music, music, music -
a wildly mixed music blog
some of the months i post music on a certain theme, other months i just post whatever i feel like. even in the months with a theme i usually mix in other music too and occasionally i dedicate music to people.
most of the music here is taken from youtube for practical reasons (easy to clip in on the page) and if the clips are homemade recordings by amateurs i ask for their permission to post. sometimes i get no reply and in those cases i usually don't post the song but for a few clips here i couldn't resist posting anyway, so anyone who comes in here and sees their own youtube clip - please tell me if you want me to take it away!
January
but new year's eves come and go and they never really change any of the important things in life. i have my family, i have my friends, i have my faith. there are pictures and patterns all around me and there is still great music in the world if i only look for it. so why sigh, right? let's have some of that good music instead!
i first thought of this theme when i was up in orsa for christmas and i was looking for the lyrics to an old favourite song that i haven't sung or listened to in a while. i borrowed one of dad's old song books where i thought i'd find that song but it wasn't there. instead i found lots of other great old favourites and i thought of many more on the same theme or from the same period and realised this was the theme i had to have for the month of january on the music blog: peace and protest!
when i was a kid, there was a lot of talk about peace and freedom and global justice issues at home. not just talk either, there was thinking too, which is more important. growing up in that atmosphere gave me a strong conviction that these things should matter more in my life and in all of our lives than they usually do. i grew up at a time when the protest songs from the sixties and seventies were still sometimes sung without irony and people still hopedd for and believe in changes for the better. today, we seem to have lost that hope and given up, just because it wasn't as simple as we thought it would be - but why did we let that get us down?! this is a moment when we need to see what songs of peace and protest really want to tell us, when we need their encouragement and their inspiration. so, for the first month of this new year, i will post peace and protest songs, new and old, and hope they will help us keep up our will to fight for the right causes in the right way!
that wasn't the only issue we treated though. we also talked about the conflict she is writing a paper on right now, the kashmir conflict. that is a corner of the world i really think we should pay more attention. it's not just kashmir, kashmir is more of a symptom than the actual disease, there is a deep wound that goes straight through pakistan and india and the western world is partly guilty (though it's dead important not to simplify here! we can't blame britain or europe alone for what happens on the indopak subcontinent today,that would be both stupid and dangerous) of inflicting that wound, of causing the bleed.
when i looked for indian and pakistani peace songs, i found many songs that talked of peace but at the same time couldn't keep from laying the problem and the blame on the other part. in the end i chose an afghani peace song instead - but the video clip of that song was problematic. the song in itself, as far as i understand it (i've only read english translations, i don't speak a word pashtu) is simply a desperate prayer for peace in a land that is going to ruin by many years of war, but the comments to it, and the sites where it has been embedded, speak hatred and unability to forgive. the consequences of war are blamed on the americans or the western world in general, on the pakistani, on the punjabi, on one afghani ethnic group or on another afghani ethnic group. isn't that us humans in a nutshell? we want peace, but we can't really admit we're part of the conflict. if i didn't believe in a god i could cry out to when i read things like that, i'd soon be broken down by the hopelessness of it all!
warning: what follows is a glaringly prejudicial text and it shouldn't be taken too seriously or be read by people who lack the ability to make reflexions of their own on what they read!
i said "a song with a serious message" and that's what it is, after all. peace is a serious matter, we can't reduce it to flower power. if we really want peace we mustn't forget that it costs us something - it takes a hard fight against ourselves, if nothing else. so what makes me feel a bit embarrassed when i hear and see karibuni is their seemingly naïve and goody-goody image. and i can't help thinking "it's a bit too german for me". if something is german in bold letters, it's an instance of a special , cheesy, kitschy style that has been popular in germany both when it comes to music, to pictures and to clothing. it's the well-known and much feared "german style".
i know i shouldn't really blame germans for this, sometimes we all go over the top a bit and simplify things to much or add a few flower wreaths and starry eyed children than we really need, so don't let my silly sensitivity against kitsch, sentimentality and cheesiness (at least outside bollywood movies) turn you against karibuni and their song. karibuni is a good band with a nice folksy world sound and i like the way they mix amharic, lingala and german in the same song.
manu chao has his bad sides. he has that "commie chic" attitude that i'm so tired of, wears che guevara shirts and flirts with soviet symbols. i've met too many people like this to be impressed, to me it seems silly and childish. and then there's that attitude towards drugs that seems to go with almost any of the so called "alternative" subcultures today and that i just can't stand. so when i listen to this song (that i really like otherwise) i always wince at the lines "marihuana illegal". i wish it was metaphorical, that manu chao was making the point: "hey, we hold the same attitude to immigrants as we hold to illegal substances!", but i know all too well that's not what he means...
nonetheless, this is a good protest song. for all the hidden people i've met (and especially for a. who was only fourteen when she begged a meal from me, who lived in a tunnel, and who never used the emergency number i gave her), here's manu chao's "clandestino".
phil ochs wasn't necessarily a sympathetic and nice man. he was an alcoholic and got in fist fights with friends and strangers when he was drunk - how's that for a role model for young pacifists? he seems to have had a bit of an inflated ego, much like bob dylan and like bob dylan he seems to have been a bit of a jerk in his relationships with women. but with all his faults he wanted to break patterns of war and injustice and the anti-vietnam-war movement wouldn't have been the same without people like him to inspire and enthuse.
suss let me try her fairly new acquisition, the octave mandolin, and i was surprised by how hard it was to adapt to the broader neck now that i'm used to the mandolin, so i gave up my attempts to play anything complicated and ended up playing two really simple french folk tunes. suss more or less immediately picked them up and played them on her melodeon and we made two recordings where we play together - a little picture of our friendship, is what i think when i see and hear it. thanks for a good time, suss & daniel!
December
but i didn't sit down to write on and on about snow (i could go on for ages about the loveliness of it if i started), i'm going to introduce this month's theme: christmas music. and don't think: "oh no! not one more "silent night" or "jingle bells", i just can't take it!" because on this blog you won't get silent night or jingle bells. you'll get music that's at least slightly less common and you'll get music from different countries and in different styles so just open your heart and your mind to some of my christmas favourites!
this version of schubert's "ave maria" is an exception to the strictly classical versions i prefer, though. it's dolores o'riordan (lead vocalist in the cranberries), a woman with a voice that always touches me, who sings it here. it's recorded live from a performance in italy. i liked the mixing in of some scenes from "the passion of the christ" too, i think it takes away some of the ridiculous cuteness around virgin mary and focuses on the ordinary woman with a tough life and an extraordinary mission that she really must have been!
that song holds the whole of the gospel in two verses and is among the strongest and most majestic songs i know. my respect, not to say reverence, for this song makes me a bit conservative, i want it sung by a male voice, classicaly schooled. and man, am i ever fussy about the singingers' technique in this piece! i have a versh with oslo gospel choir, where the norwegian soloist sings it in swedish and i almost can't listen to it just because the slight norwegian accent in the swedish ruins the perfection of the song to me!
this version isn't with a male, classically schooled voice, though. it's from a world music christmas album and it's sung by angélique kidjo, one of my great heroes, in her native language. she manages to sing it in her own style without losing the heart and soul of the song and that's what really matters most of all to me with this song!
the song isn't faultless, it seems to lay the blame of exploitation of nature entirely on christians and i often think jackson browne, who wrote this piece, seems to be both prejudiced and a bit of a hypocrite. as a rule you should never exclude yourself when you come with critics this severe, so when i sing it myself i exchange every "they" and "i" with a "we" - that way i remember my own share of the blame while i don't submit to simplifying a problem or laying blame on just one group of humans for what the whole of mankind is responsible for.
i hope that little disclaimer doesn't turn anyone against this song though! it's a great song, excellently performed by jackson browne and the chieftains and my past eight or so christmases wouldn't have been the same without it.
one of the records holds this song, sung by jonas fjeld (who sings in this clip as well) and oslo gospel choir. my mother doesn't like the lyrics of the song because she doesn't think they mean anything, and the first times i heard it i agreed with her. but then i started to listen more closely and found some lines that gave it meaning to me. it would take me too long to quote and explain here, but i now see the song as an inspiration to remember the love i have received from friends, family, former boyfriends and from god, without letting the loss of love from the people who drifted out of my life embitter me. if you want to take a close look at the lyrics you can find them here: http://www.1songlyrics.com/j/jonas-fjeld/engler-i-sneen.html (in original norwegian) and here: http://demonsmeetsangels.deviantart.com/art/TAitS-by-Tattersail-33230600 (an amateurish translation in english, the only one i found).
just one more thing: don't you just LOVE the way rybak handles his fiddle?! in spontanity and personality this performance reminds me a little of another clip i've used on this blog - the one where billy boyd sings a britney spears song on sharon osbourne show.
the song is about being obsessed with christmas and just wanting more of it ("mer jul" is of course "more christmas") and it's full of ingenious rhymes and clever references to swedish christmas traditions. it's written and performed by synth/pop/whatever duo adolphson & falk.
the title of the song means "rise up all, and rejoice!"
*the youngest of norway's two official written languages, but based on the old norwegian dialects. norwegian language history is a jungle...
here's a celtic christmas favourite of mine. it's an irish song, "don oiche úd i mbeithil" - "i sing of a night in bthlehem", though i just learnt there are scottish gaelic versions as well. have to find one of those some day - but not right now, i want to post the song. i'm having more trouble than i expected finding decent versions of all my christmas favies, though. what is it about christmas that makes us consume endless amounts of recordings with women singing in really sugary voices or with majestic-sounding choirs? i admit i feel that need myself when christmas comes up, but this is ridiculous, where is the variation in style? i worked hard to find the áltan versh, so i hope you enjoy it. the vocals here are not so sweet you have to brush your teeth immediately afterwards...
i had decided not to post the song at all, but then i stumbled on this. it's anything but early music, actually. i think i can hear lots of very modern influences here, and the french isn't quite up to the mark either which always irritates me (though i came across so many worse pronounciations in my search! this was one of the better...) but this singer has the right attitude and she makes the song her own in a way that none of the other singers on youtube did, so i just loved it imperfections and all.
the song is in latin and if you've read this blog from the first month i kept it you'll know i have a soft spot for latin - why else would i post the cookie monster singing "gaudeamus igitur"? but latin lyrics isn't the only charm of this song, it's also a song that makes me want to clap hands and dance. the words of the song tell us to "rejoice, christ is born!" and when i hear this i feel like dancing down the streets in long medieval skirts, tambourine in hand, singing because christ is come. the people of göteborg should be greatful i haven't tried it yet...
November
so what's caribo music? caribo music is of course music from the caribbean area. in the past summer i started exploring this part of the world musically and i found that the caribbean is home to so many interesting genres and musical creolization (linguist term, that. look it up in a dictionary if you don't know the meaning, i'm too lazy to explain) that we hear too little of - at least here in sweden. to mention just some of the caribo genres: ska, calypso, soca, chutney and reggae - and of course all of these genres have hundreds of varieties. no use talking about it, you'll know what i mean when you hear the music, i hope.
this christmas we will get only two days together and i've been spoilt over the years with longer christmases up in my parent's house in orsa. and my brother will be in china, far from all of us - i hope he at least finds that gingerbread at ikea! so, i'm interrupting the caribo theme with a special greeting to my family. if our family had an anthem it would be written by paul simon, his music has had such a prominent place in our home, so of course the greeting had to be a song by paul simon. how about these lines: "i'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing i was gone - going home..."
love you all, you are definitely the best thing in my life after tea and snow ;)!
p.s. they're getting older, but so are we! if they are not what they used to, just look at yourselves ;)
first i will post an example of kompa (or compas), a music style that first saw light of day in the late sixties and mixed funk, pop, reggae and other more modern influences with more traditional and rootsy percussion music from haïti. this is the kompa kings tabou combo with "a kou tchou kou tchou". the earliest recording i have found of this song is from -98, but tabou combo have been playing since -67 and i wouldn't be surprised if the song exists in older versions. in any case it's a great song...
say: "i love soca!" (I LOVE SOCA) say: "i love soca!" (I LOVE SOCA) follow the leader, leader, leader, follow the leader....
if you know where that came from, you already know a bit about soca, but whether you do or you don't i'm going to tell you what i know. soca is a caribo genre and it started out as a mix between soul and calypso, that's how it got the name so-ca. though that's of course not the whole story, there is early chutney music (i've explained that below) involved in the mix too and the process of mixing still goes on, with rnb influences, hip-hop elements, dancehall and reggae elements, pop or even rock mixed into the soca juice. in any case, it's percussion based and more often than not it has lyrics on a simple and repetitive party-and-dance theme.
i will give you two examples of soca here. the first one out is machel montano, who started at an early age back in the eighties, when he sang "too young to soca" as a child artist (the vid is on youtube, look it up if cute children in videos don't make you nauseous...). here he's a bit older and a bit less cute and i'll let him illustrate both the good sides (fun party vibes and nice rythms) and the bad sides (male chauvinism and glorifying of alcohol) of modern soca. soca (as other caribo genres) is associated with "wining" - hip-and-booty-shaking, often done in long lines, follow-the-leader style. this style of dancing shocked the white inhabitants of the caribbean and if the caribo today are a bit obsessive about their wining maybe that's why? but while wining in itself is cool (and i for one envy those who have the ability to shake booty, my stiff and too controlled body just won't learn), the modern use of it in videos as well as in real life isn't! the thing is, it seems to be the women undressing and wining up on the men, who wear more clothes and usually sip a drink. that attitude never fails to irritate me, and while i like many of machel montanos songs i reserve the right to hate his videos!
the other soca example is from dominica and it's the sub genre called bouyon soca. bouyon soca is usually sung in french based creole and i LOVE it! we get to hear too little french accents in the music here in sweden if you ask me. i'm not gonna preach over this one, i'll just let you all wine bouyon-la with ibis lawrence!
i have posted an example of calypso, so i thought i'd move on to ska now. ska music is a complex matter - not the music in itself, perhaps, but the roots and the subgenres and all the ska-mix genres - it's a world in itself.
my first meeting with ska was, like for so many others of my generation, the british group madness and their song "our house". but madness was part of the so called second wave of ska, which is mostly connected with britain and where a lot of punk elements were mixed in - ska started in jamaica with dancehall music and some say it started in the fifties, some say it started earlier, i say it's impossible to say exactly when.
ska music has two main features, backbeat (just like reggae, only ska is usually a bit quicker) and brass, that seem to be there no matter what else is thrown in the mix and i hope these two examples illustrate that. the first is a latino-ska band well known in world music circles, ska cubano. the second example is the mighty mighty bosstones, sometimes described as a "ska-core" (ska and hard core) band. i hope to have space for more rootsy ska too this month, otherwise you will just have to look for it yourselves!
the discovery started with this song, though it was an older and scratchier recording of it with another performer. it was played on swedish radio channel one and introduced by some well known swedish journalist or other by a little talk on rootsy calypso. one of the things he mentioned was the name tradition of calypso performers, a tradition that exists in other caribo genres as well. the tradition is to take a name that sounds a bit "big" and often rather warlike or vaguely threatening - names beginning with "lord" (how about "lord invader" for a scene name? i can't think of anything cooler!) or "mighty" are common, and also names of historical warrior chiefs, like attila the hun.
this example features a less warlike lord, though, it's the lord caresser and i think his scene name suits the theme of the song very well. it's a song about edward VIII of england who abdicated to marry the divorced woman mrs wallis simpson. the real story contains more political elements and neither wallis simpson nor edward himself come across as nice people at a closer look, but never mind the truth - lord caresser tells us a story of love alone and does it with a heart!
October
this is one of my favourite songs from the film, masakali. "masakali" means something like "free spirit" and it refers both to the young woman in the video and to her father's pet dove, actually named masakali. at one point she explains to the male lead that masakali has her wings clipped "because she's father's favourite" and it's obvious that she herself, independent-minded and strong as she is, leads a somewhat wing-clipped life, longing to fly off chasing her own dreams. i illustrate this song with one of my polyvore sets based on it!
another band i've thought of as anonymous and nothing special is american new wave rock band the knack, the band who had a big hit with "my sharona" in the late seventies. i've always thought "my sharona" sounds like something you'd come up with if you: 1.were aiming at a genre you didn't really know much about and 2. were totally blind to what musical roots and influences you had before.
strangely enough, the next song is a meeting between the anonymous-sounding band and the song that can't decide what it is going to be when it grows up - and the result actually puts a spark of new life into both. so, this is hammerfall's versh of "my sharona"!
i was sitting in one of our computer rooms at school, having some time to kill before my last exam on the whole programme. in the same computer room was another woman my age, just as keen on computer room rules as i am (meaning, not keen on them at all...). i was sipping a cup of tea, she was sipping a caffè latte. she was watching youtube clips without using earphones, i was downloading midi files of medieval branle tunes.
then i heard it: a melodious and strong voice, full of emotion and an oud accompaninment that took my breath away - reminding me both of the arabic oud players i have found on good compilations and of western folk guitarists. i couldn't really focus on my search for branle tunes and in the end i turned around and asked the other woman what the music was. she was so happy i asked! obviously hozan besir (again, where's the cedille when i need it?) was one of her great heroes and she loved telling me about him, about how he is a kurd from turkey and mixes both the kurdish and turkish traditions and sings in both languages. she played some three or four clips and we sat there just enjoying the music together before my teacher came in and said it was time for me to come and take the test.
that's how i met hozan besir, and i can't help thinking it really pays to be a breaker of small rules sometimes - what if i had told my unknown friend to use her earphones as soon as i came in and heard she was playing youtube clips - i would have missed out on some really beautiful music and a meeting with a stranger that probably brightened both our days!
anyway, here is hozan besir. the song is gelmis bahar, the first song i heard with him.
the lyrics, when dave fenton of the vapors wrote them, were about a separation with a girlfriend and what that did to him, about how obsessed he got with her pictures, especially the one that they had both written "i love you" on. you know, the kind of stuff infatuation does to people, turning them slightly nutty whether they're happy or unhappy, with or without the object of their feelings? but when the vapors took their newly released album on tour they discovered that their audience had quite a different interpretation of the lyrics and there are still people (mostly men, why am i not surprised?) around who are convinced that the song is about masturbation! (sorry about the whisper, if you're a swedish free church girl it doesn't matter if you're cool with the phenomenon in itself, you still find it a bit uncomfortable to talk about it...) the rumour started in the u.s. where there was a lot more hush hush about sex matters than in the european punk/power pop/new wave circles and every expression that wasn't easily understandable was interpreted as having something to do with sex...
there's another interpretation of the lyrics that you come across today, too. the manga/anime lovers here in the west, especially those who dress in harajuku street styles and learn to write kanji, see it as a sort of anthem. the vapors were before all that started, but i don't think these kids are aware of that...
well, i may scorn those people, but dave fenton himself is a lot wiser. he says "well, some people have decided what they want the lyrics to mean for them and that's fine with me. it was about something else when i wrote it, but that's just me..." for that attitude he got a star in my book - hope i will one day have confidence enough to let people make even embarrassing assumptions about me and the things i do without letting it bother me, that's true integrity!
setting all that aside, "turning japanese" is one of my "jump-about-and-shout-along" songs, much like "ca plane pour moi" (btw, anyone who knows where i find the cedille on this keyboard?) and the proclaimers "500 miles" and once in a while you really need a song of that kind, so here it is!
and, hank williams went down to louisiana and caught the cajun bug and then went back home with a traditional cajun song that he reworked to turn into "jambalaya", the song that opened my ears to cajun music so i am deeply indebted to mr williams for all the good times i've spent with cajun music.
you're probably now expecting something with hank williams, but ladies and gentlemen, you're wrong. i'm going to give you the cajun trad song that "jambalaya" came from, the eternal classic "grand texas". enjoy the music and that perfectly delightful cajun french!
p.s. it's said that it's the accordeon that makes the cajuns dance, but in my opinion they couldn't do without the fiddle - nothing beats cajun fiddling in sheer intensity.
next song out is a bollywood classic with one of the most famous voices in bollywood's history: lata mangeshkar. the song is from a seventies movie called samadhi, starring asha parekh, but i found it in a much later movie, "chori chori" starring rani mukherjee. in that movie, the song played only for a short moment, as the female lead does a little dance in front of her mirror after succeeding in making an impression on the male lead (just like john hughes-movies always had a scene with a main character dancing and singing along to an old favie, remember that, anyone?) but i hunted it down on spotify and on youtube - not that hard because it was a great hit when it came. the lyrics mean something like this: "behind the bungalow, under the tree, the thorn pricked me, yes it pricked" and the thorn pricking is of course falling in love. if you've never tried bollywood music from the seventies before, you should give it a chance. well, i'll leave you in the able hands of lata mangeshkar and asha parekh now!
this song was a chutney soca mega-hit. it's trini soca star ravi b (in this remix joined by problem child from st vincent) who gives the message: "woman, yuh can't teach meh!"
i think the reason it was such a hit is in equal parts the catchy tune and the alcohol cult. people heard it as a party song, a sort of cheeky get-back from a fun-lover at his moralist wife or girlfriend and her narrow-minded family. that's definitely not the reason why i post it here! i have been fascinated by this song ever since i first heard it because what i hear is the real tragedy of the alcoholic and his/her worrying and suffering family. there's something so deeply tragic about that aggressive defense of the story-teller's drinking habits, it gets so obvious that the man in the song is choosing alcohol over his loved one - when she tries to take fight with the bottle to get him back she is seen as a possessive bitch and she only gets accepted when she drinks with him. this is a reality i've seen all too many times in real life and somehow it gets to me so much more when it's told from the naive perspective of the drinker.
so that's why i keep going back to this song in my spotify playlist, the contrast between the carefree party mood of the song and the dark shadows it casts. hope you can hear it too!
the first october song is by an american group called the be good tanyas. like with so much of the music i love, i first found the be good tanyas on a compilation in the library downtown in göteborg and what made them stay with me was the cool, sort of casual way they sing harmony. they sound so much like my mood on a day when i have nothing special to do and i go walkabout with camera and sketchpad and have a crêpe or two at the crêpewagon...
September
the first clip i post just adds to my vemod - this aging man, now old enough to be one of the old friends on the park bench that he sang of in "bookends" (look that song up if you've somehow missed it!), still strumming his guitar and singing like he's always done, in his calm and slightly melancholy way and doing it so genuinely well. this clip fits very well in with my vemod theme.
*)flute, that is. not tape recorder!
(oh, and i almost forgot: nitin sawhney is friends with my old crush sanjeev bhaskar - they worked together on what eventually became "goodness gracious me". another star for mr sawhney in my book...)
i was a good french student, so i understood the few lines of the lyrics that i could hear clearly and those lines stole my heart away - i mean, who wouldn't want to be likened to a crêpe suzette by your loved one, with "a little taste of orange, honey and chocolate"? and then he sang he had lost his head when he met suzette, and lost his reason every time he met suzon (that's like "susi" for "susanne") and i like my lovesongs charmingly exaggerated, so i was hooked. there was no youtube in those days, in fact internet was just for computernerds of the worst kind and i don't think i had even heard of it. so for years i searched for a song that might be called "suzette" with a group or singer i didn't know the name of in record stores with no result of course. youtube is a gold mine that way, one day when i made a search for "suzette" i found dany brillant, the classic french charmer, with "suzette" - et voilá!
the first time i heard this tune was actually when old blind dogs played it live on a folk music festival. i had been feeling rather down for some time and the folk music festival worked like happy pills on me. but what really helped me out in the sun again was hearing this tune, because it sort of let loose all my sadness and at the same time made me feel like there was so much around me that was still so beautiful and enjoyable and that i could be happy again. that's an effect that vemod in arts and music often has on people, i think.
August
*)though her tulle skirt outfits surely added to her great impression on me. never underestimate a tulle skirt!
p.s. i don't minding floating along with the stream as long as i really beleive the stream is taking us somewhere good. the danger lies in not stopping to think of where you're heading and why.
*)my youngest sister would unashamedly say "well, so are you!"
July
i can still remember where i was when i heard this song for the first time (lying belly down on my bed, studying for my course in linguistic field methods and almost falling asleep over david silverman's "interpreting qualitative data") and how it put me under a spell that was broken only hours later...
the second big event is that i now have met my friend's little newborn baby. she's a miracle of course, it was amazing to see my friend's features on a little baby and even more amazing to get to hold her. she's not eating properly, keeps falling asleep over her meals and causes lots of worry and frustration that way - but as the proclamers say, love can move mountains and little alice-or-julia-or-emily's parents don't lack the love they need to deal with this!
the song is written by kate rusby, but it's based on a scots gaelic lullaby she found in book of folk songs. i like it with kate rusby too, but when i found this version on youtube i simply loved it.
(and just when you thought i was going to shut up i came back to tell you to note the instrument in the set and it's mate in the video clip - it's a fado guitar, a both visually and audially beautiful instrument.)
June
midsummer, once more. i'm one day early posting this, but that's because i'll be helping out at the youth bible camp from tonight and all through midsummer's eve and there's no way i'd drag my darling laptop out there!
the song i'm posting for midsummer's is one that has been waiting to be posted since i started this page. last summer i made a youtube search for some french folk song or other and then just followed the "related" until i found this song - and it took my breath away with its simple beauty.
the song starts with the words "voici la st jean, faites la veillée" - "st john's is here, let us hold the wake". a wake in medieval times always meant a festive occasion, very likely with dancing - a lot like midsummer's eve in sweden. in fact, the general feeling to this song is very much like a late midsummer's night in sweden - sort of bittersweet, with a fairy tale touch.
i'm not going to translate the entire content of the lyrics for you but
the picture i get in my mind is of a woman waiting for her loved one. it's midsummer's night and the young couples in town are all gathered, but she stands alone, knowing that her loved one is still far off, fighting in a batlle perhaps. he has been gone for long but has promised her a white dress and a gold ring at his return and she knows he will travel not only by daylight but also at moonlit nights such as this to get to her as soon as he can.
*) by "folk song" here i mean a song in a folksy style. it's not an old song and it's not been traded down through generations the way "real" folk songs have. it was written in the early twentieth century, but it quickly made its way into the folk musicians' repertoire.
during a study trip with school to barcelona in -05 some of us gathered the courage to stand in a street corner across from la pedrera and sing this song. i think we did very well, but the performance was met with violent uninterest from the people around us. remember that, girls? we'll do it again and we'll kick ass, right ;-)?!
May
now is the month of maying, etcetera etcera... i probably should have that as a theme for this month, but my list of good music for this page has grown so long it's ridiculous so for this month i'll just post anything i like.
this song is about letting yourself be happy in a simple way just laying back and staring into the sky and the singer, lisa ekdahl, may very well be my favourite of all swedish singers. and hopefully she will remind my friend of some good times that we shared together, having lots of tea and listening to lisa on my stereo...
boris vian (for those who didn't know) was a man of many talents, he was an author, a reporter, a jazz trumpeter, an engineer and a singer/songwriter. he died at 39 of a heart attack.
(i first discovered the song through the versh recorded by vaya con dios and i love that version equally well. check it out if you haven't heard it!)
when i come across old ghazal classics ("ghazal" is a type of poetry, but i refer to the ghazal songs, which are simply ghazal poems set to music) in a modernized form i usually sigh and press the forward button - this is an exception. ustad ("ustad" means "master" or maestro" or simply "teacher". when you speak of a respected musician or poet you reverently refer to him or her as "ustad X") ali hafeez khan sings so beautifully and the dub factory's remix actully adds to the character of the song instead of clashing with it. if you're wondering what on earth "kaise guzar ga'ii hai jaawani na" means i can't help you. a friend of mine once translated the whole song for me and as i had already guessed it all has to do with tears and love....
("kaise" means "how", though. i'm pretty sure of that one!)
i've had this clip on my waiting list ever since i first found it and since the song is in spanish and i just got back from barcelona with my head full of sunshine, dramatic gaudí curves and spanish words i think this is the right time to post it. i know next to nothing about lhasa de sela or about the song, but it's sent shivers of pleasure down my spine ever since i first heard it. and though my knowledge of spanish is about zero as well i can get the meaning of the lyrics through the singer's voice and her careful way of holding on to some of the words (but it does help to know a little latin, french and italian too ;-) ... ). the video is beautiful too, a visual equivalent of the song.
April
the obvious theme for this month was easter. but what would you listen to at easter? since i am a christian, easter is a time for reflexion and holiness, easter is the time to remember christ's suffering as well as his eternal triumph. not all the easter music i will post here is tradionally "christian" music (whatever that may be!), but it will be music that somehow fits in with the theme of suffering, reflexion, holiness and triumph.
apart from the easter songs i think i'll just post whatever i feel like at the moment :-)
i've really stuffed this month full with songs, haven't i? and i guess you thought you'd finally got the last song for the month, didn't you? friends and neighbours, you were wrong! i'm a huge fan of tom lehrer, the master of satire songs in the fifties and sixties, and i'm a huge anti-fan of pigeons. this means no spring is complete to me without this charming little ditty...
(and don't worry, i may love to sing about murdering pigeons, but in reality i don't even kick them when they REALLY get in my way downtown. i sincerely wish those winged rats would behave themselves, though!)
next song from my waiting list - which only gets longer, there's so much good music and so little time! - is from the scottish folk band malinky. the song tells the story of a man who dares to turn down an offer of marriage from the ugly but powerful witch, alison cross. of course he gets to suffer for it, but don't worry, he is rescued in the last verse by the fairy (the "seely") queen...
this clip has been on the waiting list for a long time now. i love blondie and this is my favourite with them, one of those songs that i start singing anytime, anywhere, without thinking of it because the tune and lyrics are burnt into my memory after all the times i've listened to it. what makes me love this song so much is the mixture of cuteness and attitude. the song in itself is so cute it could have been made by a girl band from the sixties, but blondie as a band and debbie harry as a singer add their attitude and integrity and make the song a bit punky. the video clip is damaged in the second verse, but since this clip held a higher sound and picture quality than other youtube clips of this song i kept it.
a while ago one of my friends told me he has lost a dear one. not much i can do for him and his family other than pray for them, but i've been thinking of sending him this song and i've been thinking of posting it here on my page, so i'll post it here and say: Z, this one is for you. once when my life was going through a really dark spot i heard this song and felt the words came as a letter to me from god just then. it gave me a beam of comfort now and then in those dark days and now i pass the song on to you with all my best wishes.
finally! i've been waiting for this clip for a long time now: my friend susi's new youtube clip. it took a long time before she put something new out on youtube and when she did i was busy posting my easter music and then i had pc trouble for a while (ever tried to fix a problem that had to do with partitions on your hard drive? well, my advice is: just leave it as it is!) but here it is, at last. i think her singing gets more western style every day...
friends and neighbours - christ is risen! that's how christians all over the world greet eachother on easter day. sunday services today will ring with these triumphant words and there will be joy and celebration (though i have to admit i don't think we celebrate enough in churches here in sweden - there could be a lot more of dancing and singing if you ask me). my song choice for today is a south african hymn that a swedish folk music group called fjedur helped spreading to europe. i feel a bit ashamed to admit i don't know what language it is written in, but i know some of the words mean "jesus, my joy" and the swedish lyrics go something like "jesus my joy/jesus my triumph/you have overcome death" and that's why i have always associated this song with easter day. i have no idea where this choir is from, but i think they do a great job!
today is easter eve - since scandinavians have the habit of always celebrating the eves before the big days instead of the actual big day, this is the day when my family will get together for a big festive dinner and share some easter eggs in chocolate and marzipan - yummeee! but in the easter gospel, this is the sort of empty day, the day that nothing really happens. christ died on the friday and lay in grave all of saturday. easter eve is like a sort of void, i mean, god was actually dead. but just before christ died he said the words "all is fulfilled", and those words ring in my head on easter eve. they mean god's plan is realized and there's now hope for everyone. so for today i chose a beautiful recording of "alles ist vollbracht", "all is fulfilled" from bach's johannespassion. it's sung by marian anderson, a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice who was one of the two people (the other being my friend joss) who finally reconciled me to the classical vocal technique.
"good friday" - i always thought that a bit of a strange name for a day in rememberance of someone being tortured to death. but in the end, i believe, it really was a good day when god himself went through one of the many cruel treatments that we humans invent for eachother. he's been tortured, hated and despised so he knows what life is like at it's worst. and this is the reason that christians can actually say, like johnny cash (whom, i have to point out, i liked waaay before it was considered chic ;-) ...) does in this clip, that we "cherish the old rugged cross". note that he actually sings it both in english and in american sign language, i think that adds a lot to the performance.
today is the thursday before easter - the day when the story of christ's suffering begins. the day in rememberance of the last supper and of that lonely night of prayer and agony in the garden of gethsemane. the song i chose for today is another story of agony and loneliness, it's taken from the musical "kristina från duvemåla" by benny andersson and björn ulvaeus and i chose this rather than for example "gethsemane" from jesus christ superstar because i think the feelings of intense pain and of being abandoned and entirely lonely are much like what christ felt at the same time as they are easy for any human being to relate to.
next song is one of those that i'd post just because i felt like it :-). this is lolita pop, a swedish band from the eighties. i was rather young when they disappeared from the limelight and i never got round to buying their records or even catching any of their songs on my mix tapes - i hunted this particular song for years and never got it. in the end i just gave it up for lost, but a couple of weeks ago i accidentally found it on youtube, recently posted by another swede who rememberes lolita pop! their singer, karin wistrand, was one of my big heroes when i was in my teens. i wanted to be her. or susanna hoffs in bangles. or wendy in transvision vamp...
this is marillion with "easter". the theme of this song isn't meant to be religious, but for me it is, and in my mind it relates to the easter gospel. a boy is shot in the conflict in northern ireland - will easter forever be a time of grief and anger for them? will they ever forgive? "what will you do? make a stone of your heart?" as the lyrics say. this song speaks of things that are really painful and really hard to forget, but to me as a christian, easter is a rememberance of a great forgiveness, a great sacrifice and a great triumph over hatred and evil, so i think the song is still a hopeful one and very beauiful.
March
this month wasn't supposed to have any special theme, but then i thought the international women's day should be remembered in some way so i decided to post some of my female musician heroes this month. it won't be women only, but women mostly.
i'm rounding up this month with one of the most powerful female singer/songwriters i know - tracy chapman. she has a strong voice, she's not afraid of strong words but she's still a master of soft tones and gentle expression. her songs always leave me feeling a tiny wee bit stronger myself and if my heart has been broken i can cry with her for a while in "matters of the heart" and then she gets my spirits back up again with a song like this.
i have a friend who's got hooked big time on amadou et mariam and keeps telling me i need them on my music page. et voilà! here they are. this duo has been among my world music favourites for a long time and they have made it big, especially after their cooperation with manu chao, so i don't think they need much introduction!
yooohooo - chutney soca! this song is what got me into the chutney genre in the first place, i found it on a compilation and it was love at first beat. chutney music is a caribbean mix, like calypso or soca, but the major ingredient is east indian music - east indians came to the west indies as plantage workers and chutney music is one area where their influence is visible.
next of my woman heroes: billie holiday. her voice can't be beaten and of all the possible ways of performing old classics like "more than you know" or "summertime" i always prefer hers. this clip is a live performance of "strange fruit", the song billie holiday wrote herself on the subject of the race violence in the southern states of the u.s.
this lady had to show up sooner or later - she's been among my heroes for so long and she's one of the brightest stars of the folk music movement: joan baez.
i don't really know how much i heard of her music in my early childhood, but my dad bought her "joan baez songbook" and before i knew any english i sat spellbound by the illustrations (in a sort of collage technique, very typical of the period) and the photos of this beautiful young woman with long dark hair and amber eyes. and when i understood the old ballads and the protest songs in the book, i read them for the pleasure of it. i kept my ears open for any recordings of them and instantly learned the tunes by heart if i heard them. when i had learned my first three guitar chords i "borrowed" the book from dad (the book still lives with me) and learned to accompany myself in the same songs joan baez used to sing.
the clip i chose is "freedom land", from the days of the vietnam war. joan baez sings it a capella, acompanied only by handclaps and i love this version because i think it shows a strong woman with a belief in what she's doing.
michelle shocked - first out of the women heroes i talked about. i think she's a genius, she picks up influences from pop, rock, jazz, blues, all kinds of american folk music, and she still does her own thing her own way. her lyrics are well written and very characteristic. the song i've picked out here is a song that always has to be on my mp3-player (and used to be on my portable cd-player and on a mixed tape in my walkman in the old days) when i'm travelling alone by night, because it goes so well with the feeling of adventure in a late night journey and it has a tune that let's you rest and enjoy the moment of warm drowsiness before you go to sleep. above the video clip is my polyvore tribute to michelle shocked.
i can't really say why i fell so hard for this song. it's from a movie called "veer-zaara" and the movie isn't one of my favourites, i thought it felt too long and too slow. the song is rather slow too and i usually like the up-tempo ones best. so maybe it's the theme of the song that i liked: the ghost of a former lover's presence lying heavy over your life after breaking up, sometimes so concrete you can see him or her before you. "mein yahan hoon" means "i'm here".
Mein yahan hoon
February
second month i choose music for my homepage - i'm having so much fun! this month is a party month for me, so there will probably be lots of up-tempo stuff. and there's valentine's coming up - i'll find some sweet music fit to send to a valentine.
birthday specials - my party day, 25:02
first out of the birthday specials: "bole chudiyan", a happy and cool party song from bollywood movie "kabhi khushi kabhi gham". i took the long clip from the movie because i love the scene so i'll give you some story background.
setting: a party for indians living in london. it's a special festival celebrating in-laws.
participants: rahul (in white and grey) and his wife anjali (in red and gold), rohan (in white), brother of rahul - but rahul doesn't know that - pooja (in pale pink), sister of anjali and in love with rohan.
rohan and pooja have made a bet: if rohan dares to finally tell rahul that they are brothers she will in her turn tell everyone at the party her innermost feelings. none of them thinks the other will dare, but rohan tells his part by singing a traditional greeting song to a brother and sister in law - rahul doesn't appreciate that since he's upset about the flirt he sees going on between pooja and rohan and he thinks rohan is being presumptive calling them in-laws already. anjali on the other hand, likes rohans traditional behaviour and smiles at the younger couple. and the glass bangles (chudiyan or churiyan) tinkle, just like the title says and so, good neighbours, will mine this evening!
this song will get a shorter introduction: it's simply a perfect "jump about and shout along" song. not everyone knows french, but most of us can shout "ca plane pour moi!"
valentines is here, my friends!
i just had to post this polyvore collage i made on polyvore as a greeting to some selected fantastic specimens of the human breed. i think it also applies to the guy who wrote and performed the song i chose for this last minute tip for a musical valentines video for a loved one. the song is incredibly funny to anyone who has played mario kart, especially if they (like me) tried it together with a boyfriend or girlfriend. so send this clip to a video game-crazy loved one = instant success!
here's a recommendation that i will hammer into everyone i meet: listen to anything that moïse & alida viator (villatoro) are involved in and you'll hear it's great music. i tried to find the song that really got me hooked, it's from 2001 and it's called "wangateur". unforrtunately i haven't found it in any version, video or audio. so instead i'll give you some links to where you can hear examples of their music - not whole songs but long enough clips to make you feel the strength and energy in their music.
creole fusion a preview of the record 'creole fusion' from -06, by moïse & alida together with the band eh la bas.
mermaids of the canary islandsa preview of 'mermaids' from -03, by the viator siblings and eh la bas.
mo belle creole a preview of 'mo belle creole' from -01 (when alida was all of fifteen years old, folks!)- it's worth buying the cd just for wangateur, if you ask me.
ahhh, ska music - one of the pleasures of post-modern life!* this is madness, known to the great public through their hit with "our house" back in the eighties. but they were a great band with many great songs and here's one of my madness favourites, a song i love for parties. i think the video is cute too, but you have to wait a while before the song actually starts.
*i stole that line from a novel, but i don't remember which one. originally it refers to tapas and not to ska music. if you recognize the quote please go to "comments" and tell me where i found it!
some more valentine romance. this is marillion, all the way back from the early nineties. the singer at that time was steve hogarth and his voice, so strong and so full of feeling, is what makes this song something more to me than just another easily forgotten song about love. if you're thinking of sending a song to your loved one on valentines and you're not afraid of big emotions - well, this is it.
here comes some romance now :-). this is the best version ever made of "i can't help falling in love with you". it's an eighties versh with lick the tins and it was featured on the soundtrack to "some kind of wonderful" (which may very well be the best john hughes film and eric stoltz makes it even better). as far as i know, it's the only version that throws a kerry polka in the mix - a touch of genius if you ask me. unfortunately, the only clip i could find of this that wasn't too heavy to load on the page was this incredibly boring one with the poor sound quality. it's a mystery to me why people film their old vinyl players, but maybe it's some collector thing that i just don't understand.
here's some of my party music! this is te vaka from tokelau in the south pacific, performing alamagoto which is one of my favouries with them. this puts me in a good mood and makes me want to dance and i think it's a pity they're not better known outside of the pacific - at least not well known among other than people like me who always dig through international compilations in search of new groups to listen to.
hehe, i promised uptempo party stuff and music fit for valentine's, but i just had to post this first. it's a reminder to everyone who comes in here of a great man and musician who died while he had still lots to give: phil ochs, folk/protest singer in the early sixties. i love his lyrics and his attitude and the poignancy of his tunes. this video clip is of a song called "the highwayman". ochs didn't write the lyrics, but reworked an old poem by alfred noyes telling a tragic story of the highwayman who is warned off a meeting with his young love by a shot that tells him the soldiers are after him - the shot kills his young love and shortly after, the highwayman dies too, but it's said they continue to meet on stormy nights... i'd probably like this song well enough even if it was set to a different tune, it contains one of my favourite motives - the death of two lovers - but i think ochs' tune is so perfect it puts tears in my eyes!
January
first batch of music on my page
the first ever video featured on my homepage: my great friend and playmate, susi (aka sinead) playing some nice tunes (soldier's joy, mississippi sawyer and liberty) onher mandolin. she's getting so good at this!
and now for something completely different! it's latin time, boys and girls. and i'm not talking hot salsa music or tango rythms - i'm talking verbs of the first declination, first pers.plur. an' a' that. this is the cookiemonster (delightful little fellow - have you heard they're kicking him out of sesame street?), rocking hard in the medieval student song "gaudeamus igitur". told ya i was weird!
this isn't a video, but a link you should definitely check out! i heard of "the copper stills" through a friend - it's mostly her boyfriend doing the singing, playing and songwriting. i'd say this is music for bob dylan-fans and folk music lovers but don't let that scare you off, it's freakin' good music.
http://www.thecopperstills.com/
for sentimental reasons, mostly - here's a youtube clip from a st lucia celebration in dalarna - my old home province. the song is from my old home town, orsa, the girl singing it too. the beautiful winter pics are from the woods outside orsa.
guess what? i have the nerve to put myself singing on this website, moahahaha!!! this is a beautiful scandinavian folksong and i sing it in the local dialect of orsa, dalarna. i make the same mistake i always do: a slight heightening of pitch after a while. not my fault, i was taught badly....
next video clip is in honour of a real hero, who sadly passed away in 2008: miriam makeba. since my father just nagged me for some paul simon too i put in a clip where they perform together at paul simon's concert in central park. but first i post this polyvore set that was my personal tribute to ms makeba on the day she died.
new videoclip - another hero of mine. this is the wandering wonder, the troubadour who can play anything that sounds and who sings in a bluesy, folksy style that makes my heart beat faster. and who writes some of the best lyrics in his genre (let's call it folksy singer/songwriter, i listen to a lot of stuff like that) and improvises like only a real talent can do. this, good neighbours, is rory mcleod! the song is "be my rambling woman" and it's one of the best love songs i know - if a guy walked up to me and asked me to be his rambling woman i'd need a very good reason to say no...
here's a clip that's very close to my heart for two reasons. one: because it features the man i would have married in a perfect world, the multi-talented, SCOTTISH and handsome billy boyd. two: because it shows what good music is all about, namely, feeling. sure, billy boyd has a better voice than britney spears, and more musical talent in his pinky finger than she has in her whole person - but the real diference between a song that sounds just like a thousand others and a song that really goes to your heart is the feeling it's performed with - and here's a guy who delivers with feeling. go billy!