[For those who came late, read Part One first - see below]
Track 11: "Deeply Dippy" Right Said Fred
Cripes, this is a goddamn chirpy little song! Picture this (Sicily, 1953 - no, not really) - Juneau, Alaska - 1994 - we were sharing a spare family car with my husband's sister and this tape (yes, tape) was in the player - we were hooked. The whole CD is great but this song in particular just stuck in my mind and heart. Funny and cheerful and when the brass section comes in, it's just wonderful stuff. And that guy had a terrific voice - whatever happened to them? [Gotta love those internets]
Track 12: "Skin Deep" The Stranglers
What is it about this song that I love so much? JJ Burnel's compelling voice? The great lyrics "better watch out for the skin deep" - haven't we all met some of those...? The way the song starts simply and ends on this great build-up? "Golden Brown" almost pipped this one out - it's a more beautiful song and I also love its almost Dave Brubeckian rhythm. Love them both actually.
Track 13: "Constant Craving" k.d. lang
One of my favourite singers. This is sheer gorgeousity. I love love love this whole CD - all the songs fit together so beautifully and this song is the most wonderful climactic end to a great ride about love, lust, disappointment and longing. Apart from Drew Barrymore, this is who I would turn gay for. [Sorry, M]
Track 14: "Mambo Italiano" Rosemary Clooney
What's not to love about an Irish-American sweetheart (who also happens to be the lovely George's aunt) singing about 'fisha baccala' and "if you gonna be a square you ain'ta gonna go-a now-a-where'? Love that Lurch-like harpsichord solo in the middle - what a crazy song. Also reminiscing about our swing-dancing days when we used to listen to the wonderful Libby Hammer and her delightfully young and handsome 16 piece Big Band - Hip Mo' Toast. SO many fantasies about being a singer in front of a band like that. Sigh.
Track 15: "The Chauffeur" Duran Duran, as interpreted by Powderfinger
[See - told you I was sneaky] What do I love more? The perverse flamenco reworking of this song or the fact that it's by Powderfinger? I love that Bernard Fanning has never apologised for being a huge Duran Duran fan. I feel in esteemed company. This song is part of a CD called 'Come Undone' - a collection of Duran Duran songs covered by Australian bands and singers. Lots of interesting song/artist pairings.
I first heard this in Brisbane in my friend A.'s car as she picked me up from the airport two days before going to the Duran Duran concert I had flown across the country for. Two days before sneaking through the security gate with my friend, R., and having our photo taken with Nick Rhodes. Sweet, sweet memories...
Track 16: "Get What You Give" New Radicals
This world IS gonna pull through. I hope.
This was the song I would dance to with my unborn baby. It is such an anthem and I still find it inspiring. I had actually burned a CD with this song on continuous loop thinking that I would listen to it while labouring. When it came time, I could barely ask for a glass of water, let alone articulate that I wanted a CD on the player. Listening to it 15 times in a row may have sent me quietly insane anyway. Still love it. A lot.
Track 17: "Going Gone" The Black Eyed Peas (featuring Jack Johnson)
A new addition to my personal favourites. The Peas are just an amazingly musically accomplished band with the most insightful and relevant lyrics (okay - maybe not "My Humps" but, hey). This is a great song that I think is about realising that all the stuff, all the bling is meaningless. Fun, but meaningless. Pretty obvious, I know, but it bears repeating.
Also - does Jack Johnson have one of the loveliest voices ever? He is honey and maple syrup, silk and clean sheets. Yummy.
Track 18: "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" Scissor Sisters
I defy you to not feel like dancin' to this. I think people in deep coma would be surreptitiously tapping their (mental) toes to this song in defiance of all things medical. Like all great pop tunes - it sticks in your head so that a week later you still have that piano thumping in the old craw. What total fun. What a great world.
Track 19: "Come Undone" Duran Duran, as interpreted by Bachelor Girl
Tricked ya! Yes, another offering from those poster boys for seemingly getting by on a modicum of talent and a bundle of good looks. I think that this song gives great proof that the opposite is true (except the good looking part - they are good looking - esp. Roger - growl!). This is a beautiful song - I love it better than the DD version (hope I don't get burned at the stake for heresy) - Simon Le Bon is whinier than usual in his effort but to give him credit, he did write the lyrics which I think are just wonderful. Bachelor Girl - another band on the whatever happened to...? list - let's check The Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_Girl
Is Wikipedia amazing, or what?
Track 20: "Going Home (Theme from "Local Hero")" Mark Knopfler
This is the song that I imagine will get played at my funeral. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it - I plan to have people heaving with great big dramatic weepy sobs... mmm. How sad.
But on a cheerier note - what a great film - definitely in my Top Ten of My All-Time Favourite Flicks. Great soundtrack. Great dialogue. Going home. Indeed.
04 December 2007
Nadia: The Soundtrack Part One
As a party favour/bonbonniere for my dear friends who attended my "Last Day of My 30s Party", I put together the millenial version of the 'mixed tape' - remember those? - and burned a CD with twenty of my favourite songs - all which have a connection to some period in my life.
[My dear friend, S. suggested that I should have called it "Nadia: The Musical" which is just so funny, I can't believe I didn't think of it and she did]
So - just to add another chapter to the Nadia: The Narcissistic Years boxed set, here are the sleeve notes for the CD:
TRACK 1: "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" Nancy Sinatra
My parents owned this 45 (I have since stolen it and actually played it on my brand-new $59.95 record player on Saturday night) and I listened to it constantly as a child. I had NO idea what the lyrics really meant - I just thought Nancy sounded a little mean/a little pissed off and little did I know she would have such an influence on the way I speak to my husband most days. Not that he's "messin' where [he] shouldna been messin'". Love the thrumming bassline and who can resist going ape-shit crazy when she tells those boots to "start walkin'!"
TRACK 2: "Let's Stick Together" Bryan Ferry
From the opening one-note sax riff, this song is three-minutes of solid lust. Remember the film clip with Jerry Hall's slutty little animal-printed sashay through the curtain? Even better - here it is, thanks to youtube:
How did she possibly think sexing it up with Mick Jagger was better than sexing it up with Bryan Ferry - was she really that afraid of becoming Mrs Jerry Ferry? This song is embedded in the ole brain as the song my brother and his friends used to actually dance to. Although maybe 'dancing' is too loose an interpretation of their imitation of the almost non-moving bass player. The thin moustache, the white suit, the sexy slim-hipped Bryan - sigh. Bryan Ferry was my first concert experience in 1976 and I still remember going mad when this song came on - not bad for a nine-year old. (Even if I did miss the two-hour episode of the Return of the Bionic Woman - it was worth it!)
TRACK 3: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" The Police
[I'm starting to detect a very strong sexual subtext in the songs so far - for a 40-year-old virgin I was sure a subliminally sexually-aware kid - who knew?]I just knew that this song was WRONG - it was sexy and WRONG - and made me even more aware that my feelings for my Human Biology teacher were sexy and WRONG. Nothing like a good dose of Catholic guilt to suppress those urges. Sting, whatever you think of him - he is a bit of a pretentious dork, really - does certainly have a way with words and the ole vocal chords do make him one of the most distinctive voices of the era. I still love the song even now that I know who Nabokov is - that was a lightbulb moment!
TRACK 4: "Rio" Duran Duran
Aaaahhhh...Rio...like a birthday or a pretty view...two of a billion stars... you really do mean that much to me, you really do. I think my buddies thought the entire CD would be a playlist of Duran Duran songs (and see below for the sneaky way I snuck them in) but no. There was no need to have more because I am confident in my love for them [even Andy, although he is no longer in the band (thank God)]. No need to overdo the sheer exhilaration of basking in the glow of my boys. They are so "me in the 80s", it's not funny. I vowed that I would never look back on my sixteen-year-old self and laugh in derision and I haven't - I can't. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this band really did give me so much. They gave me friends (met half of them in the queue for tickets), they gave me a world view, they gave me lots of laughs and joy. And they'll continue to do so, because come 6 April, I will be able to laugh and remember and rejoice and revisit that 16-year-old-self and honour that girl.
Track 5: "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" The Smiths
So what happens to a girl who enters teenagerhood loving Duran Duran and leaves loving The Smiths? I remember getting about as rebellious as I got by listening to them on my Walkman in class and having the principal talk to me about anger issues sitting on a bench in the school playgound. I thought "I've fooled you all" because I really wasn't all that miserable, I just loved that someone else could articulate it for me. Morrissey is a brilliant lyricist - his words are funny and biting and true - and he gave another gift to me: Oscar Wilde - I ended up reading everything he wrote and even visited his grave in Paris to pay homage - so that's not all bad.
Track 6: "Vagabond Moon" Robyn Dale Ford
Skip forward a few years to being a newlywed living in a cabin in the middle of Alaska. Ford is a Fairbanksan and I heard her as a support act for Don McLean at the Fairbanks Hockey Stadium (and we think this city has no appropriate concert venues - hah!) I love her plucky heart and her plucky banjo. This CD was also lasered into my brain by my Juneau upstairs neighbours Eric and Kate, who played her seemingly non-stop. Robyn Dale Ford fired up an unlikely love for the banjo which Eric then proceeded to destroy over the 18 months by his incessant practicing of said instrument. The banjo, when played by a master, is actually a beautiful thing. The banjo, when played by an enthusiastic beginner, is not.
Track 7: "Where Do the Children Play? Cat Stevens
This song is all wrapped up in my love for the movie "Harold and Maude" which, if you haven't seen it,... well, I don't even know what to say to you...try and see it. That movie formed what I believe to be my true life-view although I don't always live up to it. It's the life-view I wish I could live. And this song is still so remarkably relevant. I also listened to this CD a LOT when I lived in Alaska. I remember listening to this sitting on my crappy couch in my little one-roomed log cabin and thinking to myself "I am really happy".
A true classic. A beautiful song. Go Yusuf.
Track 8: "Galileo" The Indigo Girls
Again, an Alaskan memory. Must have worn out whatever grooves exist on a CD playing this constantly. And again, it's all angst-y and existential-y and confused about life. Our actions do have repercussions and I hope I'm burning off some negative karma for the next one. And I truly, to quote Queen Julie Andrews "somewhere in my youth or childhood [or last life], I must have done something good" to get such a great life this time 'round.
Track 9: "Beggar on the Street of Love" Jenny Morris
Another early marriage song. Love these lyrics of Paul Kelly's. So plaintive and raw and lovely. I love to sing this song to Sam. He doesn't alway love it though.
Track 10: "Want You Back" Take That
Living in Alaska where the headline act was Don McLean or 'Weird Al' Yankovich, I missed the whole Take That phenomenon. When I heard this song, it must have been a few years old. It made me want to leave my husband just so he would stand under my window, holding up a boombox with this song blaring a la Lloyd Dobbler. I love it - it's so freakin' romantic. Great musical climax, beautiful harmonies and how funny that one of those voices is Robbie Williams.
[My dear friend, S. suggested that I should have called it "Nadia: The Musical" which is just so funny, I can't believe I didn't think of it and she did]
So - just to add another chapter to the Nadia: The Narcissistic Years boxed set, here are the sleeve notes for the CD:
TRACK 1: "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" Nancy Sinatra
My parents owned this 45 (I have since stolen it and actually played it on my brand-new $59.95 record player on Saturday night) and I listened to it constantly as a child. I had NO idea what the lyrics really meant - I just thought Nancy sounded a little mean/a little pissed off and little did I know she would have such an influence on the way I speak to my husband most days. Not that he's "messin' where [he] shouldna been messin'". Love the thrumming bassline and who can resist going ape-shit crazy when she tells those boots to "start walkin'!"
TRACK 2: "Let's Stick Together" Bryan Ferry
From the opening one-note sax riff, this song is three-minutes of solid lust. Remember the film clip with Jerry Hall's slutty little animal-printed sashay through the curtain? Even better - here it is, thanks to youtube:
How did she possibly think sexing it up with Mick Jagger was better than sexing it up with Bryan Ferry - was she really that afraid of becoming Mrs Jerry Ferry? This song is embedded in the ole brain as the song my brother and his friends used to actually dance to. Although maybe 'dancing' is too loose an interpretation of their imitation of the almost non-moving bass player. The thin moustache, the white suit, the sexy slim-hipped Bryan - sigh. Bryan Ferry was my first concert experience in 1976 and I still remember going mad when this song came on - not bad for a nine-year old. (Even if I did miss the two-hour episode of the Return of the Bionic Woman - it was worth it!)
TRACK 3: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" The Police
[I'm starting to detect a very strong sexual subtext in the songs so far - for a 40-year-old virgin I was sure a subliminally sexually-aware kid - who knew?]I just knew that this song was WRONG - it was sexy and WRONG - and made me even more aware that my feelings for my Human Biology teacher were sexy and WRONG. Nothing like a good dose of Catholic guilt to suppress those urges. Sting, whatever you think of him - he is a bit of a pretentious dork, really - does certainly have a way with words and the ole vocal chords do make him one of the most distinctive voices of the era. I still love the song even now that I know who Nabokov is - that was a lightbulb moment!
TRACK 4: "Rio" Duran Duran
Aaaahhhh...Rio...like a birthday or a pretty view...two of a billion stars... you really do mean that much to me, you really do. I think my buddies thought the entire CD would be a playlist of Duran Duran songs (and see below for the sneaky way I snuck them in) but no. There was no need to have more because I am confident in my love for them [even Andy, although he is no longer in the band (thank God)]. No need to overdo the sheer exhilaration of basking in the glow of my boys. They are so "me in the 80s", it's not funny. I vowed that I would never look back on my sixteen-year-old self and laugh in derision and I haven't - I can't. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this band really did give me so much. They gave me friends (met half of them in the queue for tickets), they gave me a world view, they gave me lots of laughs and joy. And they'll continue to do so, because come 6 April, I will be able to laugh and remember and rejoice and revisit that 16-year-old-self and honour that girl.
Track 5: "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" The Smiths
So what happens to a girl who enters teenagerhood loving Duran Duran and leaves loving The Smiths? I remember getting about as rebellious as I got by listening to them on my Walkman in class and having the principal talk to me about anger issues sitting on a bench in the school playgound. I thought "I've fooled you all" because I really wasn't all that miserable, I just loved that someone else could articulate it for me. Morrissey is a brilliant lyricist - his words are funny and biting and true - and he gave another gift to me: Oscar Wilde - I ended up reading everything he wrote and even visited his grave in Paris to pay homage - so that's not all bad.
Track 6: "Vagabond Moon" Robyn Dale Ford
Skip forward a few years to being a newlywed living in a cabin in the middle of Alaska. Ford is a Fairbanksan and I heard her as a support act for Don McLean at the Fairbanks Hockey Stadium (and we think this city has no appropriate concert venues - hah!) I love her plucky heart and her plucky banjo. This CD was also lasered into my brain by my Juneau upstairs neighbours Eric and Kate, who played her seemingly non-stop. Robyn Dale Ford fired up an unlikely love for the banjo which Eric then proceeded to destroy over the 18 months by his incessant practicing of said instrument. The banjo, when played by a master, is actually a beautiful thing. The banjo, when played by an enthusiastic beginner, is not.
Track 7: "Where Do the Children Play? Cat Stevens
This song is all wrapped up in my love for the movie "Harold and Maude" which, if you haven't seen it,... well, I don't even know what to say to you...try and see it. That movie formed what I believe to be my true life-view although I don't always live up to it. It's the life-view I wish I could live. And this song is still so remarkably relevant. I also listened to this CD a LOT when I lived in Alaska. I remember listening to this sitting on my crappy couch in my little one-roomed log cabin and thinking to myself "I am really happy".
A true classic. A beautiful song. Go Yusuf.
Track 8: "Galileo" The Indigo Girls
Again, an Alaskan memory. Must have worn out whatever grooves exist on a CD playing this constantly. And again, it's all angst-y and existential-y and confused about life. Our actions do have repercussions and I hope I'm burning off some negative karma for the next one. And I truly, to quote Queen Julie Andrews "somewhere in my youth or childhood [or last life], I must have done something good" to get such a great life this time 'round.
Track 9: "Beggar on the Street of Love" Jenny Morris
Another early marriage song. Love these lyrics of Paul Kelly's. So plaintive and raw and lovely. I love to sing this song to Sam. He doesn't alway love it though.
Track 10: "Want You Back" Take That
Living in Alaska where the headline act was Don McLean or 'Weird Al' Yankovich, I missed the whole Take That phenomenon. When I heard this song, it must have been a few years old. It made me want to leave my husband just so he would stand under my window, holding up a boombox with this song blaring a la Lloyd Dobbler. I love it - it's so freakin' romantic. Great musical climax, beautiful harmonies and how funny that one of those voices is Robbie Williams.
02 December 2007
It's the mid-lfe crisis talking, people...
It really is weird knowing almost to a certainty, given life expectancies and statistics and all that, that I actually only have up to half of my life left. I mean, I could be at 9/10s for all I know (hopefully not) but if I live an average lifespan, this is it. It's half over. Which is simultaneously horrifying and exciting.
Horrifying cause it's half over - and exciting because it's only half over. And I've always said that the first twenty years really don't count because you're learning all the basics - how to talk, walk and do algorithms ("You know what I don't understand?"). So adult life, which is really different to the protoplasm years - 0-19 - is really the start of your "life" so essentially, I may only be a third through my adult life, and when I was paying attention in math class, I did learn that a third is less than a half. So that's good news. And my life has seemed really long so far - in fact, to paraphrase Billy Connolly, it's the longest thing I've ever done - so the possibility that there are 40 more years ahead makes me tired.
But that could also be because I was up until 3am and awoken by a chorus of Happy Birthday accompanied by maraccas and bells by my kids at 7:30am. That could have more to do with it.
Horrifying cause it's half over - and exciting because it's only half over. And I've always said that the first twenty years really don't count because you're learning all the basics - how to talk, walk and do algorithms ("You know what I don't understand?"). So adult life, which is really different to the protoplasm years - 0-19 - is really the start of your "life" so essentially, I may only be a third through my adult life, and when I was paying attention in math class, I did learn that a third is less than a half. So that's good news. And my life has seemed really long so far - in fact, to paraphrase Billy Connolly, it's the longest thing I've ever done - so the possibility that there are 40 more years ahead makes me tired.
But that could also be because I was up until 3am and awoken by a chorus of Happy Birthday accompanied by maraccas and bells by my kids at 7:30am. That could have more to do with it.
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