11/28/12

Love the sounds in this song, a YouTube find from earlier today that I put on repeat a few times. Something very different. Something new but nostalgic. There lots of picking on string instruments I can't identify, and brushed percussion for a real soft muffled sound. Then, a little past halfway, you get some real natural strumming melodies that took just long enough to arrive, making you realize it wasn't in the rest of the song despite the typical order of things...very inverted in that way.

Good message, too. It's so simple to say things are complicated, but it's not too tricky to drill past the surface, either. You either want something or you don't, and if you're not sure, it's probably because you're afraid of what the answer means.

"And there’s a shelf where you keep old stuff
A bottom step where we once made love
And there are words we don’t say enough, 

And there are words we don’t say enough

Like, 'Hey, what are you doing tonight?
We could share a bottle of wine if you like.'
But time takes it’s toll when we fight
Now we’re just two things that don’t move in the night

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

Well did you mean it? 

And if you didn't, 

why'd you say it?"

~Things That Don't Move in the Night

Edward Turner, night EP

11/27/12

So I have been all about acoustic listening the past couple days, it may have something to do with getting amazingly hooked on these live Simon and Garfunkel recordings courtesy of my mom. It's a how-to of harmonies, subtle and deep and full of perfectly contrasted counterpoint. Thinking singing any of these solo would require some melodic tampering  - they don't always sound right alone which makes me fascinated to learn how the parts were found out and written. 

The urgency in this song, it is so palpable. Then I am reminded urgency is a manmade creation. So while I'm sitting here among crazy amounts of notebooks and Word documents fretting over where to begin and what to put in and what to leave out and why should I even bother when I am simultaneously figuring out how to sustain the part of my life that I am fortunate enough to get paid for, all I want to do is play my guitar and figure out how to sing all these songs though really I should just remind myself there's only so many hours in a day, a week, a life, to accomplish all these many things and brain cells need rest when you've been siphoning them every which way you possibly can and oh god I think I just need a dreamless, soundless sleep. 

"Time,time,time, see what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities.

I was so hard to please.
Look around,
Leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

Hear the Salvation Army band.
Down by the riverside's
Bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned.

Carry your cup in your hand.
And look around.
Leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

Hang on to your hopes, my friend.
That's an easy thing to say,
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again.

Look around you,
The grass is high,
The fields are ripe,
It's the springtime of my life...

Seasons change with the scenery;
Weaving time in a tapestry.
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time?

Funny how my memory skips
Looking over manuscripts of unpublished rhyme.
Drinking my vodka and lime,
I look around,
Leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

Look around, leaves are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground, 

Look around, leaves are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground, 

Look around, leaves are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground..."

~You Remind Me of Home 

Ben Gibbard, Home

11/18/12

Here's a tune that perfectly captures my loneliness/paranoia/commitment issues/penchant for picture-perfect, vivid memories of places and/or dreams, all of which make trying to sleep kind of difficult sometimes:



"A nice heart and a white suit and a baby blue sedan
And I am doing the best that I can
All the eunuchs, they were standing in rows
singing, 'Please stud us out just as fast as you possibly can.'
Sad song, last dance and no one knows who the band was
And Henry, you danced like a wooden Indian
Except this one mattered and I felt it had a spirit
And I shot the story because I didn't hear it that way

And it's hard to be a human being
And it's harder as anything else
And I'm lonesome when you're around
And I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself
And I miss you when you're around

And I miss you when you're around

And I miss you when you're around

And I miss you when you're around

And I miss you when you're around"

~Baby Blue Sedan 

Modest Mouse, Building Nothing Out of Something

11/16/12

This band's gonna blow the hell up, I predict.

What a hook. What tones. Good structure. What an all-too-common story to tell. Like the reference to skinny jeans. A modern sound without sacrificing familiar rock formats (like the layered break), like they do so well in the UK. They're kind of like Kings of Leon, but better singer. I hear some synth I don't see in the video, which is odd, but might just be pedals and my ears are too sleepy to tell. Definitely lots of electric fun in their songs, which is young and sexy and trendy and translucent, like falling.

Anyone signed to Vagrant off an EP, too, gives me high hopes. Please have a full length in 2013, boys.



"And this is how it starts
You take your shoes off in the back of my van
My shirt looks so good
When it's just hanging off your back
She said use your hands and my spare time
We've got one thing in common, it's this tongue of mine
She said she's got a boyfriend anyway....

There's only minutes before I drop you off
And all we seem to do it talk about sex
She's got a boyfriend anyway
She's got a boyfriend anyway
I love your friend when I saw his film
He's got a funny face, but I like that because he still looks cool
She's got a boyfriend anyway,
She's got a boyfriend anyway...

Now we are on the bed in my room
And I'm about to fill his shoes
But you say no
You say no
Does he take care of you
Or could I easily fill his shoes
You say no
You say no

And now we're just outside of town,
And you're making your way down,
She's got a boyfriend anyway,
She's got a boyfriend anyway...
And I'm not trying to stop you love,
But if we're gonna do anything we might as well just fuck
She's got a boyfriend anyway,
She's got a boyfriend anyway...

You've got your tongue pierced anyway
You in your hightops anyway
You in your skinny jeans anyway
You and your fit friends anyway
I'd take them all out any day
They've all got back combs anyway
You've all got boyfriends anyway"

~Sex

The 1975, Sex EP

11/15/12

Certainly I'll never tire of hearing Lindsey Buckingham's magical fingers do things to strings, but his new acoustic album is certainly on my something-buy-for-myself-while-Christmas-shopping Christmas list.

He takes "Never Going Back Again" and rearranges a tiny-but-powerful Rumors cut into something soft, regretful, eerie. It's still forging ahead, with it's great resolving melody, But it's much sadder, deeper, hurt. The interlude is far more somber and what he does vocally in the refrain fuels the heart of the song to the extreme, with whispers crescendoing into a powerful, pained, but perfectly pitched peak.

A pretty damn close to perfect updated arrangement.

Guy knows how to sing, knows how to use tone, and has impeccable timing all around. Just a master. Also he really knows how to write a song -- listen to the chat between tracks at the end of the song where he reminds the audience what the famous line "looking out for love" from the next track really means.

Apparently good things can happen in Des Moines (where this album was recorded live). Still glad I didn't end up living there, though.

"She broke down and let me in
Made me see where I've been

Been down one time
Been down two times
I'm never going back again

You don't know what it means to win
Come down and see me again

Been down one time
Been down two times
I'm never going back again"
~Never Going Back Again
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, (as re-arranged and performed by Lindsey Buckingham for Lindsey Buckingham: One Man Show)

11/15/12

I have something of a penchant for songs that compare men to alcohol. It's a characteristic that lives in me somewhere next to the part that thinks dark, dingy alleys are romantic. Criticize, roll your eyes, it's true.

Don't listen to this album much anymore. Reminds me of freshman/sophomore year of college - whoa, that was awhile ago. But this hook got stuck in my head somehow this afternoon. Definitely a trendy album at the time that probably won't have much staying power as the years go on (could we say that for anything that was featured in an Apple commercial, maybe?), but it sure set a scene or two. Girl can sing. She's also Canadian.

Yeah. Those boys that are like liquor. Not a bad comparison.

"He's my Brandy Alexander, always gets me into trouble..." ~Brandy Alexander
Feist, The Reminder

11/14/12

Sitting a a hotel, watching palm trees whip round in 21 mph winds. Feeling reality suspended for a few more hours. After a while of this, this song came to my mind, it is fun and it is flirty as it tells that tale of what sounds like a rather visceral run-around. Part ballad, part metaphor, I think.

Something in this Simon and Garfunkel-esque rollicking, the steady tambourine and probably the fact Fisher is Canadian makes me love this song. As far as singer-songwriters go, he is on the internal narrative side, but the way he sets the story is what sets off his lyrics more than any great revelation. Great with a hook, "doo-doo-doos" or "yeah-yeah-yeah," group vocals underscored by things like banjos and mandolins.

This song, though, I particularly adore, because I like those upbeat tunes about being defeated, and that's a damn fun chorus.



Something very "life goes on" about that, rather than some sad sack at a piano mourning and hollowing (though that has a place, too).

Maybe it jumped out at me this morning because I've been on the lighthearted side lightly. I've been on quite the adventure the last couple weeks, lots of travel, lots of  new people, lots of spontaneity and fun and inspiration. A certain degree of benchmarking. Much to be happy about. Much to enjoy. I even managed to properly stretch out my back, given the time and a hot tub, doing wonders for my overall sense of well-being. And yet, there it is, the nagging lonely, the empty head syndrome of having no one to wrap myself around. So a song like this is a good fit for this morning, when everything is clipping right along in the eyes of the world but I'm no less lost in my head.

"She's my polyrhythm
Carryin' my heart like the beat
So fast I can't keep up
My prayers sing the melody

She runs guns, everyone wants guns,
She runs guns, everyone wants there she goes,
She runs guns, everyone wants guns,
She runs guns, everyone wants there she goes....

Why you wanna save me?
Lord my soul is taken

She cried, I cried so hard
Left her for the L.R.A.
Fly by like a million hornets
These bullets know my name

She runs guns, everyone wants guns,
She runs guns, everyone wants there she goes...
She runs guns, everyone wants guns,
She runs guns, everyone wants there she goes..

I done too much damage,
Got nothing left to feel,
My self is broke and bandaged,
Her love is a scar that never heals.

Why you wanna save me?
Lord my soul is shaken
Why you wanna save me?
Lord my soul is taken

She runs guns everyone wants guns,
She runs guns everyone wants there she goes,
She runs guns everyone wants guns,
She runs guns everyone wants there she goes...."

~Love is a Scar That Never Heals

Jeremy Fisher, Goodbye Blue Monday

11/3/12

Good mornings have good coffee and good songs, the kinds with harmonies and odd layers of instruments and musings on humanity. I am well-rested for the first time in what feels like days, I can listen better and focus on little moments.This album has so many.

I think it'd be a wonderful thing to write songs this sad and thoughtful, I do not think that everyone who thinks they can pull it off can, but you know it instantly when you've heard someone who can get it right.

"It's not hard to live like a ghost
I just haunt all that I've wanted
And leave what I don't
I dreamt a trail up to the sky
And my brothers built propellers
Just to see how far they'd fly

So hold, high how faint your reasons
Or you'll never get on
Your flashing sparrows chasing with them
Or you'll never get on
Don't you forget you come from nothing
Or you'll never get on
That wind is calling my name
I won't wait, or I'll never get on"

~Half Moon 

Blind Pilot, We Are The Tide

11/2/12

It's amazing, how many things manage not to change while everything else is spinning.

For example, I am still the girl who doesn't mind sitting home alone, discovering and dreaming and being in my own little wandering world. And yet, life happens, full of surprises and challenges and "too-good-to-say-no" chances, interrupting my chance to explore but exhilarating in its own fascinating, eye-opening and hopefully absurd way.

Sameness, stillness, is not bad after all that. So after a ridiculous week of too many press conferences and deadlines, way too many words in too few hours, too many beers and too much to process, I will sit here and listen to Jimmy Eat World, like nothing is new, alone with myself and my words and my thoughts and I am grateful that not everything changes, because maybe, it is really is better this way.

11/1/12

I have a secret theory a lot of Copeland songs would sound really amazing arranged for an orchestra. One that performs somewhere outside at night, under stars, with amphitheater-style staging and crowds scattered on the lawn.

A decent amount of their songs, especially on the last two albums, have quite varied instrumentation, but I think this would translate well, too. S'all in my head.

Lately I've been tearing songs apart and listening to everything as best I can, then trying to pluck out solos even if I know they are too hard for me to pull off, stretching tendons and forcing precision in the meantime. It is pretty much the only thing I can do lately that really distracts me from the rest of my life, the rest of the world and these ridiculous people I find in it that I no longer know what to say to anymore. Music = better option.

"Go if you want
Make your way straight to the door
I hope that you look back before you go
Because grace looks perfect before it starts to leave

It’s a fight between my heart and mind
No one really wins this time
No one really wins this time..."

~No One Really Wins This Time 

Copeland, In Motion