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

10/25/12

"Two headlights shine through the sleepless night
And I will get you, get you alone
Your name has echoed through my mind
And I just think you should, think you should know
That nothing safe is worth the drive I will
Follow you, follow you home...
I'll follow you, follow you home..

I'll follow you, follow you home...
I'll follow you, follow you home...

This slope is treacherous
I, I, I like it"~Treacherous
Taylor Swift, Red

I told myself, "Self, you haven't blogged in awhile, make sure that when you do, it's not about the new Taylor Swift album, because you've got a long list of older tunes that deserve a heads-up."

Alas.

This song pushes me to the break that promise. Mostly because of the bridge. "Red" overall is pretty damn impressive.

OK. Back to work now.

10/16/12

"...I'm on the ledge, while you're so, goddamned polite and composed..."
~Fallout
Marianas Trench, Ever After



Have I ever mentioned how fantastic of a singer I think Josh Ramsay is? Because he is. Marianas Trench is overtly pop, as far as my tastes go, though they'll get some play in scene crowds on occasion. If I believed in the thing of guilty pleasures, these guys would be it. But that's a cop-out category in general, you dig something or you don't and if you're ashamed of what you like you have self-image issues that run deeper than liking a pop tune. I love driving and singing to this band (poorly, albeit). The part of me that is a total romantic sap is completely sold, packaged and shipped.

(Every now and again, I want to listen to something that doesn't completely depress the living daylights out of me, believe it or not.)

Their latest effort, "Ever After," was pretty impressive, vocally and otherwise. It was framed as a concept album....which I have trouble listening before  but eh, creative license, I guess? There's a lot of fantasy imagery, and in the music videos they pull it out strong. They're clearly quite creative and drama-minded. But I find it hard to pull out a truly specific narrative other than fairy tales don't come true unless you try to make them.

Anyway I think the songs are hella-fun, the production is laser-perfect and the vocals/harmonies are soooo good. Lovelovelove. This tune is happier, dance-ier:



"We've been stuck now so long,
We just got the start wrong,
One more last try,
I'ma get the ending right.

You can't stop this, and I must insist,
That you haven't had enough,
You haven't had enough,
Stuck now so long,
We just got the start wrong,
No more last place,
You better get your story straight.
You can't stop this, and I must insist,
That you haven't had enough,
You haven't had enough.."

~Haven't Had Enough 

Marianas Trench, Ever After