Wow this week was super hectic. I'm just gonna come right out and say it was not a very good week. Started out good. Monday, pathetically, was the best part, even though Mondays usually suck. But everything just kind of went downhill from there.
Today was good though.

This week's song: Lost in the Post by The Wombats

( Lyrics! )

So. One of the main reasons I listened to this song is that it's extremely upbeat and helped (kind of) wake me up in the mornings. This week was one where it was really hard to just get going and be motivated to do things. I don't know what came over me, or really if it's just one of those hard weeks in school, I just had a rough time of it.
I will admit that I'm not exactly sure what this song is about. I like to think that he liked a girl more than she liked him, and eventually when she wouldn't see him he started sending her love letters through snail mail. But maybe she just never responded. Or there was a terrible coincidence in making sure they never got to her. Either way, he loved the idea of tangible communication in the era of electronic correspondence. But she didn't appreciate that kind of commitment.
So his love was lost in the mail, both metaphorically and literally.
Maybe I like this idea that someone would be so committed to me that they would keep sending letters, even if I didn't respond. They would keep trying to contact me no matter what until I gave them a concrete answer.

Week five can be found here.

This week's song is
Pinch Me by The Barenaked Ladies.
( Lyrics )

First off, this song reminds me of growing up. It's in that group of songs that I find hard to classify as any specific genre, more songs that remind me of coming of age, of the 90's, of music that everyone likes. It calms me down, I can sing most of the lyrics save the part where he goes a million miles a minute which I never got down.

I think I listened to this song a lot this week for comfort reasons. This week was really rough in terms of academics and health issues, and this song talks a lot about thinking about life. Thinking about something bigger than ourselves. And also just some of the basic comforts of life: running through a sprinkler, driving instead of walking, forgetting about your worries for a second and just going with the flow, if you will.

It's like a dream - you try to remember but it's gone, then ya
Try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn, when ya
Try to see the world beyond your front door.

Part of this seems about the lethargy of my generation, being forced to yawn at world events and world suffering because it's just a generational attitude, that is, 'why should I care?' And also about remembering when you were young, or remembering why you started on your specific life journey in the first place, but like a dream that slips through your fingers you can't quite figure out how you got to your specific place in life.

I'm starting to ooze philosophical mumbo-jumbo so I'm going to cap it.
Basically I love this song, and I hope you have heard it.

Hey El-Jay.

Firstly, sorry I missed my MVM for Friday. I made a commitment but I might have to change the day that commitment happens because I don't know if Friday is going to work after all. :/ But here we go anyway.

Week four can be found here.

So, I listened a lot to 'Stronger Than Jesus' this week. If you would like to see my analysis of that song, I point you to the link above, as it was my most listened to song last week, too. I think I'll just go down my list of most listened to tracks on last.fm until I find another one to talk about.

So this week's will be, with 9 plays, for an average of 1.3 plays per day, is:
First Love by Emmy the Great

( Lyrics )

Regret. Obviously. Regret, hope, lust, and any other words you can think of to describe the first time you fell in love. The first time you really opened yourself up to someone, because you thought something might come of it. I will honestly say I can pinpoint first love, and it was the most vulnerable I had felt in my entire life. Yet, like the singer of this song, I would go back in a heartbeat, and maybe try to do it over. Maybe try to prolong that feeling even more, because I know at the end of first love, I got my heart broken. I grew up a little bit, became a little bit less of a child.
So I think I listened to this song a lot in the last week because, of course, I'm still thinking lots about relationships. I've tried to tell myself in the past that thinking about them won't help any, but of course I still do. I remember all my failed attempts and experiences of watching people succeed and fail in their own relationship efforts, some flaunting how easy it is for them and others falling into it by chance, some fucking it up gloriously and some managing to hold on for dear life and somehow make it through the storm that is making up with someone.
Truth be told, I don't know what I would do with a significant other if I had one. I have never had a specific experience like the singer of this song but I know the feeling of wanting to go back to something because it's the best you've had so far. Through all of the relationships I have had and currently had, it's very hard to compare to that first feeling I got of true love. That feeling that you will sacrifice things for someone just so they can be happier, even if it means not being happier with you.

Week three can be found here.

So there is an interesting turn of events this week.
My most listened to track is an instrumental track with no lyrics! This is most likely because I have taken to listening to instrumental music rather than music with lyrics while I'm studying. If you are wondering, the track is El Zopilote Mojado, by DevotchKa. If you would like to to hear (and I would recommend you do), drop me your email address and I'll send it.
My second most listened to track, with 19 plays for an average of 2.7 plays per day, is

Stronger Than Jesus - A Camp

Who told you love is the Alfa and Omega?
And that your heart will lead you to the only one?
It’s a curse, it’s the hammer that will break you,
It’s a poison hidden in a bon bon

Don’t you know love is stronger than Jesus?
Don’t you know love can kill anyone?
Bring it on; wars and diseases
You know that love can do you like a shotgun

Can’t resist them, the sailors and the soldiers
Taking aim, a rabbit on a rifle range
Pay no mind to what your mama told you
You’re the fool who’s chasing down the candy cane

it’s a riddle how lovers can stay alive
but we bloom and breathe and multiply

Don’t you know love is stronger than Jesus?
Don’t you know love can kill anyone?
So bring it on; wars and diseases
You know that love can do you like a shotgun

o, oh no
o, oh no

See the people heading for disaster
standing in line just looking for a little fun
love is a fire, a hot hot blaster
with a vengeance burning in the Kongo sun

We’ll believe there’s trust in strangers
any monkey looking like a saviour
It’s a riddle how
we’re still living now
Oh, how little we know, oh

Don’t you know love is stronger than Jesus?
Don’t you know love can kill anyone?
so bring it on; wars and diseases
You know that love can do you like a shotgun




So the first time I heard this song, it really grabbed me. First of all, the phrase "stronger than Jesus" is a real mind-blower, even if you're not Christian, because Christ is built up to be this all-powerful super being, so anything stronger than that is crazy. Though I think this is more in reference to the fact that the feeling of love is stronger than the idea of Christianity, or morals even. Love is probably one of the strongest, basest, most primal things that human beings can feel.

The entire song is basically telling you that while love is a wonderful thing, love kills. People do kill for love (Shakespeare), people die for love (Shakespeare, old couples), people will do anything in the name of love. This song especially makes me think of unrequited love, in that if you love someone and they don't love you back, what do you do? Sometimes that feeling is almost like you're going to die, even though, logically, you know you can get up and keep going, even though it doesn't feel like it.

I would say ... that I listened to this song a lot this week especially because I'm thinking about a certain someone a lot. Since this is one of my public entries, I won't elaborate on the extreme off chance he could be reading. If you want to see more analysis on that front, you'll have to add me as your friend!

This also makes me think of all the times I've been rejected, as sad as that sounds. Love is an extremely hard thing to get right.

Week 2 can be found here.

So this week! The song has been, with 17 plays for an average of 2.4 plays per day is:

Little Miss Pipedream by The Wombats

I think the postman intercepts everything I try and send to you
Cos he’s infatuated and he’s the fulcrum between us two
And I can’t say I blame him ‘cos I’d cheat a priest just to get to you

She works in a dental practice 9 till 5 how does she manage?
Considering her nights don’t pass out till 3
So I guess that flossing is the last thing in her health routine

And I don’t mind that she gets hammered and goes home with other guys
There’s no jealousy
‘Cos she’s Little Miss Pipedream fantasy

I saw her slam back tequilas like Oliver Reed on an Irish stag do
And I’ll wait if you stay ‘cos foggy London town’s not built for me or you
Don’t leave Miss Pipedream ‘cos I love you

And I don’t mind that she gets hammered and goes home with other guys
There’s no jealousy that she’ll grind it out with friends but not with me
She’s my Little Pipedream fantasy


I suppose I just love the idea of loyalty. Some will be cynics and pessimists and call a guy like this dumb. He keeps protecting her and keeps going out with her and keeps pining for her even though she doesn't pay him any mind. She has her own life and makes her own mistakes, but he keeps tagging after her.
The word doormat comes to mind, but I like to think that's not what this is. I like to believe that though he thinks he's in love with her, he's just in love with the idea of her, the idea of a girl who can stay out all night and go to work in the morning and still be a sane, brilliant, wonderful person.
I think he will eventually find someone who makes him happy, but he will never stop looking out for Little Miss Pipedream, because he's hoping deep down that this is only a stage for her. He has idealized her so much that he has to keep believing in her, and he believes she will eventually find what she's looking for after all those crazy nights.

Week Two of MVM: Most Valuable Music

Week 1 post can be found here.

This week I'm gonna go with artist, and this week's MVA, with 36 plays for an average of about 5 plays per day, is:
Gogol Bordello.

I would describe Gogol Bordello as a gypsy punk band. I first found them through the movie "Everything is Illuminated", a dramatization of the book by Jonathan Safran Foer about a boy finding a woman who saved his grandfather from the Holocaust. The front man, Eugene Huetz, played a major role in the movie, and was one of the main reasons the band's music was used.

I've recently fallen in love with the overall sound of gypsy music. It's so different from what I've grown up with, and I think it's awesome that people who used to be refugees are now touring around the world with their music. They tell the story of immigrants through haunting violin and squeezebox phrases. (squeezebox - general name for accordion type instruments) Basically the music of GB can cheer me up at any time, just because of the way Huetz's voice sounds like he's dragging the words out of his mouth by force, and sometimes screaming them at the top of his lungs. I feel like, while lots of modern music has screaming, his seems more passionate and more inspired, like there's more behind it.

Two of the main songs I've been listening to by Gogol Bordello are Underdog World Strike and Illumination. Let's focus on Illumination.

( Illumination Lyrics )

What really grabs me about this song is the overwhelming idea of you being the only person who can pick you up.
There'll be no saviors any soon coming down - So many people expect so many things to just come to them from the world, but (and this can especially be true for immigrants), there is no helping hand. They have to do everything for themselves.
And anyway illuminations / Never come from the crowned - Aah I love this line! It's always assumed that people in power know more than the common man, but hell, Einstein worked at the patent office for God's sakes. I heard a quote a while ago that went something like "the only person fit to be the leader is the one not scrambling for the position." Wisdom comes from the strangest places, and very often it's not from somewhere you'd expect.
Illuminating realization number one: /You are the only light there is /For yourself my friend - One of the main reasons I love this song. In the end, while your friends and your family and your classmates and your co-workers all try to help you, if you're not putting forward any effort to keep that light burning, it's just going to go out.

Gogol Bordello has beautiful music, and I appreciate that the gypsy punk movement has found a way to inject traditional Romani music into mainstream Western Culture. It's completely mind-blowing to hear.

I think that I listened to these guys a lot this week because I wanted something out of the ordinary. I wanted to hear something that would get me out of the monotony of classes (which kicked my ass this week). This is music that you can dance to no problem, and in fact, lots of these bands play at weddings. That's how they started. So when I'm stressed, I love hearing music that will just get me out of my own little world and make me get up and dance. I was super behind on my homework this week, and so there were many late nights. Gogol Bordello kept me awake and sane.

I'm going to start a project that takes advantage of last.fm, an online radio site which not only keeps track of the music you listen to (iPod and iTunes) but recommends music to you based on your tastes and allows you to listen to online radio stations like "Your Recommendations" or "Your Neighborhood" (you and everyone who has similar music tastes) or "Your Library" (restricted to tracks you play, nothing the site recommends). It's really cool. If you've heard of Pandora, it's something like that.
So. My project being that at the end of each week, I'll look at the track I listened to the most and then try and figure out why, and maybe what that means about my mood that week, and what I should change or not change to keep/change that mood. Some part of me thinks that I'll subconsciously try to listen to a certain track to have a foregone conclusion, but another part of me thinks I'll be so worried about homework and things that week that I won't think about it until Friday, when I have time to sit down and actually think. I might change this to most listened to artist or album after I see how this works out in a couple weeks.

So!
This week my most played track, at 7 plays for an average of 1 play per day, is:

She & Him - This is Not a Test.

( Lyrics )

Okay,so history of what I can remember of this track. The lovely Erin introduced me to She & Him, and I really liked them at first listen. After downloading them, they quickly became a staple on my playlists mainly because their music seems so ... honest. There is that quirk about certain indie music that is girly and cutesy but without making me sick. Especially with S&H, there is a sense that they are saying exactly what they mean, nothing more and nothing less, a very honest and straightforward and simple feel.

I think I listened to this a lot this week because I felt like I was being tested, as silly as that sounds. I was worried about KKY because of my interview last week, worried about certain classes, worried about my finances, just plain worried. Basically I'm turning into my father, who is the biggest worrywart I've ever met.

I feel like the song talks about people who keep trying and keep trying to reach some goal or accomplishment, but can't quite make it, and this song assures them that being at the top isn't much different from being at the (perceived) bottom, so they should look around and appreciate what they have. It also talks about "friends you've made" that might not be the best kind of friends, and that instead of trying to stay with those who are superficial, you can look back on a better time and appreciate that beauty, and find those friends who will always be there for you. I think of the line "let it go" not as a literal "letting go" of past beauty, but rather as a "letting it continue" sort of mindset.

Then of course the chorus, which assures me that it is not a test.
The last part of the song talks about thinking about trying very hard to continue on in life while still remembering the good times. "Think of all the children in the drifts of snow" and "winners never quit, but winters never end" make me think of how we keep striving for this notion of "I won", but if you look at children playing in the snow, it's not about winning for them. In fact, you can't really win against nature, because it will always have the upper hand.

So in conclusion, (wow this is longer than I thought; I guess I have a lot to say about my emotional state?) I think this track just helped me keep on keepin' on.

Until next week, this is my music entry.
Later.

P.S. All these will be public entries, so feel free to refer your friends. I'd love to hear your thoughts.