buffalo springfield - for what it's worth

Stop, children, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down.

I just remembered a couple of days ago how much I loved the Forrest Gump soundtrack. The happy hippie in me was particularly eager to listen to this one song. Enjoy ;)

dusty springfield - son of a preacher man

Another song that I've first heard on the famous morning radio show. Until then... well, I had heard of the name Dusty Springfield and assumed it was a man's name. It sounded like a country singer to me :))).

This is probably one of my favourite "oldie" song. Speaking of which, I have a dilemma as to how old a song must be to be qualified as an 'oldie' and what other criteria it must fulfil. You may or may not have noticed that I haven't put that label on Pink Floyd for instance. It just doesn't feel like an oldie to me. And then, there are the 80's songs. Run to You, recently posted, has been released about twenty years ago, but I wouldn't call it an oldie. I've heard kids going 'wow, that is an old song' about songs I've been dancing to at highschool reunions. Gosh... I think those songs are still young... it is me growing old :(

Take a look at this footage. Look how she enjoys what she's doing. Check out that dancing style. Listen to the simple orchestration, close your eyes and feel how alive this song is and how it communicates the mood. Don't see much of this these days :(

the beatles - yellow submarine

Again, not my song of choice but fitting for the day. So, as you might have guessed, after the previous hectic days, I was dead tired. Did I manage to get some rest on Saturday? Noooo. I was on morning shift and then in the afternoon I went to a march of supporters of my hometown football team. Long story, I won't bother you with insignificant details. However the atmosphere was incredible. I have managed to take some really great pics (false modesty aside: especially compared to those posted on some official sports sites) and had a great time singing along with the crowd. And one of the songs was the official supporters hymn of the team, which is to the tune of Yellow Submarine. So there you go, the post is perfectly justified. :)

queen - we are the champions

Queen are another long overdue band. And another one that will feature several times, because this is not the track I first intended to post :) But it is related to the continuation of the story from the previous post. In Thursday's hectic we managed not to get the diplomas for the kids printed on time and we also only had enough t-shirts for the volunteers who coordinated the various kid groups. So on Friday we went to their school with the diplomas, chocolate and t-shirts for the kids in the winning group - the one whose project was finally voted as being the best one. So We Are the Champions seems only fitting for the occasion.

No song related story, but a band related one. When I was in the tenth grade, I had a classmate / schoolfriend who was a big Queen fan. Her dad was into music, I think he owned tons of magnetophone tapes :). She then told me of an acquaintance who used to be a huuuuge Queen fan. The guy had original disks, limited edition ones, anything you could desire and that was no easy feat in Communist Romania when he began collecting. And the guy hears Freddie is gay. So he goes into his garden, piles up all his Queen stuff and sets it on fire. Is this crazy or what?

alice cooper - school's out

Ok, retroactive blog. And now, as promised, I'm going to tell you a bit about what I have been doing the past few days. I have acted as a volunteer for an NGO and as such have coordinated a project that involved taking around fifty 7th graders to the city hall; during one exhausting day, they learnt the ins and outs of life as a local councilor; they identified issued in the field of "safety" that they would like to see solved, came up for solutions in groups and then had to vote for the best solution. All in all, I think they had loads of fun and I think it was also a good experience for them. For the coordinators on the other hand... well, you can imagine. We get to see the mess behind the curtains :)

So, I thought that School's Out would be a fitting track. The day was a day off from school for the kids... and it was a good cry of relief for me when it was all over. :) Now, a funny incident I remember involving another Alice Cooper song, Hey Stoopid, was several years ago. I was maybe 14 or so. Someone kept on calling on the phone, obviously in a prank. I got tired repeating over and over that it was the wrong number, so I pulled my cassette player next to the phone, set a tape to the start of this song and waited for the phone to ring. I picked up the receiver, put it next to the loudspeakers and pushed play with maxed volume. I think it created quite a microphony. Anyways, they didn't call again :D

And now, back to present... Alice Cooper (by the way, seen him on VH-1's Behind the Music, he's a totally sweet guy) is one of the artists who will be performing at the B'estival, a three day festival to be held in Bucharest this year. The line-up kind of sounds worth taking the long train ride in stride :)

dire straits - brothers in arms

If you were the sole survivor of World War Three... what would you sing in farewell over the graves? I'd go for this one. It's a morbid thought, I know. But the message that this songs conveys to me - the lyrics, the vocal, the guitars - it's just a desperate, disappointed headshake at someone who just can't grasp the obvious: the futility of violence. I was shocked years ago when I first heard the song, for I knew Dire Straits only from merrier songs like Money for Nothing and Sultans of Swing. The imagery this song always evoked was that of burnt fields, smoke still rising and clouding the vision, ruins in the distance and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and hopelessness in front of the way the tides are rolling. I have only seen the video once before looking it up on youtube and honestly, I couldn't imagine it otherwise than black and white. There's so many different worlds, and so many different suns... And we have just one world but we live in different ones...

simon & garfunkel - the sound of silence

I love this song. It must be one of the best songs ever written. I've just listened to it in constant loop for about an hour, it has an amazingly soothing effect on me. The lyrics are urban poetry and the tune is so simple and quiet - it goes straight to my heart. And the video shows what it all was about: MUSIC. Two guys and a guitar and yet a masterpiece. It is one of the tracks that makes me wish dearly I were old enough to have witnessed those times as a teen :( And I guess it rings truer now than it did back when it was written. If you enjoy it only half as much as I did, you'll love it.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

frank sinatra - my way

Shocking, I know. I don't even like the dude :-s. However, I've always had a weakness for this song. Errrrrm, I'll skip a certain night attending a karaoke show, where a bloke insisted on doing an entire Sinatra impersonation, friends know why. So I'll just forward to today, when I was writing an entry for my personal blog. And as the writing progressed, this song came to my mind and it fitted the entire blog post so well, that I finished it off by quoting the last lines of the song. So fucking true... and so makes me grit my teeth and just move on, pulling my cross after me, just to spite the crowd.

For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.

animals - house of the rising sun

Geesh, the things you find out on wikipedia :) Apparently this is a folk song, origins unknown and recorded by artists starting in the 1920's. I've only ever heard the animals version and I guess it is the widest known one. Eric Burdon has a really deep, powerful voice, making the song's message all the piercing. That, and a hypnotic psycho glance, but I didn't see the video until much later after starting to like the song and it makes me laugh every time. I remember seeing 'Behind the Music' on VH-1 with Travis and I distinctly recall Fran Healy mentioning that this song was recorded in half an hour studio time, in a couple of takes, pick the best one and that's it. Amazing sound, amazing endurance. Enjoy.

zager & evans - in the year 2525

This is another song the mentioning of which is due to last winter's youtube sessions, same as Horse with No Name. Written in the mid-sixties and charting in 1969, the song depicts a somewhat gloomy and slow apocalypse of mankind, brought about by evolution in technology. It notes the inventions and changes from the year 2525, 3535, 4545 and so on, predicting what the future will look like, provided "man is still alive" and "woman can survive". Impressive foresight except for the date, I'd say, for many things already happened and we haven't even started the first stanza.

janis joplin - mercedes benz

And now we're talking legends. Unfortunately, legends lived and died before my time. I see this song as a humourous-bitter comment and I can't say it doesn't still ring true after 30-something years. Some things never change.

Lyrics of this were in the forum signature of an online-acquaintance of mine, which recently re-brought the song to my attention. I've looked for a clip with actual Janis footage in it, but all those were rather twisted (am refraining hard from saying 'tormented' and 'slaughtered') versions of the songs or covers. I'd rather put up with a good song and a poor slideshow. Nice try though and thanks for using the original. Here is the commentary of one youtube user on the song:

This was recorded on October 1, 1970. If Joplin had lived, they may have added instruments to it before releasing it, but Joplin died 3 days later.
Joplin wrote this with a poet named Michael McClure. It is a social commentary on how many people relate happiness and self-worth with money and material possessions.
In the '90s, Mercedes used this in commercials for their cars. It was one of the great misappropriations of a song in a commercial, as Joplin's song was meant to convey the message that owning a luxury automobile does not make you a better person. Joplin's step-sister owned the rights to the song and allowed Mercedes to use it.
Janis Joplin never got a Mercedes Benz, but she did have a 1965 Porsche that was painted to become a piece of hippie art.

america - horse with no name

I am too young to have known America for anything other than the band that sang The Last Unicorn. Sadly and shamefully for me, I still don't know much else. But there is one other song I know and love.

The first time I ever heard this was on an interactive show at a local radio station. The DJ had the habit of asking people to call in with their top ten songs on a certain topic, or with specific words in the title. He'd make a final top of those and air them the next day. One of the given topics was 'songs with animals in their title'. Among black dogs, cats in the cradle and eagles from abba, there was this. I fell in love with the song in an instant and never ever heard it anywhere else. Several years later I remembered it, asked someone to download it, lost it again and re-downloaded it myself after a couple of years.

This winter I was with a friend, we wanted to listen to some music, we've already had some share of the 70's and I said let's listen to this. Here is what the dude said who uploaded it on youtube:

A Horse With No Name, originally entitled "Desert Song", the song was renamed at Samwell's suggestion. It was written on a rainy day in England and was intended to capture the feel of the hot, dry desert Bunnell remembered from his childhood at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Enjoy.