Hello! As you may have guessed from the name of this blog, my name is Liz and I am fascinated by song lyrics. I hope you enjoy my waxing lyrical about lyrics and about music generally. I also review albums and gigs and have interviewed several wonderful musicians. Enjoy!
It's now been a week since Eurovision, and I'm pleasantly surprised that no less than four of its songs are in the UK Top 40 Singles Chart.
Calm After the Storm, the Netherlands' song, is at number 9, Rise Like a Phoenix,the winning song from Austria, is at 17, the UK's entry, Children of the Universe, is at 23 and Swedish entry Undo is at 40.
For me, this a a brilliant sign for Eurovision; that its songs are making their way into the daily lives of British people. They aren't things to be listened to as a one-off, but something to be enjoyed and valued.
However, I am a bit sad that Malta's entry, Coming Home, hasn't yet made the Top 40. It and Calm After the Storm were definitely my two favourites, and both received a vote from me. I'm now going to talk a bit more about these two songs and why I love them.
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I will start by debauching any perception anyone may have that, as both songs are folk/country songs, I only like Eurovision songs in this style. This is untrue.
Some of my favourite ESC songs over the years have been pop, rock or semi-opera, and there are many folksy entries that I haven't liked; Latvia's entry this year, Bake a Cake, comes to mind.
No, the reason I like Calm After the Storm and Coming Home are that they are both great songs, independent of one another of of their musical style.
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Firstly, Coming Home by Firelight.
Before hearing the sing itself, I heard a tiny bit of this on a recap of songs and I just knew I would like it. When I heard it through, I liked it even more than I had anticipated, and it became my favourite song in the competition. I also love the video; it's very moving and relevant for the Centenary of World War I.
Commentators in the UK compared Firelight more than once to Mumford and Sons, but I don't hear that much of a resemblance. I agree with other comparisons, though - to Gary Barlow (Let Me Go) and One Direction (Story of my Life).
Despite these similarities, I think this song stands alone and is much better than any of the things it's been compared to!
I'm really glad the UK gave several points to Malta, though I wish the song had achieved a better placing by the end (it came 23rd). It's certainly a song I'll listen to again and again, long after this year's Eurovision fever has sizzled out.
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Secondly, Calm After the Storm by the Common Linnets.
I really glad to see this reach the UK Top 10; I had had a hunch that it would do well in our charts.
When I first heard it, I thought it was a very average country song, but pretty enough. I hoped it would do well as it was so different and would be a refreshingly different winner.
However, it really grew on me in the two days between its semi-final and the final, and I liked it so much in the final that it received my second vote. I now like it even more: it is a real grower.
I was really glad to see it receive so many 10s and 12s; it's really not your typical Eurovision winner and I had worried it would be overlooked, but instead it did incredibly well, eventually coming second.
I hope this is the beginning of a successful international career for both members of the Common Linnets, Ilse deLange and Waylon. They are already big in their own country; in fact, Ilse is a current coach on the Dutch version of the Voice (which I've just found out was the very first version of the show!).
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I wish these two bands the very best for the future, and hope they will turn out to be Eurovision success stories, like Abba and Céline Dion. Even if they don't, I doubt their wonderful Eurovision offerings will ever be forgotten. They are a pair of songs with true longevity.
I recently had a great revelation regarding Marcella Detroit. This revelation may seem obvious to some but I simply hadn't put two and two together. I had always known her as the singer of I Believe, a song that played throughout my childhood, but I've only just found out that she was also in Shakespears Sister.
This is largely to do with the fact that I had never seen her singing I Believe and at one point I thought from her voice that she was black. When I found out she was white it was via a tiny picture that wasn't sufficient to make me realise that she and that woman who sings the bulk of "Stay" were one and the same.
I had even seen comments on the video of Stay on YouTube referencing "Marcella"... the penny just didn't drop until I recently looked Shakespears Sister up and saw her name, and thought "of course..." and when I thought about it, I realised it was the same beautiful voice I had heard on both these songs that I loved.
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"I Believe" is featured on a compilation album named Girls and Guitars that I was brought up with; it was played in our car on long journeys and on lazy summer days sitting in the garden. When I got my own mp3 player I put the album on it.
I now know the complete track order despite the fact that my mp3 player doesn't recognise it and so it just says "track 1, track 2" etc. I Believe is track 7. It's followed by "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, another favourite of mine, so I often used to listen to the two as a unit.
I mainly associate this song with a memory from my youth of us driving down a sunny motorway. However, I inadvertently created another special memory for myself when I played this song on the way from the university we had been staying at to the airport when I was leaving Beijing after studying there for three weeks in winter 2012/13.
I remember the silent city rolling past the windows in the still-dark early morning, and the sadness I felt at leaving it. And this song was playing.
I had felt guilty about listening to music, thinking that maybe I should focus all of my attention on my last views of Beijing. However, now I realise that music can strengthen memories, and I'm sure that without linking them to I Believe my memories of that final journey would not be as strong.
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Stay is a song that I probably will have heard when I was younger as it seems to have been a 90s classic; however only last year did I hear it properly, with a critic's ear.
It was on a music channel on TV, on some sort of countdown of ballads, and I remember thinking at first that it was rather generic but still a good song. It has since grown on me hugely.
The opening lyrics especially feel very poignant for me:
"If this world is wearing thin, and you're thinking of escape..."
Haven't we all felt like our world is wearing thin, and thought of escape? By escape I don't mean death, which from the video may be what the song is referring to; I rather mean retreating from things and pretending the world doesn't exist, or perhaps physically running away.
If I'm feeling down I often find myself playing this song in my head and thinking of the people who would be my Marcella and want me to stay; to hold on, to try to be happy.
Siobhan Fahey is great in Stay as well, and as Shakespears Sister was her project it wouldn't be right not to acknowledge her. However, for me Marcella makes this song; her voice and the emotion in her performance are just incredible.
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So, Marcella Detroit has gone for me from being a bodiless voice - but a brilliant one - to somebody I can envisage and I actually already knew... life is strange sometimes.
I have discovered that one of my favourite artists and one of my favourite bands, both of whom were perhaps better known for their music in the 1980s/90s, have recently released new songs. They are, more specifically, Alison Moyet and Deacon Blue.
What I have always loved most about Alison in her older hits such as "Is This Love?" and "Invisible" is her amazing voice, the emotion she puts into her songs, which really feels genuine, and the good production - her records tend to be very pleasant on the ear with regards to the music as well as her voice.
I came to this song half-expecting a belt-y ballad, and whilst it proved to be exactly that, it still quite surprised me. I think I had expected it to be looser and simpler, primarily a means of showcasing her voice, while in fact it is quite a complicated arrangement, which showcases her voice yet is also a really beautiful song with interesting lyrics and a catchy tune.
At first listening I quite liked it, at second listening I liked it a bit more - basically it's grown on me very quickly. It's the first single from her new album "the minutes," which is set to be released in May, and from which I am looking forward to hearing more material.
I like the video - the coastal theme provides a link back to her 1986 hit "Is This Love?" - one of my favourite songs - and they did a good job of finding a look-a-like who is also a good actress and presents the song well.
I was getting worried that we might not actually see the real Alison in the video, when happily she appeared. I love that unlike some artists who see a come-back as a chance to completely change their image, Alison is completely recognisable as the young woman who sang and danced about on the beach in "Is This Love?".
And of course, her voice is amazing, as always. The emotion is clear and raw. The production is also good; I really like the instrumental particularly; it sounds like it could have come from a Cure song, which is high praise from me because I love The Cure's arrangements.
All in all, I really love this new song; I had been doubtful as to whether it could match the sheer brilliance of some of Alison's older songs, but it is certainly one of the nicest songs I have heard in a long time. Welcome back, Alison ♥
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The next song I want to share with you is Turn by Deacon Blue, from their late-2012 album, "The Hipsters."
I heard this song on the radio a couple of days ago and quite liked it and wondered who it was by, then when the DJ announced that it was by Deacon Blue I was surprised and pleased.
At first I liked it but thought it sounded like a lot of other songs. Having heard it a few more times, it's really growing on me and I now think it sounds quite distinctive. The video is slightly bizarre but I like it.
Also, assuming the backing vocals are by Lorraine McIntosh as usual, I like them on this song more than on some of Deacon Blue's older songs. I think they add more to this song, maybe as she is just singing rather than doing fancy things with her voice as in some other songs; perhaps the simplicity is what works particularly well here.
I like the quieter, more lyric-based feel of this song, as opposed to some of the louder, faster material of Deacon Blue such as "Wages Day" and "Queen of the New Year" - although I still love these songs! I just think it's nice to have something more raw and stripped-back for a change, in addition to their brilliant back-catalogue.
I like the reference to "Dignity" in the video! I predicted that the third card would say "work" and was quite pleased with myself when it turned out I was right. I also think the first guy on the bus looks like Marcus Bridgestocke... Is he Marcus Bridgestocke?
I really like this song; it isn't my favourite Deacon Blue song - that would probably be "Your Swaying Arms" or "When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring)," but I do really like "Turn."
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So, two really good new songs from an artist and a group who have been about for years; let's hope they continue producing fantastic new material for many years to come.
I am potentially very chuffed because I may have found out something that, to me anyway, is amazing. I just need to check to be absolutely sure that I am right.
On one of our Duke of Edinburgh's Award expeditions, we stopped in a Lake District village that I'm pretty sure was called Bouth. And if it is the right Bouth, it is where Christine McVie was born!
I must have read this sometime in the past, before we went, because I love Christine McVie and have researched her and her music many times. However, I had forgotten where she was from, and when we were in Bouth I never realised the incredible significance of the place - or, rather, the significance it should hold for me, personally, as a Christine fan.
Even without this significance, it is still a lovely village. And the Lake District is always wonderful. But to discover that, without knowing, I visited the birthplace of one of my idols, is pretty amazing news, at least for me☺♥
I think I mentioned Christine McVie in my very first post on this blog in which I listed some of my favourite songs, and her Songbird was among them. For a while Songbird seemed to be a staple on reality TV singing shows, and it probably still is, though I wouldn't know because I watch a lot less of that sort of thing than I used to. Life's too short! But anyway, for years I hadn't heard the original, though I knew it was by Fleetwood Mac. When I listened to it for the first time, I fell in love.
From those first lines,
"For you, there'll be no more crying.
For you, the sun will be shining."
You just know that what is going to follow is something beautiful and extraordinary. This really is one of the most sincere, from-the-heart things I have ever heard - more than most songs, more even than poetry. It's like a love letter, sung with all her heart and soul. None of the other versions of this, lovely as some of them may be, can possibly capture the spirit and feeling behind the original.
I hadn't been absolutely sure that it was her song, so many people have sung it, so I looked it up and when it said on Wikipedia, "written by Christine McVie," my heart gave a little twinge of happiness and love. Of course it's her song. How could I have doubted that for one minute? Only Christine McVie could write a song like this one.
I would love to be able to sing this in concert one day. If I ever become a good enough singer, and have enough confidence, to do her justice!
Although nobody can sing this as well as she who wrote it, I do believe this is one of those songs that anybody could sing well if they mean it with their heart and they pick out one person to whom they can sing every lyric and mean it with all their soul. It is one of the best love songs I know. And I can give no higher praise than that.
Christine McVie is a genius, and, almost more importantly, she writes straight from her heart. And that, when writing anything that is meant to touch the soul, is what really matters.
And her voice! Nobody else I have ever heard has a voice quite like hers. It is so, so beautiful and rich and full of love or pain or emotion or whatever she is feeling as she sings. She is blessed, yet I imagine she has also worked hard to train that voice, and I love it so much when a natural talent is nurtured properly to make the world a better and happier and more loving place, which for me, at least, it becomes when I listen to her singing.
Here is Over My Head, another of her songs which would probably never sound as good sung by anybody but her. It is just a Christine McVie song. It works with her voice so beautifully to create something truly magical.
There is another nice live version I wanted to put on here but Blogger won't let me! Ah well, this version is gorgeous, taken, it would seem, from the same concert (The Dance, 1997) as the Songbird one. I wish I had been at that concert! But I was only three at the time and I didn't really get to know the music of Fleetwood Mac until I was seven or eight, when my dad bought my mum the Very Best of Fleetwood Mac compilation CD (both my parents are Fleetwood Mac fans).
We used to listen to that CD all the time. My brother became a Lindsey Buckingham fan. I liked Gypsy by Stevie Nicks, and I came to really like a lot of Christine McVie's songs. However, it was when I was a lot older that I began to really appreciate the beauty and emotion of her lyrics, and to realise what a gifted songwriter she is. But Over My Head was always a favourite of mine and my brother's.
A Christine McVie song that I always liked but have recently come to love is You Make Loving Fun.
I just wish I could sit down at a piano and play and sing this! I could never be as good as her, but it would bring me such pleasure just to play those gorgeous chords and sing those bitter-sweet lyrics. I will try and find the sheet music to this and learn it! It could be my tribute to this amazing woman. Her maiden name was Perfect, and she really is perfect in every way as a musician.
"I never did believe in miracles, but I've a feeling it's time to try.
I never did believe in the ways of magic, but I'm beginning to wonder why."
I used to think it was "I've a feeling it's time to fly." Either lyric is beautiful.
I must also share Everywhere with you - as I said to my mum just now, "You can't have a Christine McVie post without Everywhere!" It is so... her. So Christine McVie. I know that sounds silly, but I feel this song just sums up perfectly what Christine McVie is all about. It is a beautiful love song, with simple yet amazingly powerful lyrics, and she sings with such strength and pride yet such vulnerability, in a voice as stunning as ever.
Here it is live in The Dance (with a bit of Dreams at the beginning):
And here is the video - there is another one which is similar to this but with Christine - and, I think, the other members of Fleetwood Mac as well - appearing in silhouette at intervals. Regretfully, I can't find that version on YouTube. So here is the video sans band (it's still a great video):
I remember feeling smug because I thought I was the only one who knew this was based on The Highwayman. Maybe I was, but I doubt that somehow! Anyhow, somebody has written about the poem on YouTube and it's the top comment as I write, so now everybody who looks at the video on YouTube knows.
Ah well. It's still a brilliant idea for a music video, and it really brought the poem - which I'd studied at school several times - to life for me. I just wish I could see the band's lovely faces in the video!
The song is gorgeous, and the beginning so distinctive, as is the case with many Fleetwood Mac songs - you hear it and you know at once that it's going to be Everywhere.Then that powerful drum beat kicks in, and Christine's amazing vocals, and you sit back and are taken on a journey into a fantastic, wonderful, magical song, and into her heart and soul. It is an amazing song; a masterpiece. Along with Songbird and so many other beautiful songs Christine McVie has written during her long and hugely successful and fruitful career.
I feel so privileged to have had the chance to listen to her amazing music for ten years or so and I hope to continue to enjoy her genius and talent and beauty for many years to come. Bouth is a lovely village, and from it came one of the best musicians of our time. I'm glad I got to visit it.
I will leave you with probably her biggest hit, "Don't stop," one of the most upbeat, hopeful, reassuring songs I know, which is just perfect for putting you in a better mood.
Fleetwood Mac are just amazing! And Christine McVie is a legend and should be very proud of all the beautiful, powerful, inspirational, moving songs that she has put into this world.
I apologise for not having blogged in quite a while, but I have been on holiday in Ireland and since then have been busy with a few things, such as a new project at Cornerhouse cinema/art gallery, about which I am very excited! More about that later.
Firstly I will tell you about my trip to Ireland. It was lovely. I love Ireland; I have a lot of family who live there and have visited many times. It is a truly beautiful country and I really feel at home there.
We stayed in County Wexford, in the south-east of Ireland, where we spent time in the pretty little town of Wexford itself, at the beach, walking in the hills, and at Hook Head with its lighthouse - the oldest intact operational lighthouse in Ireland - and its spectacular coast with crashing blue waves, seals bobbing up and down and hundreds of tiny fossils all over the rocks.
We then drove across Ireland to County Limerick, to the city of Limerick which is one of the largest cities in Ireland. We met up with family there and had a really nice time. Limerick is a lovely city - and it has the River Shannon running through it! I love cities with a river or a coastline. I just love being near water.
I also want to proudly point out that in one day we crossed the two longest rivers in Ireland - the Shannon and the Barrow. I think that's quite a cool achievement, especially when we didn't set out to do it; it just happened that they were both on our route from Wexford to Limerick.
We watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony when we were in Ireland, and I was quite impressed. More than I had expected to be! I didn't have any prejudices, I just thought it would be impossible to match Beijing. But it was actually really good. I especially liked the beginning section with the choirs and then the industrial revolution and Kenneth Branagh.
I also liked the part with James Bond and the Queen, the Abide With Me section - Emeli Sandé is amazing - and the lighting of the cauldron. I think the petal idea was really good.
I wasn't keen on Paul McCartney's appearance - I like his music but am a bit tired of him being treated like some kind of national treasure and featuring at every event like this. And the same for David Beckham! I think he's very overrated as a footballer. However, I understand he played a big part in bringing the Games to London, so I respect him for that.
I loved the fact that they had Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, in the ceremony. The Web really does shape the way we live in the western world in this day and age. I hadn't known he was British. Now he is a national treasure!
On the way back from Ireland I spent some time with a good friend of mine in Wales, which was lovely. We also got to explore some of the Welsh countryside and Snowdonia. I had never been there before and it was very beautiful and striking; I would love to go back there some day. It was brilliant to see Mount Snowdon, even if most of it was shrouded in mist!
Since getting back I have been working on a new project at Cornerhouse; I am one of a team of young curators who are curating our very own exhibition of artists' work. I did something similar in January when I was on the curation team for the exhibition Lost is Found, and I really enjoyed that, so it's lovely to have the chance to do it again.
I have been listening to a great deal of music from the amazing Nanci Griffith. I will do a full post on her very soon, but for now here is a selection of some of her very best songs.
I Knew Love, which is a simply stunning love song - and very sad too. I learnt the lyrics to this when I was little and used to sing it all the time.
More than a Whisper; this is a live version which I only recently discovered and which I love. I have listened to the album version all of my life on the Last of the True Believers album (pictured below as the thumbnail for the next two songs which are also both from that album). All the images of the winter and the snow and needing to be woken up always made me think of a badger curled up asleep for the winter.
Goin' Gone; this was one of my favourite Nanci songs, and probably my favourite from this album, when I was younger. I then went though a stage of not liking it very much, and then I started liking it again! Ah well, there's no accounting for tastes! The lighthouse imagery is a bit top-heavy, but the sentiment is very real and beautiful.
Fly by Night is a Nanci song I didn't used to really appreciate because it is the second-last song on its album, and I used to listen to Nanci albums going to sleep, and so I'd usually be half asleep by the time this was on, and although I liked it, it never really stood out for me as a favourite.
I then rediscovered it years later on YouTube and realised I really love it; it is a really strong, gutsy song about someone who is not taking any nonsense any more, and I love that. The musicality is gorgeous too, as in all Nanci songs. The woman is nothing short of a genius.
She is so fantastic; she has a beautiful, unique voice, and is a simply stunning songwriter. She is one of the best musicians I have ever known.
In other news, I have found out that In Your Eyes by Niamh Kavanagh was the reigning Eurovision winner when I was born, and I am very chuffed about that because I love that song.
Today is the 4th of July which for some people will mean fireworks and celebrations, so I hope that if it concerns you, you are enjoying this special day. For me, however, this date is important for another, more personal reason: it was the 4th of July last year when I first posted my finished Montpellier trip film on YouTube. Here it is:
We went on this college trip in March/April 2011 and I really loved it. It opened my eyes to the culture of the south of France, where I had never been before.
I really got the chance to practise my French, and I could feel it improving more and more during the nine days we spent in Montpellier and Carcassonne. And I really enjoyed making the film of the trip - it was hard work but was truly a labour of love. I am so happy with the final result.
I had such a good time in Languedoc-Roussillon (the region of France we visited) that I went on the trip again this year, and again I had a lovely time. And again, I am making a film so that we can look back and remember the great times we spent together in such an amazing place.
I'm really pleased with the way this year's film is coming along, and hopefully it will be up on YouTube soon.
A song I have been listening to a lot recently is I've Been In Love Before by Cutting Crew.
As well as being incredibly beautiful, this song brings back lots of memories for me: I remember around the first time I started listening to it was on a lovely family holiday in London, and I remember driving down leafy green lanes listening to this in the car.
It also brings back memories of another enjoyable trip I went on around the same time; a school trip to Belgium. I remember listening to this on my MP3 player in the coach and being moaned at for having my music too loud! I love this song ♥
I hope you enjoy it too.
Thanks for reading,
Liz x
Song: I've Been In Love Before - Cutting Crew - 1986/7
Today I got a lot of work done on one of the video projects I have going, which is good. I've also been to zumba, which was very enjoyable as always, although somewhat tiring! But I do love it.
I have been listening a lot to Pictures of You by The Cure.
I discovered this song the other day when I was listening to A Letter To Elise on YouTube and someone said on the comments that it sounded like Pictures of You. I had been meaning to listen to the latter anyway as it tended to come up on the related videos section on YouTube and I was keen to see what it sounded like.
I listened and decided it sounds a little bit like A Letter To Elise, but not a great deal, and it is by all means a song completely in its own right. I have definitely heard it before, probably on one of our old family car cassette tapes which are full of Cure songs. However, I had sort of forgotten about this song until I rediscovered it the other day. And I'm glad I did rediscover it!
It is very beautiful, as are a lot of Cure songs such as A Letter To Elise which I mentioned in a previous blog post. The musicality is brilliant; the pacing flawless. The full version of the song has a very long intro (during which, be warned, there is some flashing, psychedelic imagery in the video), and normally I don't like long, self-indulgent intros, but this one is actually gorgeous and adds so much to the song. It lifts the song from being a very nice song to almost a work of art; a story with a prologue, beginning, middle and end. And the video is bizarre but I like it!
I have to go now because it is raining very, very heavily and we may end up with lightning in which case I will have to turn off the computer. So, I will sign off now.
Happy Monday! I hope that whoever you are, wherever you are, you're having a nice day ♥
Well, today is the first of July, and I have had a very busy day training for my Duke of Edinburgh's Award expedition which I will be going on this month. In training we learnt first aid, navigation techniques and how to pack a rucksack properly - although I did remember the rucksack bit from the last expedition I went on!
I've been on many Duke of Edinburgh's Award (D of E) expeditions - I have achieved the Silver Award and am now working towards my Gold Award. For readers overseas who may not be familiar with this award, it involves doing, on a regular basis across a period of time: voluntary work, a sport or physical activity and a skill.
We also have to go on a series of camping expeditions in places like the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales (both very beautiful parts of the world). For the Gold Award we also have to go on a residential course in which we do some sort of volunteering.
I really enjoy working towards my D of E, because I get to learn new skills and I have made lots of great friends in the process. And if I achieve my Gold Award it will be presented to me at one of the royal Palaces by either the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip, the Queen's husband) or the Earl of Wessex (Prince Edward, the Queen's youngest son). Which would be absolutely amazing!
There are many songs which I associate with D of E expeditions for various reasons; usually because I hear them on the minibus on the way there and they become stuck in my head for the whole trip! But sometimes, they are just songs that felt particularly relevant and which I just keep playing again and again in my head to keep me going on the harder days when it rains on us or I'm homesick or everyone's exhausted.
Days like that can be so hard. But for every moment when you think you are going to give up, there is a moment of magic; reaching the top of a mountain and gazing down at the view below; seeing the sun break through the clouds after the rain; seeing gorgeous baby lambs frolicking; chatting and laughing as a group; wandering through long, waving grass with the wind in your hair; those moments that make it all worthwhile and make you say to yourself; "I am so happy I chose to do this."
One D of E song for me was Linger by the Cranberries.
I feel I should tell you that although the full video is worth watching properly when you have time; if you are in a rush you can skip to about thirty five seconds in, which is when the song actually begins.
I had known this song before, but was reminded of it when it came on the radio in the minibus before what was, if I remember rightly, my very first Silver expedition to the Yorkshire Dales. I love this song - it was on a cassette tape that my family used to play in our car (yes, along with the Cure, for those who read my last blog entry!) when my brother and I were younger.
The song on the cassette was a live version and Dolores O'Riordan did a lot of working the crowd, shouting, "I wanna hear you!" and whatnot towards the end of the song; something that always amused my brother and me.
Hearing the song again on the minibus on the way to D of E put a smile on my face, and I was chuffed that I could remember it as it had been ages since I'd last heard it.
It is a beautiful song, and Dolores O'Riordan has a unique and very lovely voice. This song is also quite unique, I think - unique and haunting and a pleasure to listen to. It is nearly twenty years old; something I cannot believe. It has not lost any of its beauty - I believe that it will always be perfect and precious and quite simply a stunning song.
I will probably end up writing more about D of E songs over this month - as well as just about songs I love generally. For those of you who don't know, I have challenged myself to blog every day that it is possible to (ie whenever I am at home with Internet access) in July.
It will keep the blog full of new content for you to read, and will also be writing practice for me - I love writing and would love to be a full-time writer or author one day in the future.
This is my final blog entry of June 2012, and I have to say; this has been an amazing month for me, and I only really realised when I was writing yesterday's blog entry and looking back on all that has happened in my life in the last thirty days.
I have Domino by Jessie J stuck in my head at the minute - not the best song in the world but quite catchy and upbeat. I heard it on the radio at work today, which is probably why it is in my head! Also My Kind of Love by Emeli Sande - I really like this song and her voice is so incredible.
I also discovered another song today; well, I say discovered but I think I had already heard snatches of it because parts of it sounded familiar. But today was the first time I heard the song through - in fact it was on the radio twice while I was at work - and I really like it. It turned out to be Brokenhearted by Karmin.
I must admit that, while the name rang a distant bell, I knew practically nothing about this band (or, rather, duo). However, I now fully intend to listen to more of their music and see what other material they have, and then I can decide how far I think they can make it in the charts. Judging from this song, I have high hopes for them! It has such a good beat.
When I first heard it I was wracking my brains trying to think who it could be - Jessie J, Pixie Lott, Lady Gaga and even X-Factor winners Little Mix came to mind, but it didn't sound quite like any of them. I was pleased to see that it was a band I didn't know; I love discovering new talent.
I realise that I have been blogging a lot recently about newer music that is currently in the charts. However, I still spend just as much time listening to the older stuff - music that never ages. One of my all-time favourites has to be A Letter to Elise by the Cure.
It is twenty years old this October; I never realised until I researched it for this blog entry. Happy birthday, song!
When I was younger, my parents used to play the Cure a lot in the car when we were travelling. I liked this song, but I preferred the flashier, louder, more upbeat songs like In Between Days and Love Cats. While I still love both those songs, I have come to really appreciate the simple beauty and poignancy and sheer emotion in A Letter to Elise, and it is now among my favourite Cure songs.
It is certainly, for me, the most mood-versatile Cure song - many of their other songs I have to be in a certain mood to listen to, but A Letter to Elise I will happily listen to any time. It is so perfect as a song. Four-and-a-bit minutes of sheer beauty and emotion and sincerity.
From when I first listened to this as a child, my favourite lyrics have always been;
"Oh, Elise, it doesn't matter what you do, I know I'll never really get inside of you,
To make your eyes catch fire the way they should."
There is so much love in that second line. I love this song. And, listening to the song more recently, I have come to really like the stanzas he speaks at the end, almost like a poem;
"Every time I try to pick it up like falling sand,
As fast as I pick it up, it runs away from my clutching hands."
It is such a strong image, and the narrator's sense of defeat at the end, "There's nothing else I can really do at all," is heartbreaking.
I love this song and I am so glad that I rediscovered it in all its beauty and brilliance. The Cure are amazing! And not remotely dreary and Gothic as some people seem to believe! Listen to some of their songs and you will see how varied their material is - they can do bouncy pop songs (Friday I'm in Love); arty, slightly bittersweet numbers like Boys Don't Cry and Close To Me; and beautiful, poetic love songs such as A Letter to Elise, Catch and Pictures of You.
So, I will sign off for now, but I am challenging myself to write on this blog every day as is humanly possible during the month of July. There are some days where it just won't be possible because I will be away without Internet access, but whenever I can blog, I will!
Hello! We are now three days away from the grand final of Eurovision 2012!
Today I am going to analyse the three most recent Eurovision winning songs; "Fairytale" by Alexander Rybak, "Satellite" by Lena and "Running Scared" by Ell/Nikki from respectively, Norway, Germany and Azerbaijan.
Probably the most obvious thing that jumps out immediately about these three songs is that they are all in English rather than Norwegian, German and Azerbaijani. I have mixed feelings about this: a song being in English, or one of the other languages I speak, means I can understand it, which is a plus for me personally. And a lot of people across Europe speak English as a first, second or third language.
However, I feel that it is important that people sing in their own tongue because different languages, and the amazing richness and variety of languages we have in Europe, is something to be celebrated and not to be forgotten. We don't want to encourage the belief some people seem to hold which is that English is some sort of universal language. If we accept that it is, we risk other languages dying out, and their associated cultures, stories and songs dying with them, and that would be just terrible.
So, I would personally like a song sung in the native tongue of its country to do well this year!
Now, onto the winning songs. Firstly, the 2009 winner, Alexander Rybak of Norway with, "Fairytale."
I have to say, I am grateful to this guy for bringing Eurovision to Norway, because they put on one of the best shows I have ever seen; the highlight being their unforgettable flash mob interval act.
Here is Alexander's song:
At first I didn't think that much of this song. However, listening to it again, I've come to quite like it. There is no doubt that he is incredibly talented, both as a singer and on his violin. He also wrote this song... how musically gifted can one person be?! It's extraordinary. I'm jealous!
Overall, it is quite a catchy song from a talented musician, and I think it merits winning. I'm not sure if it merits receiving the highest number of points ever in Eurovision, which it did do, but I'd rather that accolade go to this than to some other winning song which was rubbish or whose win was due completely to block voting.
In 2010, the contest was held in Oslo, Norway, as a result of Rybak's success. As I have mentioned many times, I loved his year at Eurovision. There were so many good songs; from Ireland, France, Denmark and Belarus, among others. The winning song was "Satellite," by Lena of Germany.
Again, I wasn't particularly keen on this at first, but it grew on me. It's certainly very bouncy and you can dance to it. Admittedly some of the lyrics are fairly awful, but otherwise this song isn't bad at all. And I find Lena very likeable as a performer.
I would have preferred for Niamh Kavanagh to have won, because I think song she performed that year for Ireland is one of the most beautiful Eurovision songs ever sung. But Lena wasn't the worst in that competition by a long shot. And I love the supposedly impromptu version of Satellite whipped up by the larger-than-life German hosts the next year - almost better than the original!
The winning song that next year - last year in fact - in Düsseldorf was "Running Scared" by Eldar and Nigar, or Ell/Nikki - the same people but for some reason they seem to operate under two different names. I really like this song, and I'm quite pleased that it won.
I must admit, I hadn't expected this to win at all - but I'm glad it did. It isn't your typical fast, bouncy Eurovision song, but it is quietly beautiful in a way that you don't see very often. There is real raw emotion in it, and both Ell and Nikki sing with real love and passion.
I wish maybe, just maybe, the winner could have been Lucía Pérez of Spain, whose song I adored... but Running Scared is a very good song as well so I am not going to complain. Well done Ell and Nikki!
I also happened to see Nikki being interviewed during the semi-final last night, and she came across as a nice and amicable person, who was very interesting to listen to. She was clearly very proud and happy to have brought Eurovision to Baku, and so she should be.
I hope we can enjoy an equally deserving winner this year; there are some good songs in the competition and some not-so-good... we'll just have to see how the people of Europe vote!
I thought I would share with you one of my favourite Eurovision songs and, in my opinion, one of the prettiest - The Fire in Your Eyes by Boaz Mauda, which was the Israeli entry in the 2008 competition in Belgrade in Serbia.
Although I don't understand most of the lyrics, I have still always found it beautiful.
I don't speak Hebrew, so I have to trust the Internet when it come to translations. I've checked a couple of lyrics sites and the general consensus for the chorus seems to be,
"Not a starlight,
You are now.
With me, with me, as if real,
Like back then."
Which I think is very beautiful. I was puzzled by the graphics on this video saying the song was second on the running order when I remember it being later, then I found out that it was second in its semi-final, so that must be where the video is from. In the final this song was seventh in the running order.
Anyway, overall I really like this song and am glad it did quite well - it came ninth out of twenty-five songs.
So well done to Boaz Mauda and well done to Israel for this lovely song.
I must hasten to add that the point of this blog entry is not to question whether or not Céline Dion is successful. I love her to bits and it is clear that she is one of the biggest and most influential artists in the world.
However, unlike ABBA, whose international career was without doubt jump-started by their Eurovision win, I have to ponder, wouldn't Céline have made it anyway?
Someone with such an amazing voice, such beauty, such charisma and stage presence, and the driving forces of René Angélil and Jean-Jacques Goldman on her side, this talented woman would always have eventually become a global superstar.
That is my opinion, anyway.
However, we can't deny that appearing on Eurovision - and winning it - helped her a great deal when it came to gaining international exposure. She represented Switzerland in 1988 with the song, "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi."
Although I had known that she won the competition one year for Switzerland, I had never actually heard the song until quite recently.
Listening to it for the first time, I had high standards, because I love Céline Dion's music, especially when she sings in French as she does in this song, and I love Eurovision, so I was hoping this would be something spectacular.
In reality, I was a bit disappointed at first, because I found the verses a bit too slow, and the changes between the verses and the faster choruses a bit too abrupt and unnatural-sounding.
I also thought it was all a bit clichéd and generic (how many times have I said that about Eurovision songs! But then, I guess back then there was a winning formula and it kind of made sense to stick to it).
However, Céline fans, don't storm off in fury yet! Because when I listened to this song again a few days later... I really liked it. I kind of "got" the change in the verse and the chorus speed this time, and how it can sound quite effective. And I love the lyrics...
"Vous qui cherchez l'étoile,
Vous qui vivez un rêve."
"You who seek the star,
You who live a dream."
It is a very beautiful song.
I also love how she is one of those artists who are always changing their image - though in Céline's case, it seems like a natural change as she has grown and matured, unlike some people who change their image just to expand their market.
However, I feel that the magical thing about Céline is that while she has changed so much, in essence she has stayed the same - same big voice, same emotion when she is singing, same presence.
And she is recognisable; she hasn't metamorphosed physically like many artists of her age have since their younger days. I think what we can gather from this is that firstly, Céline stays true to herself and her natural musical style, and secondly, her music is timeless.
I really like this song now, and I will always love Céline ♥ A worthy winner!
