1979 via 1991: Paul Simon Late in the Evening

Here's actually a later version of the song, cause it really benefits from his later "world music" sound.

1979 Marianne Faithful

This song feels so early 80s, we've definitely transitioned into the keyboard base of the new decade. But I got this song from Thelma and Louise, but the kids these days seem to have got it from American Horror Story.

1978: Blondie and the double backbeats

Here's one I had on my computer and never noticed. How amazing is this? I think it's my favorite Blondie song now. (Well, it's a cover, but you know what I mean.)

1977: Meatloaf gives 'er

My mom had the Bat Out of Hell album when we wuz little. We loved it. Later I had it on tape, so I remember driving around in my put-put in the 90s, just loving and singing along to every track.

My political philosophy professor hugely admired authors who took a "give 'er" approach to their research and books. When I read Das Kapital I saw what he meant. I mean, Marx just keeps swinging that bat, the more melodramatic the better. Just throw everything you got at the reader.

That's Jim Steinman the writer...

Oh I know you belong inside my aching heart
And can't you see my faded Levis bursting apart
And don't you hear me crying:
"Oh Babe, don't go"
And don't you hear me screaming:
"How was I to know?"



...and Meatloaf the singer. Here he sings the song live, for the first time in decades, and tells the audience: I'll probably mess up, and you can either say "Screw you" or "God he gave it a good try." Love the attitude.

1973: E.L.O. is just awesome

One of my dad's albums that my brother and I *discovered.* This is the ELO take on Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. I love the crisp sound of those guitars combined with violin, and I love the drums--what a cool cover. Jeff Lynne created such a great sound with this band.



Live version:

1971: Aretha doing Bridge Over Troubled Water

This performance might be later, but the original she did was in '71. Great video--runny eyeliner and all.

Must be the season of 2012!

Alright: 2012. I got it down to 886 songs.

Starting with Donovan. This song was being used in a movie trailer at the time, I think. Very cool sounding.

Ain't Nobody - by somebody

And that brings us to the end of 2011. A year, apparently, filled with 80s downloads.

Still one of my favorite videos

And probably why for a Halloween dance (grade 8?) I went drag in my grandfather's tux. Wish I had a photo. My bestie just wanted an excuse to dress slutty, so I called her my gangster moll.

Love me an 80s Robbie Robertson

“I was proud to rip open my chest and bare my soul,” Robertson said at the time. “I’m not embarrassed to talk about these things anymore. Do you know what a skin walker is? It’s a thing in Indian mythology. There are certain people born with this gift, and they’re able to actually get inside you and mess with your feelings and with your mind. And if a skin walker chooses to get a hold of you, there’s not much you can do. I want a song to get inside me, to feel it did the old skin walker on me. I was kind of discovering that on this album, and now I’m pursuing it.” (Robbie Robertson)

Ooh here's one of those ones I'd forgotten about and love! My brother had this record and it was the shit. Produced by Daniel Lanois.



Same album that brought us the indescribably beautiful "Broken Arrow."
I want to come when you call
I'll get to you if I have to crawl
They can't hold me with these iron walls


I even love the Rod Stewart version. Yes, yes the song is un-cheesable. Love the crescendo at 2:22. 


And of course "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is sexy as all get out.


He put out this great song in 2011. Love it when an oldie manages to pull a rabbit out of their hat, one last time.


The 1994 compilation soundtrack also has some great songs:

"Jack Wilson claimed to have left the presence of God convinced that if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to "hasten the event", all evil in the world would be swept away, leaving a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith." (wiki) And then Wounded Knee happened. Meh.

"Long as you motherfuckers know"

Nicki Minaj has been going for *cred* lately, so putting out a lot of real rap. But I think when she raps she's Just Another Rapper. I mean, a strong one, but still. I think what she does better than anyone else is the rap+pop combo. I'm still hoping she'll get back to it... when she realizes I'm right.

I love the little Beyonce reference. Just a little pop of cross-hiphop-feminism.

I'm fighting for the girls that never thought they could win.
Cause before they could begin you told them it was the end
But I am here to reverse the curse that they live in.
Got two bones to pick I'm a only choose one,
You might get addressed on the second album
Which means you can breathe until I motherfucking say so.
To all my bad bitches: I can see your halo

Prince and Kate Bush mash it up

Here's one of my favorite Prince collaborations--with my other 80s hero, Kate Bush.

Bush asked Prince to contribute a few background vocals to a song called “Why Should I Love You”, which she had just recorded in full at Abbey Road Studios. But when Prince received the track, he ignored the intructions and dismantled the entire thing like a crazed mechanic taking apart old cars on his backyard. He wanted to inject himself into the very heart of it, weaving his sound amongst her sound, giving it a new soul entirely. As Koppelman explains, “We essentially created a new song on a new piece of tape and then flew all of Kate's tracks back on top of it… Prince stacked a bunch of keys, guitars, bass, etc, on it, and then went to sing background vocals.” Despite being the lovechild of two of humanity’s greatest music minds, the resulting track is not often mentioned on your average BBC3 pop retrospective presented by Lauren Laverne. It’s startlingly brilliant, with sometimes bizarre, musical depths. (noisey.voice.com)

Not to mention backup vocals by a Bulgarian trio. It's as weird as Kate and Prince. Love it.

Before


After

He liked women

When I told one coworker about Prince, she said "Oh I gues it was an overdose?" Um no. I mean, yes, it might have been an overdose issue with painkillers. But we're not talking cokehead here. Not only because he was a Jehova's Witness, but even in his 20s he didn't drink or smoke or do drugs. Everyone attests to that. Even hiring people for the band, he had rules about that stuff. He did extacy in the 90s, that's all I know of.

Another time, another coworker said: Isn't Prince gay? My French didn't feel up to the full explanation of "No, but he didn't mind if people thought he was, well at least before he was a Jehova's Witness, and he was very much about playing with gender conventions, and you know a man can dress like a woman because really what does that even mean?" I left it to: "No. He was married a couple times."

My third Prince surprise comes when I see some internet comment about him being sexist or a misogynist. No I'm sorry, Prince did not hate women. Yes, he loved to see them in lingerie... but this is a man who performed in bikini underwear and leggings. Who wore assless pants to the American Music Awards.

I couldn't even make a list of the women he's had in his bands, and whose careers he's promoted, and who he's admired, and worked with. It's SOOO LONG. Joni Mitchell used to see him at her concerts when he was 15, and he wrote her crazy fan mail. He adored Chaka Kahn and supported her later in her career. He randomly came across Diane Birch in a hotel and invited her to jam with him:

"I was young, insecure and just starting to sing and write and you saw the thing in me I wanted to be and that was reason enough to believe in myself and go for it. From that day on, my life changed forever. The respect and support you've given to so many female artists is incredible, especially in an industry which is often so crushing to young women. I can't fathom a world without you in it, and thanks to your music, we will never have to live in one."

"He stood for the weirdos"

"He stood for the weirdos. He stood for the unique and he stood for those who couldn't stand up for ourselves." - Janelle Monae on Prince.

My husband called me at work in the afternoon. He couldn't talk long, but thought I'd want to know right away: Prince is dead.

(What I love is that he added: It's from a credible source. How well he knows me.)

I felt cold run through my body. Not a shiver, just coldness. Then I was googling, and then talking about it with coworkers, and not yet sad because I was still in a state of "well huh."

I was surprised, but I think I was less surprised than others. I don't know why. Maybe because while others think vegan=healthy, I know you can be vegan and totally not healthy. And others think skinny=healthy, whereas there's evidence to the contrary. And his last tour was at a piano--in other words, no longer jumping and running around. And it looked like he was referencing lyrics on a tablet. Maybe not, but it did make me wonder how he was doing.

At the concert last month I said to the UBERFAN next to me--well, it's good we came, cause you never know when we'll lose him. And UBERFAN was all Oh no, he's so healthy, he'll be with us for years! ...I kept my less optimistic opinion to myself. People die all the time from random shit. Prince died at the exact same age as the ex-crack cocaine addict Vanity, who had killed her organs. This is life. This is what the Book of Ecclesiastes is all about. It's why I finally made the effort to start going to his concerts: He won't be touring forever.

Still. I didn't think Prince would die ONE month later.

I listened to the tributes on the radio as I drove home. I couldn't help thinking: When I was in Nanaimo, I heard Prince on the radio once every day. Not kidding. In Montreal? Twice per year. Do you know who I hear once per week? Platinum Blonde. So I did feel a bit "FUCK YOU" towards the sudden outpouring of love and playing of songs.

I felt sadder and sadder. Of course, while my right brain mourned, the left side of my brain wondered why. I won't miss his albums, cause he wasn't putting out good music anymore. A song or two per album, that was it. And I've seen four concerts now, and had decided I would probably not go to another. So in terms of my day to day life, what had changed?

Once my left brain caught up to what my right brain already knew, I was finally able to have a good cry, and I wrote this *eulogy* on my facebook page:

My eulogy, as best as I can describe my feelings: I was really upset about something yesterday, and was still feeling upset when the Prince news came in. But oddly enough, what I was feeling sad about created the context for me to understand why I became such a big Prince fan in grade 6.

Around grade 4 I realized I was weird. There were the cutesie “normal” girls, and there were me and my friends. I’ve always been socially aware enough to know when I’m not the norm, but there was never a question of changing. I wanted to be accepted, but not Boring. I paid the price throughout high school, and hardest in grade 9 when my group of friends collectively dumped me. (Weird people aren’t always ostensibly ostracized for being weird—but that’s what it is. Not having socially acceptable behavior.)

It seems shockingly non-coincidental that when I “met” Prince in grade 6, I clung to him as one of the ports in my preppy world. He was super short, he dressed like a lady, he had a female guitarist, he sang about incest, he had an ejaculating guitar but sang about God, he straddled R&B and rock & funk and racial lines, and he followed up the biggest album of his career with the weirdest album of his career. He just didn’t give a shit. He was my hero and my role model. 

That imprinted on me, emotionally. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of the pain & loneliness of weird people, of socially awkward people, of eccentric people, of mentally ill people. Humans require connection to survive. I’ve been cut off before, I know how it feels. And now I feel like the coach of my team just died. I’m crying like the Eccentric Supportive Uncle of my teen years just died.

RIP Prince. Thanks for being there for me when I needed you. I’ll try to keep paying it forward.

Prince always sang Purple Rain

[I had a couple other versions of Purple Rain up here, but The Keepers of Prince's Music are keeping his legacy alive by taking videos down as fast as they ever did in the past.]

For the people who were there to see him for the first time. Amazes me how he could emote at this level for all these decades. I think you have to know how to live in the present, to do something like that.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that it wasn't even a fave song of mine, until I saw him in concert in the midst of marriage troubles, and broke down as soon as he sang the first line. Dammit!

Have you heard the story by now? When the Superbowl people told Prince it was going to be pouring rain when he was to do his halftime show, he said: Can you make it rain harder?

My grade 7 shiznit

I'd probably heard some earlier stuff on the radio, but "What About Love" was my first consciousness raising of Heart. Of a band fronted by a woman and a female guitarist. Ann Wilson was one of my style icons. This video and song are just so immensely 80s.



I was similarly enamored of Toronto, who wrote the song.

Prince

Of course, it's hard to find Prince videos to post. But til I find something, here's something I had prepped for another week. A placeholder.

Nobody will ever love you as much as I do 
But that doesn't mean other people won't love you too



This gives me a chance to share Beyonce's cover of "The Beautiful Ones." It's fanTAStic. She's got the range for the high notes. She aces the "hurt you every time" line. She's got the theatrics for all the screamy-roll-around-stage bits. And she's not wearing pants.


* The full version morphs into "Sex On Fire". She was apparently pregnant and puking between sets.

From folk to Emineminem

I wanted to pick Bonnie Couchie's "Pretty Stories" but it's not on youtube. It's earnest, but not dumb sounding somehow.

So... on a completely other note: Eminem. Lyrically nothing amazing, but I like it when he raps in this rhythm.

Newer Pretenders stuff

2011

On to 2011. Luckily there are only 1522 songs to choose from, and I was better about tagging things that interested me as I went along. This time I'll try to just pick out songs I'd never noticed before, or forgot I had. That seems more interesting.

And finishing off 2010 with our favorite song from that winter

 

So where are the Trump theme songs?

Obama's reaction to the Yes We Can tagline: "He read through the script once and after the first take he said, 'Gee, is that too corny?'"

I like the idea of someone following up the word "gee" with "is that too corny?"

Sudden Weather (if google translate is right) (and there's no reason to think it is)

And now for my dad's birthday...

How the hell did it get here so soon?

More of my preteen years music

It's interesting to see what you liked when you were first learning about music. My mother got me a Red Wine band shirt, and took me to the rocker metal type store to buy skull earrings. Which I treasured highly.

It takes a Jennifer Nettles to tackle Queen Bey

Let's be real: There's silly music in every decade

The Serena Ryder song that started it for me

What a Catch, Donnie

I was thinking the other day how I don't listen to musicals much anymore, though I love the genre. I think when I was younger I listened a lot in my car. So I'm going to load a stick up with my musical stuff, and then I can belt out Fiddler on the Roof for my commute...

Grade A 80s Cheese Prince Wannabe

Well the Great Song Cull is done.

Not the part where I share it with you... there's still months of that to come! Though it did get easier as I went on, cause there were less and less songs. Ex. 2014 looked big, but turned out to have a lot of small files from when I uploaded some books on CD.

18 433 to 13 485

About 5000 songs (or files.) Not bad. I'm going to go back to some of the earlier ones and re-cull. There are some artists like Prince whom I just kept, but in reality I'd like to get rid of some of their songs. I want it so that if I put my itunes on "random" I will like every song.

I think I'll also use my cull smart list to make a basic playlist--cause it's already set up to skip classical, 1920s, musicals etc -- stuff I usually don't want to listen to randomly, mixed in with pop and rock and folk.

Spring cleaning done!

Nobody does creepy like this girls' choir

I just realized that the title "Mabel Talk" may not be entirely accurate for a blog where I'm always posting music! Maybe I'll have to let it lapse when it comes due in May.

I'm currently shopping for a free web building site to use for my shevaunryan.com--to have ready for when I soon start self epubbing. Most sites don't let you use your own domain name at the free level, so if I don't find something I like, maybe I'll just use blogger. Or this blog.

My londonmabel.com still gets to sit around free at weebly, though, cause I guess I was *grandfathered* in.

I wouldn't mind spending some money eventually if I was making money; but refuse to spend more than I must in case that never happens. Eg. I paid for a photo, to make my story cover (myself), and I MIGHT spring for an editing program. But I am not paying $10/month + for a web builder. Expensive!

Onto the music...

Fave Pogues song? Just might be...

My 80s style icon

Benatar's outfit in this video really was my favorite look in 1985. The spikey hair, the long coat, the massive costume jewellery--I did my best to mimic it all.



She and her guitarist husband are still together.

Legalize it! (Oh wait, we are...)

I could have just as easily posted this for my mum's birthday. It's the song my brother and I most remember blasting through the house while we all got ready for school in the morning.

Is there anybody alive out there?

It's my mother's birthday, so I moved Bruce out of the B's into up here to April.

I think this song is for those who miss old fashioned rock on the radio. (Don't worry, it'll come back.)

When's the last time you listened to The Parachute Club?

Well okay, recently if you regularly go to pride events.

Things are getting a bit too tasteful up in here

Time to lower the bar.

Stuck here in February

By the time you read this it will be spring. But I'm stuck here on February 20th, trying to power through and pick out the highlights from my 2010 music.

Never give up! Never surrender!

Now then... if there is anything better out there than Nina Simone singing "I Ain't Got No / I Got Life" then I'd like to know what it is.

See it live

I think if you're not really immersed in rap and hip hop, sometimes it helps to watch certain performances live.



Did you see Kendrik Lamar's performance at the 2016 Grammys? Mamma jamma!

The best snare drummer you will ever see.

You don't have to live like a refugee (metaphorically, that is)

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you want to lay there and revel in your abandon
Honey, it don't make no difference to me, baby
Everybody has to fight to be free

Read more: Melissa Etheridge - Refugee Lyrics | MetroLyrics

We're in the M's... we're getting there

My favorite break up song

Courtesy of Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie, here in cover-ahj. Didn't even know I had this version.



I think this was always my fave breakup song cause I could (and cannot) imagine ever becoming strangers with my husband. We're in the process of breaking up, and we take it in baby steps because we want to remain friends. Need to remain friends, really, cause we still love each other "Like never before."

And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all, I wish it from myself.

Matisyahu

Mamer

\

"The great old Kazak folk songs were born when people were shepherding," says the boyish thirty-something. "Living in cities we are often too busy to allow this sort of tranquillity to enter our lives. I have to return to the grasslands once or twice a year. That is where I get my inspiration, my creativity." (Real World Records)

"The band's name was inspired by gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt who lost the use of two fingers following a fire."

This is what it sounds like when a French person is singing an English song phonetically, understanding nothing. Like my cousin did when I first met her.

They're so cute

My first Nicki Minaj song. They're so cute. It's like the theme song to a 90s teen comedy.

One you go black you never go back
And once you go Wayne everybody else is whack

What you up to K'naan?

This seems to have been the year I discovered both Janelle Monae and K'naan.



K'naan's second album was incredible. His third one... bleh. But he admitted it. What's he doing now?

[googles]

A TV show! Hm.

Somalia-born and Canadian-raised rapper K'naan will team with Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow on a new HBO drama series that will focus on Jihadi recruitment in the United States. The series, titled The Recruiters, "will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment," HBO said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/knaan-kathryn-bigelow-team-for-jihadi-recruitment-hbo-series-20151212#ixzz40gZXVYyo

I love a song you can really wail on

What could ever lead you back here where we need you?

My favorite TV theme song (after the A-Team of course) because: It's the all important final step of the hero journey!

Kotter's a young punk. He gets out, he gets a degree, presumably faces his dragon out there somewhere, and returns to share the gold. Cause remember... if you hoard what you've learned you just become a dragon.

Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.
Who'd have thought they'd lead ya

Back here where we need ya

More music I stole from my dad

My dad's never had huge music collections (I get this from my mother) but that didn't stop me from raiding the bedside table where he kept his cassettes. I'm afraid he lost some Joan Armatrading.

Get up up on the dance floor

Still one of my favorite videos ever

And when you're growing down instead of growing up
Tell me are you bold enough to reach for love?

I never say I'll never love -- but I don't say a lot of things

That time you wrote a song for a watch commercial and it turned out really good

I never cried so much
You've been taking me apart
You gonna put me back together?
Gonna start me from the start?

I've been wrecking my blood
Been wrecking my brains
I been killing my heart
I've been living in the pain

Cause when we fight sometimes
When we're clawing at each other
Got to think it's all for something at the end of all the trouble
Gonna build something to last
Not to let it crumble fast
Want to be the ones left standing
After all the time has passed

And if I'm feeling unplugged
Feeling swept under the rug
Need to hold the lantern for me
Need to pick me back up
Want to remember all the things that we said we want to do
Don't want to start to pull away
Cause it's easier to do
When you look at something ugly that you thought you hid away
When it's coming back to haunt you on an unsuspecting day
We're going to be the harbor where we can just tie our little boats
A place to fight off all the lions that keep gnashing at our throats

Everybody that we trust says it's harder than it looks
Something good's a constant struggle when there's a tree there to be shook
Better believe the wind will blow
It'll try to push you down
It'll try to pull your roots
And leave you lying on the ground...

We'll make time though there ain't that much time
Oh and we'll make love in the middle of the night...

I hope we're older someday
And we've grown so much
I hope that we still feel the warmth there
In our kiss and in our touch
Cause the world is against you
When you're after something true
It ain't the fashion to be faithful
Even though it's hard to do
And it's confusing sometimes
Cause even the good ones fall away
You have to keep the fire burning every night and every day
I know we're corny, old fashioned
Is forever really true?

But when I say that you're for me
And baby, baby I'm for you
And though the grass is always greener but you still have to cut it
And the scars you get together
Are the scars you really covet
And at night when we are lovers
And we're mucking up the covers
And it's all about our eyes
And we've forgotten all the others
When we're laying there in silence
In the comfort and the quiet
And you hold me as we fall asleep
In the coldness of the night
And though we say it on the phone
Out in public or alone
And then we write it down in letters
When the other one's not home...

Read more: Hawksley Workman - We'll Make Time Lyrics | MetroLyrics

A band that consists of cartoon people

Took me awhile to *get*  Gorillaz.

She got her break when Prince heard her in a hotel lounge and invited her to jam with him

Good heavens she had another album in 2013 and I didn't even realize.

Classification: Songs you don't want to be the subject of

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

 

"At least five hundred came into my place [the Folklore Center]... and asked if it was about me. I don't know if it was, but it was unfair. I'm in the Village twenty-five years now. I was one of the representatives of the Village, there is such a thing as the Village. Dave Van Ronk was still in the Village. Dylan comes in and takes from us, uses my resources, then he leaves and he gets bitter. He writes a bitter song. He was the one who left." - some dude

lol

Doing "old age rocker" right

Lauper does concept albums--like a blues album, or standards, or in this case a well put together acoustic album. I was wowed by some of these songs that I'd never heard before.

With Sarah McLachlan:




With Vivian Green:

What if all these things that we both buy into
Melt away and disappear?

Spike Lee does Aaron Copland

Spike Lee's another one like Kanye (though I don't think he's crazy.) Gets dismissed a lot because he's opinionated and sometimes rude. But I think he's one of the greatest American directors--emphasis on the American. Like a Frank Capra and Aaron Copland. He looks at his country and gets at the soul of the thing, which is why he's one of the few people who can take Copland from the frontier to the basketball court and it makes sense.

"John Henry"

Sigh... we're only in the C's

Love the tone of her voice on this.

Here's the part of me they have not sold

If you haven't taken time for this song, you is missing something.



Of course... while I post these videos I just discover more songs I want to download.

Chaka is one of the many female artists Prince supports. Too bad he has this reputation as a misogynist, cause he really isn't.

This is how I end up with too much music.

I upload something interesting, and then don't spend enough time getting to know it, to see if I want to keep it. It's that music snob in one that whispers "This might be the album and you're not giving it enough attention you barbarian."

70 is the new 20?

Another old artist who's still managing to contribute something new. She won the Polaris prize* later than this, in 2015. At 74 years old.



_____
* "The Polaris Music Prize is a not-for-profit organization that annually honours and rewards artists who produce Canadian music albums of distinction. A select panel of music critics judge and award the Prize without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity."

Great Billy Joel song

Bit creepy

Waiting for a chick to turn 18. Well... at least he waited.

Use of the word "guy" twice in close succession... BOLD CHOICE

My dad bought this best of album, and I just sort of... ran off with it. Sorry dude. All is fair in music and war.

Oh lord we're only in the B's

Boy these two are hot together.



But culling 2010 was a bitch of a job, and at the end I was still left with 2370 songs! What happened? I don't know how to pick what to share.

Also lots of stuff I didn't even need to look at--1920s compilations and so forth.

Alicia Comes Through

Sometimes I come across a song or album by an artist and it's like... amazing. It's perfect. But the next album comes along and it's just meh. K'naan did that to me. Then one day they put out the album you always knew they had in them.

I really disliked Alicia Keys' second album, but in 2009 she finally put out The Element of Freedom. Good god. What a beautiful record.



It has one of my favorite love songs--très intense.

Moment of honesty, someones gotta take the lead tonight
Who's it gonna be?
I'm gonna sit right here and tell you all that comes to me
If you have something to say you should say it right now




And here's your encore song. ;-)

Is there a horse in here somewhere? Why not.

This embodies my sense of helplessness when trying to understand Frazey Ford's mumblesing




She's having a laugh.

We can't go on like this

Well if we're gonna talk dramatic love songs... this one ranks up there. I don't even know if it was a single, but I got it off the radio one day in the 90s and loved it.

I need you like i need oxygen
I don't care if it's all a crutch
But if this is love why does it hurt so much?

There are no lies on your body (what does that even mean?)

I like Barbra Streisand's broadway stuff better than her pop--she has a beautiful voice and really emotes theatre songs. ...But I still like this old bit of melodrama.

YOU TELL ME WHO YOU TELL ME WHERE YOU TELL ME WHEN!!



Can you guess who wrote this song? Duh! Jim Steinman. Obviously.

Voulez-vous? Oui: Je veux. (Mais tu peux me tutoyer.)

It is now 2010... at least as far as my record cull goes. 2010 appears to be the year I uploaded all my Abba. One of the greatest pop bands of all time.

I owned one Abba album, probably their disco-iest. Not even sure how. We had Voulez-vous when I was little because I remember sitting in a big chair with oversized headphones on, listening to it, and being scared by this song (cause I was afraid of fire):



After my parents divorced and I was a pre-teen living with my dad in Winnipeg, I still had this album in my possession, so my mum (back in Edmonton) must have let me take it. My best Winnipeg friend had some others, so between the two of us we cobbled together a strong Abba fan-i-tude.


I thought cat-Haley only liked songs like "Killer Queen" but she's sitting on me and singing along and purring to Chiquitita. Thinks it's about eating chickens?


When we moved to Quebec and I started grade 7 I was sitting next to a girl in Ecology class and we discovered we were Abba fans. That's all it takes to spark a 30 year old friendship.

The appropriate response towards underaged groupies.


There are sooo many great Abba songs. But here it is in all it's disco glory: Abba's Voulez-vous album.

Perfect example of how behind the goofy costumes and disco beats, there are some very real lyrics. Nothing worse for a heartbreak than nighttime.


 And the eternal question continues to haunt us all... why did they put those cheap, ugly, cardboard looking belts over those cute dresses?

Love Frida's voice here. By the time this posts, I hope we can dedicate this to Trump.
 

My music collection is down to 16 759 from 18 433.
2500 items in the trash can.

Let's finish with Yellowman

And so I come to the end of a sampling of the songs I uploaded to my computer in 2009, as I work at culling my fricking itunes library.

For 2009: 1274 down to 1174



If all the girls should be 'cross the sea
What a great swimmer Yellowman would be

Terrence Howard writes a lot of great soundtrack music

Beautiful. And a great montage by Spike Lee. I don't know why they didn't release a proper soundtrack.

Wyclef accidentally writes catchy song while critiquing Autotune

Wyclef Jean is def in my top 10 of favorite artists. And he comes out with some funny little gems sometimes.

Indian A-Team

How did I even come across that song? (Other than my being an A-Team fan.) Maybe I was trying to find this song from one of my fave Spaced scenes:

This is the song "Clothes Off" reminds me of

Melissa Ferrick - Drive

Measha Brueggergosman, Joni and I really don't know life

This won't be for everyone, but the first time I saw it it gave me shivers, and it can still bring me to tears. Not only is Measha so expressive, but the arrangement takes the song to a place you're not expecting. It's the Phil-Spector-as-described-by-Art-Garfunkel technique: you give the audience everything except the kitchen sink... and then you give them the kitchen sink.

And I think the epic feel surprisingly suits a song with such huge themes.



Something's lost, and something's gained, in living every day.

Eurythmics - 1984

Kanye & Prince & Doug and the Slugs

 Good heavens, I was watching videos from the Grammy performances and went down an internet rabbit hole. But it's nice when it's a music rabbit hole. Just 4 hours of watching/listening to live performances and reading music articles. Did you know Paul McCartney wasn't allowed into some random rapper nobody's after party? Très amusant. Have you seen the videos for the Queen 1981 Montreal concert? Crystal clear, it's a thing of beauty.

Anyway, I happened upon an article that echoes how I've been feeling about Kanye West. Whenever he goes on a twitter rant (weekly, almost daily now) I chuckle, and then feel bad.

Prince is crazy too, but even when he changed his name to a symbol I didn't worry about him. I worry about poor little Kanye. The fellow is not well. And there's no one in his life with enough influence to keep him off twitter.

Maybe he needs a visit from Brother Prince.
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Back to the music cull...

One of my dad's fave bands. One of those bands where the humorous front kind of masks how good the lyrics actually are. And they're really the antithesis of the rock n' roll image--they're songs about ordinary people.



Bad new don't ruin my appetite
Don't let the papers tell me if it's wrong or right
I just do what I do and I do it
Day by day by day by day by day

Live a life and I take it slow
Made mistakes but oh that's the way it goes
I just know what I know it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

I speak up when I feel it's right
I jump up when I know that I got to fight
Until then I just take it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

With you don't worry 'bout it
With you don't worry 'bout it
With you don't worry 'bout it
Day by day by day by day by day

Sometimes they deny it and I
I feel strangely blue?
Sometimes they deny it and I
Like the evil I get from you

Day by day you show me a better way
Day by day you help me to find a place
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make it
Day by day by day by day by day

Day by day I'm feeling stronger
Day by day I'm lasting longer
Day by day you help me make my way

She's deeeeaaaaad (She's not dead.)

From the best episode of The Office. Only David Brent could break down the will of a seminar facilitator. "Free Love Highway" reminds me of my friend Gilby, who sang this all day as we walked around Oxford.



He went home to get it.

I didn't know this version existed:

Damon Albarn is a wonder

This is a beautiful song... from a Civil War era cannibal zombie horror movie. Oh Damon. You scamp.

The folk version...


The GORGEOUS symphonic arrangement for the end credits...

Ciara's a lot of fun

What if I had a thing on the side?
Made ya cry?
Would the rules change up?
Or would they still apply?

Big Boi - Church

More men running around in suits (Block Rockin' Beats)

Cat Power - The Greatest

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood

You so beautiful, but you got to die someday

1999 One Hit Wonder: Stop the Rock

Alicia Keys and Annie Lennox singing "Everybody Hurts"

The Great Music Cull of 2016

So... I have too much music. I have 18 433 songs in my itunes. At some point I'd stopped getting ridding of songs I didn't like cause I have plenty of memory in my computer; and I kept a lot of things in case I changed my mind about them, or newly got into them, etc etc bla bla I can't explain.

But now I want my library to be just wall to wall things I love, or like a lot. So it's Projet Cull time.

I've built myself a smart playlist that doesn't include genres I don't want to go through right now (musicals, opera, classical...) and then I'm listening through the rest as I do other things. (This is one of the reasons I don't like to watch videos or podcasts people recommend to me. I'm always listening to music... and trying to get some music-shit done, son.)

You can't delete songs from within playlists, so my method has always been to award a song 5 stars if I don't like it, and then delete all the 5 stars from the main Music window. So right now I'm 5-starring what I don't care for, and giving 1 star (or listening through the song) if I like it. Either actions makes the song disappear from my smart playlist, and on I go til there's nothing left.*

I decided to go by the year the song was uploaded--it seems the last time I rebuilt my library was in 2009, so that's where we began. It's and interesting biographical exercise cause I'm reminded of things that happened in my life that year, what I was writing, what I was into.

The hardest to cull are full albums that I either bought or got from the library. If I bought the album I don't like to delete too much from it, cause I still have an old school respect for the sanctity of the album. But I'm also 43 years old and haven't got time for songs I just don't like. So. I'm being tougher. But it's harder to decide what to take out, so sometimes I just classify the songs "albums to consider" and I'll come back to them later.

So without more ado... let us explore song of the songs dug out of 2009! Here's my first offering:



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* The most horrifying thing is that itunes added this function where ratings you apply to individual songs now get applied to a new column called "album rating." So when I go to delete the 5-stars, I have to be careful to skip the ones that are only ALBUM rated 5-stars, as chosen by the fucking computer. Everyone like me who uses the stars to organize their huge libraries are bitching about this, and there aren't any great work arounds.

You see this? The three Bruce Springsteen songs that I DO NOT want to delete? Fuckers.

Mamani Keita

Heard this one on French CBC one morning. Just love it.

Tonight by Bowie & Iggy Pop - three ways

I only ever knew the Bowie-Tina duet of this song, which is lovely. I don't think I've ever seen a bad Tina Turner duet, she's so dynamic.


I'd never heard their recorded version, from his album. I think the live version is much better.



And I'd never sought out the original. It's pretty too.

Fave Childhood Songs: The empathetic child

Just saw a Dr Hook song on a friend's blog, which reminded me of the song "When You're in Love With a Beautiful Woman." Was one of my favorite songs when I was in grade 2 or 3.

I love looking back at fave childhood songs, cause they're so random and mysterious. Okay, not totally random--they came from my parents' record collections after all. But my mother owned A LOT of records, so how I alighted on one song over another, I don't know. I recently read an article about a study that ties empathy in with enjoyment of "easy listening" type music, so I'm glad to see I was starting out life on the right note.



Love the maracas. If you saw this band photo would you guess this was a disco band? The 70s were a mysterious time.

Rey's Theme (Star Wars)

This was the only bit of "iconic" music that stood out for me in the new movie. Basically my biggest disappointments were with the soundtrack and the costuming.

RIP Nathalie Cole