer ballad that communicates a sandpapery melancholic longing that is as far from rubbishy cheese as a King Island triple cream brie.
Rod Stewart somehow takes a Tom Waits ballad and turns it into a Kraft single. And, outrageously, he has done this not once, but twice.
I was listening to the radio in the car when I heard a 'Waltzing Matilda' refrain that sounded a lot like Rod Stewart. I increased the volume and confirmed that it was indeed Mr Stewart singing 'Traubert's Blues'. What??? Surely, turning 'Downtown Train' into plastic cheese was enough?
As Oscar Wilde once said: 'To let one Tom Waits song be covered by Rod Stewart may be regarded as misguided; to let it happen again looks like carelessness.' Or words to that effect. How did this happen, Mr Waits? Had you had one too many (bottles of) whiskey? Please don't let him get his hands on 'Time'. Honestly, I just couldn't bear it.
Listen to the sublime ballad here:
'Time' - Tom Waits
Tom Waits, the gravelly voiced lyrical genius, can write a killer ballad that communicates a sandpapery melancholic longing that is as far from rubbishy cheese as a King Island triple cream brie.
Rod Stewart somehow takes a Tom Waits ballad and turns it into a Kraft single. And, outrageously, he has done this not once, but twice.
I was listening to the radio in the car when I heard a 'Waltzing Matilda' refrain that sounded a lot like Rod Stewart. I increased the volume and confirmed that it was indeed Mr Stewart singing 'Traubert's Blues'. What??? Surely, turning 'Downtown Train' into plastic cheese was enough?
As Oscar Wilde once said: 'To let one Tom Waits song be covered by Rod Stewart may be regarded as misguided; to let it happen again looks like carelessness.' Or words to that effect. How did this happen, Mr Waits? Had you had one too many (bottles of) whiskey? Please don't let him get his hands on 'Time'. Honestly, I just couldn't bear it.
Listen to the sublime ballad here:
'Time' - Tom Waits
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