Category Archives: Favorite Sounds

I know what books and genres most of my favorite bloggers gravitate towards, but music? I don’t have the faintest idea. Do you listen to classical music while trying to get the words to behave? Do you nod your head to some R&B or hip hop? Do you feel inspired by epic music and pound away on your keyboard to movie soundtracks?
A blogger friend gave me the idea for this post when he asked me about my favorite songs/bands/singers, so I decided to write a post and share some of them with you.

1. Dépêche Mode
I have such great memories about this band. I grew up with them, loved and lost with them, and in 2006, when I was finally able to go to one of their concerts, it was one of the best experiences of my life.

2. Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love
I don’t remember how I stumbled on this one but I fell in love with it from the very first sounds. Sad, haunting, and the video clip is about a tragic story of a famous angel. I also like I See Fire which was on the soundtrack of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, Photograph, and the chorus of Don’t.

3. Coldplay
I love so many of their songs it’s quite difficult to choose – Clocks, Paradise, Fix You, Speed of Sound, and my latest favorite, Lost. I discovered this one last year during NaNoWriMo and it saved both my story and my sanity.

4. INXS
I’ve liked them for almost as long as I liked Dépêche Mode. Need You Tonight and Suicide Blonde are songs I listen to every now and again.

5. Lenny Krawitz – Believe in Me, Thinking of You, I Belong to You, and the newest one, Chamber, are all great tunes.

6. Florence and the Machine – Bedroom Hymns and Shake It Out

7. One Republic – Counting Stars

8. Marilyn Manson – this one was a surprise to me. I have heard of Marilyn Manson and found him slightly scary (I like Gothic but I find his makeup a bit extreme) but never really paid attention to his music until I was watching an episode of Salem and really liked the song at the beginning of the movie. At first I thought it was a Dépêche Mode song because it sounds similar, but the voice was all wrong so I Googled it. That was a shock. The song, Cupid Carries a Gun, is from the album The Pale King and after listening to the album over and over again (and liking most of the songs) I decided he’s definitely on the favorites list. Killing Strangers, The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles, Birds of Hell Awaiting, Fall of the House Of Death are my favorites. There. I’ve said it.

9. Santana – Maria

10. Lana del Rey. If you have watched “The Great Gatsby” with Leonardo diCaprio you’re probably aware of Young and Beautiful, one of the songs on the soundtrack of this movie. And if you haven’t watched it yet (the movie I mean), you should. It’s a feast for the eyes and a beautiful if twisted love story.

11. Justin Timberlake – Mirrors

12. Maroon 5 – One More Night, She Will be Loved

13. Ellie Goulding – Burn, Lights, Beating Heart.
Somehow she made it on a playlist on my mp3 player and I’ve been listening to her songs for months while jogging.

14. Pink.
When Stupid Girls came out I thought it was a great song and admired Pink for daring to be part of a video that was both hilarious and real. I also like Try and Just Give Me a Reason.

15. Adele – Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You, Set Fire to the Rain

16. Thievery Corporation – Claridad. A great gem of a song from the album Saudade, this one I discovered on a plane trip in January.

17. Gotye – Hearts a Mess. I love this one and the video is really strange; it reminds me of Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride”. Somebody That I Used to Know is another great song and so are the weird and wonderful sounds of The Only Way.

18. The Idan Raichel Project – Mi’Ma’Amakim (Out of the Depths). I heard this song years ago at a friend’s birthday and loved it instantly. I didn’t understand a word but that didn’t make one bit of a difference.

What are your favorites? Can you find some of them on this list?

I love airports, the anticipation of what awaits me at the end of a long journey, but I hate flying. The emotional part of my brain tells me this may be the last time I am alive and whole, and by setting foot on this majestic and cold machine that can magically transport me to a place I’ve been missing for years, I run the risk of not making it there. But still, it’s a risk I must take and I always do wondering what if.
Once comfortably installed in the small space I am allowed to occupy during this journey, I try to take my mind off the macabre thoughts swirling in my head, and with the help of music or movies, forget that I am so far away from the safe feeling of having my own two feet firmly planted on the ground.

I vaguely remember hearing about Thievery Corporation. Maybe I even listened to some of their songs before. I have no recollection of that now. What I do know is that the moment I listened to Claridad and the suave voice singing in well rounded words, dripping notes of tranquility into my soul, I fell in love. It was a love I haven’t felt in years, not since I was a teenager and lay down on my parents’ bed listening to a big old cassette player that sometimes used to choke on the flimsy brown tape, the lights off, my eyes closed, letting the music envelope me in a cocoon of safety. It’s a love made of the sweetness of the moment and the bitterness of knowing it will never have the same effect as the time goes by. And after listening to Claridad for countless times, I thought this may, after all, not be a bad way to cease being – dissolving into nothingness, listening to the divine sound of love.

Claridad is one of the thirteen songs on the album Saudade (2014), a word used to describe “a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament”. Thank you, Google.
Please listen to it when you have the time and tell me how it made you feel. I’d love to know.

It’s been a while since I posted any songs – I’ve been waiting for something new (new, as in a song I haven’t listened to before) and today while browsing through some Youtube videos I came upon this beautiful sad song.
Enjoy!

Amy Winehouse is dead.
She is?
Yes.
When? How?
Yesterday, and they don’t know yet.
Oh, I’m sorry.

The words came out but they were just words. Was I really sorry? Did it make a difference to me if she was dead or alive?
I felt nothing but a passing shadow of regret. Two hours later I was still thinking, still looking for something, some deeper feeling, analyzing, probing. Who was Amy Winehouse and what did I know about her?
To me she was a voice, a face on a screen, a troubled person, a lost soul. I didn’t know her.

I didn’t know how she liked her coffee or if she walked barefoot in her house in the middle of the night. I didn’t know her favorite color, if she had any pets or the name of her first love. I didn’t know what made her burst out laughing and what movie made her cry. I didn’t know if she liked chocolate or vanilla or the name of her best friend. I didn’t know how she held her head when she brushed her hair or the look on her face when she was truly happy. I didn’t know any of these things and that’s why it doesn’t make a difference. What I know is that she is always a click of a mouse away. That’s all I need to see her and to hear that beautiful voice. To me, she is not dead. She’s still here.

This is yet another song that came my way and which I liked instantly. The guy does look a bit like Keanu Reeves, I have to admit, and the slow sexy beat of the song is quite catchy. 🙂
Enjoy!

Today I’m a bit tired and this song fits my mood perfectly.
Enjoy!

Exactly five years ago to the day, if not exactly to the hour, I was about to see one of my most cherished dreams come true. A silly dream some might call it, a teenager’s dream I call it, a dream that had been a fantasy for many years, so much so that I never actually thought it would come true. It was just a dream, never crossing that border into the land of possibility. That June evening it was about to become reality.

Two friends were with me that day and we chatted nervously, with that giggly happiness that is present in the hours of anticipation before a much expected and happy event. We had arrived quite early, about six hours before the appointed hour, and we had claimed a piece of concrete as our spot, not far from the stage, and we sat down, snacking on pretzels and wishing for the time to pass faster. What could be more exciting than being in the same place with about 40.000 other people who were waiting for the exact same thing?

People of all ages and sizes were gathering around us. Owners of pierced eyebrows and tattooed arms, middle aged men, teenagers, foreigners speaking both familiar and strange languages. It felt like Babylon. It also felt good.

How to describe that rush of energy that went through the crowd when they appeared on the stage, the chanting, the waving of arms? I had never seen them before and now, all of a sudden, they were there in the flesh. Not people I just saw in video clips on TV or in pictures in the magazines or on the posters in the room I shared with my sister a lifetime ago, not just sounds coming out of a tape or cd. This time it was real. The band members were on the stage and the crowd started chanting:  De-peche Mode, De-peche Mode, De-peche Mode.

Did I shout, did I laugh, did I cry? I did, all at the same time, and in between, when all of that seemed like not enough, I sang. Every word, every song, until I had no voice left. But that was ok.

“Let me take you on a trip, around the world and back….” They sang, and I with them, following from song to song, from Personal Jesus to my personal favorite, World In My Eyes, to Enjoy the Silence and In Your Room, to Precious. And when Never Let Me Down started the crowd went wild. A sea of hands rose in the air, moving in harmony, all eyes watching the stage, watching Dave move, dance, come closer, touching hands with the fans, smiling, pausing so we could sing instead, and we did, never faltering, never missing a beat. A huge white banner, black letters painted on a white sheet of fabric, went over our heads with a few words that summed it all up: “A lifetime waiting for this night”. I had waited for this night, never daring to hope that it would come true one day. But it did. One of the best experiences of my life. One of the days when I was completely, unimaginably, absolutely, HAPPY. Thank you, Depeche Mode.

P.S. The words on the left are from the t-shirt I had inscribed especially for that day. It is a faded dark blue by now but the words remain, just as clear as on the day I wore it for the first time, five years ago.

Every once in a while it happens that a song takes up residence in my head and it would play over and over again until….well, until another song takes over. Some might call that an obsession and that’s fine. Being obsessed with music is not a bad thing in my book. So after Idan Raichel’s song which has been rolling around in my head since Saturday night, a new one has come close to replacing it.

I was cutting up a pineapple in the kitchen this evening, when I heard it on the radio. Now pineapple cutting is a slippery business and while trying to keep my fingers at a safe distance from the knife, my head was nodding, keeping rhythm with the music when I realized I’d heard the song before. As I’d totally forgotten who the singer was, I abandoned the pineapple for a bit and rushed to scribble down a few words from the song that got stuck in my head: “There’s a fire starting in my heart…”

This song is best enjoyed LOUD!

I heard this song for the first time at a friend’s birthday party last night. I fell in love with the beautiful soothing melody even though I had no idea of what he was saying. But that’s what You Tube is for. 🙂 The second version has an English translation.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0PWukxRV8U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlKUti_fgbI&feature=related

Today I felt really good – I don’t know why exactly – maybe it was the light rain this morning which cooled the stuffy hot humid air a bit, maybe it was the sun who was trying really hard to push the clouds aside, maybe my gym session that really got me going and I nearly started to sing on the elliptical machine (wouldn’t that be something!) or perhaps a new book (by David Sedaris) I got today from a friend . Anyway, that happy mood stayed with me throughout the day and as I was browsing through my favorite videos on youtube, this one’s beat seems to fit nicely with the way I feel. Enjoy!

Coldplay