Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Bob Dylan (1963)

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you anymore
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

Music Sounds Better With You - Stardust (1998)

i found this classic at a tiny record store in San Francisco today.



it's one-sided. one 6:50 track of French disco house dance perfection. etched into the opposite side are the song's main lyrics:

MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH YOU
LOVE MIGHT BRING US BACK TOGETHER

i don't even know what to say about the actual song.

four on the floor with a thump of a bass we now expect from Daft Punk.
delicious guitar/synth sample from a 1981 Chaka Khan hit.
liquid lyrics, straight to the point.
a decade later, on Alive 2007, it still killed.

dance/download/listen.

Why - Carly Simon (1982)

maybe it's just lust, but whatever. this blog needs an update.



listen.

I Feel Love - Donna Summer (1977)

ooh... it's so good
it's so good
it's so good
it's so good
it's so good

ooh... i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love

i feel loooo
ooooooooo
ooooooooo
ooooooove

i feel loooo
ooooooooo
ooooooooo
ooooooove



listen.

1967

January 4


February 1


March 12


May 12


June 1


August 5


November 27


December 1

The Beatles

today Apple and EMI are releasing two box sets: The Beatles Stereo Box Set and The Beatles in Mono, two epic compilations of remastered stereo and mono recordings of the complete Beatles studio catalog. beautiful. to mark my renewed obsession (sparked by both the box sets and also by seeing the Cirque du Soleil show LOVE in Las Vegas with Adam), i'm making this little post, which falls back on a classic six stars strategy: speechlessness at sheer musical genius.

This Magic Moment - The Drifters (1960)

"this magic moment."

when Ben E. King rips out that first line of the song, i can't tell if he's talking about love or music. i guess it doesn't really matter.

this entirety of this song i get chills, as the Drifters belt out beautiful lyrics over swirling strings in the background, supported by a basic rhythm from the kit. i say i can't tell whether King is singing about love or the very music he's making, because i feel towards this song the way somebody might feel towards a loved one.

it's so different, so new. sounds i've never heard before, and they're hitting my ears right now. every instrument, pouring wine so sweet, intoxicating me, embracing me in a warm insulation that i feel can never end, forever until the end of time...

and, of course, like any beautiful song, its perfection is unexplainable. it's all magic.

here are the lyrics in full:

this magic moment
so different and so new
was like any other
until i kissed you

and then it happened
it took me by surprise
i knew that you felt it too
by the look in your eyes

sweeter than wine
softer than the summer night
everything i want i have
whenever i hold you tight

this magic moment
while your lips are close to mine
will last forever
forever til the end of time

magic magic magic magic

i music love.

listen.

How I Fell in Love (with Belle & Sebastian)

Let me qualify: this is actually how I fell in love with Dear Catastrophe Waitress. And let me be blunt: I was stoned.

Now let me clarify my bluntness: this album, along with If You're Feeling Sinister, had sat in my library for ages, largely un-listened. Pot was the impetus necessary to lose any pre-conceptions about bands and albums and what I have or haven't listened to yet, so that I could, among other things, put on some headphones and get lost in a maze of shuffled music. And it doesn't surprise me at all in retrospect, that as with any relaxed, bias-free and intimate listen, I discovered truths previously invisible. And thus, my entry into the world of these lovely Scots.


The sound is gentle. It's the soundtrack to the lives of lonely high school boys and girls who, instead of becoming angsty, rebellious, or destructive, continue to believe that life can be beautiful, lovely, and maybe even lively. Where both groups embrace the all-too-important fact that life's (often) a bitch, one throws a finger in everyone's face and the other hangs on to who-the-fuck-knows-what. Hope, probably.

The music's romanticism is sharp, and so, as Chopin's was grounded in "harmony, counterpoint, and fugue," so is Belle & Sebastian's grounded in reality and in the honest belief that life can be beautiful. As such, the album becomes wistful, blurring the line between being pensive and being content. Its joie de vivre means when it's happy, it's exuberant. Its romanticism means when it's sad, it's either nostalgic or just selflessly hopeful, roaming along in a haze of comfortable familiarity (which is always changing).

Rarely does music, lyrics, and statement (otherwise known as swagger in bands like Bad Company) come together so well on an album as they do on this one. And I ask you, how can anyone so me-against-the-world love the world so much? Key theme: books.

By the way, the musicianship is astounding; tight, lyrical, and professional. Thus, a song like Asleep on a Sunbeam still wins, and when those horns drop in you'd think the album had peaked.

Album Art (One Dominant Color)

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff (1937)

if you think the obsession in music with "fucking bitches" started with gangsta rap, then please take a seat.



that's a page from a 12th century text called Carmina Burana, or "Songs from Benediktbeurn," written entirely in Medieval Latin. created by a couple clergy students, the manuscripts concerns itself with themes of the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and, of course, lust. if the drawing above doesn't demonstrate how loopy in love with decadence and sex were the minds of these kids, then give me a moment.

give me 800 years.

in 1937 Germany, the Frankfurt Opera premiered a piece composed by Carl Orff called Carmina Burana, a "scenic cantata" that used various parts of the original medieval text as its libretto. Orff's full Latin title was Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis, or "Songs of Beurn: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magic images."

i don't know about the premiere, but the first time time i saw a performance of Carmina Burana, all the magic images were in my head. the melodies are so catchy, it hurts. the instrumentation is glittery, the rhythms are like running through a meadow. angels and demons fly out of the soloists' throats. most importantly, this is without a doubt one of the most epic collections of music ever created. and it's raunchy, too.

the best example i'll give are the lyrics from the "Tempus est iocundum." i won't say it explicitly, but the chorus appears to be quite the ejection of excitement...

Tempus es iocundum,	This is the joyful time,
o virgines,	O maidens,
modo congaudete	rejoice with them,
vos iuvenes.	young men!
(Baritone)
Oh, oh, oh,	Oh! Oh! Oh!
totus floreo,	I am bursting out all over!
iam amore virginali	I am burning all over with first love!
totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.	New, new love is what I am dying of!
(Women)
Mea me confortat	I am heartened
promissio,	by my promise,
mea me deportat	I am downcast by my refusal
(Soprano and boys)
Oh, oh, oh	Oh! Oh! Oh!
totus floreo	I am bursting out all over!
iam amore virginali	I am burning all over with first love!
totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.	New, new love is what I am dying of!
(Men)
Tempore brumali	In the winter
vir patiens,	man is patient,
animo vernali	the breath of spring
lasciviens.	makes him lust.
(Baritone)
Oh, oh, oh,	Oh! Oh! Oh!
totus floreo,	I am bursting out all over!
iam amore virginali	I am burning all over with first love!
totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.	New, new love is what I am dying of!
(Women)
Mea mecum ludit	My virginity
virginitas,	makes me frisky,
mea me detrudit	my simplicity
simplicitas.	holds me back.
(Soprano and Boys)
Oh, oh, oh,	Oh! Oh! Oh!
totus floreo,	I am bursting out all over!
iam amore virginali	I am burning all over with first love!
totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.	New, new love is what I am dying of!
(Chorus)
Veni, domicella,	Come, my mistress,
cum gaudio,	with joy,
veni, veni, pulchra,	come, come, my pretty,
iam pereo.	I am dying!
(Baritone, Boys and Chorus)
Oh, oh, oh,	Oh! Oh! Oh!
totus floreo,	I am bursting out all over!
iam amore virginali	I am burning all over with first love!
totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.	New, new love is what I am dying of!

then the next song, "Dulcissime," which consists of two lines of lyrics:

Dulcissime,	Sweetest one! Ah!
totam tibi subdo me!	I give myself to you totally!

wow. absolute orgasm. and it's not just the words. from the rapid, haphazard choral excitement of the piece right before, this is just one female vocalist moaning for 34 seconds.

you already know the most famous piece from this work, "O Fortuna." it's that incredibly epic song reminiscent of horses charging, planets crashing, slow-motion, and unstoppable glory in all its forms. check out these lyrics though:

O Fortuna	O Fortune,
velut luna	like the moon
statu variabilis,	you are changeable,
semper crescis	ever waxing
aut decrescis;	and waning;
vita detestabilis	hateful life
nunc obdurat	first oppresses
et tunc curat	and then soothes
ludo mentis aciem,	as fancy takes it;
egestatem,	poverty
potestatem	and power
dissolvit ut glaciem.	it melts them like ice.
Sors immanis	Fate - monstrous
et inanis,	and empty,
rota tu volubilis,	you whirling wheel,
status malus,	you are malevolent,
vana salus	well-being is vain
semper dissolubilis,	and always fades to nothing,
obumbrata	shadowed
et velata	and veiled
michi quoque niteris;	you plague me too;
nunc per ludum	now through the game
dorsum nudum	I bring my bare back
fero tui sceleris.	to your villainy.
Sors salutis	Fate is against me
et virtutis	in health
michi nunc contraria,	and virtue,
est affectus	driven on
et defectus	and weighted down,
semper in angaria.	always enslaved.
Hac in hora	So at this hour
sine mora	without delay
corde pulsum tangite;	pluck the vibrating strings;
quod per sortem	since Fate
sternit fortem,	strikes down the strong man,
mecum omnes plangite!	everyone weep with me!

these are the words that Orff's masterpiece starts AND ends with. essentially, even though much of the cantata has lyrics about love and drinking and growing and youthfulness and growing old and everything else you can think of, the composer realizes and makes you realize that all that is simply life. and it can be summed up with a fearful, epic, monolithic, tumbling, black, monstrous ode to Fortune and her fateful wheel that spins us around. and so, in an effort to replicate life, Orff ends Carmina Burana the way it starts.



birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death birth youth bloom love sex death.

"Life ain't nothin' but bitches and money." -- Ice Cube, from "Gangsta Gangsta" on N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton.

download or watch.

Shania Twain- You're Still the One (live circa 2002)

I think this song speaks for itself.

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush (1978)

When Kate Bush was 18 years old, she caught the last 10 minutes of the 1970 film version of Wuthering Heights, and immediately afterwords read the entire book. Then, in a fit of creative passion, wrote this song in just a few hours one night, while watching moonlight stream in through her open bedroom window.

There's something so endearingly girlish about this, that, combined with the infectiously catchy melody and Kate Bush's particularly distinctive high voice, makes this song so delicious.



Apparently, Kate was really adamant about this song being the first single off her first album, The Kick Inside, despite the fact that her record label (who signed her because David Gilmour thought she ruled) wanted to use a different song. She held her ground and, of course, she was right and "Wuthering Heights" was huge.

The way the melody lilts and soars and dips and twirls and the silly bookish drama of the lyrics just... sounds like the way it feels to be a girl caught up in the romantic fancy of a sweeping love story.



I've never read Wuthering Heights, but now I kind of want to.