conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for music
January 20, 2007 at 2:08 am · Filed under friends, music, going out
It’s been quite a while since the Gang got together. In fact, I haven’t seen some of these people since August/September last year, or at least not all together. Things have mainly been individual lunches here or dinner there or coffee when we found the time. Tonight, in honor of a birthday, we gathered (all of us, almost) for a late dinner at Anthem. It’s always nice to try out a new eatery, especially one that I hadn’t even heard of before.
By the time everyone trickled in, we moved the conversations from the bar to our reserved table for 16. Along the way, like one of those handshake games where you go around and shake everyone’s hand exactly once, we all naturally fell into a ritual of chatting, clinking glasses, and going out of our ways to say hi to every person, even the one headed toward that far other end of the table. As I glanced all around me, I saw hugs, kisses, winks, happy laughing faces, and smiling faces who radiated back genuine happiness at seeing me, and each other, again.
I felt like I was in the final scene of those romantic comedies that come out around the holidays, where everyone’s gathered around a big table, laughing and happy, but you can’t make out what any of them are saying because warm and fuzzy music is playing, leading to the credits rolling. So this time, my life felt like a happy movie. The best part is that this is just the beginning, and not the conclusion of my movie.
Unfortunately, the night had to end with the restaurant playing The Scientist by Coldplay. I never really paid attention to the lyrics, nothing beyond the eerily haunting melody. Ironically, I looked up the lyrics just earlier today. They are quite sad, but somehow right for my life at just about now. I cut the night short (the others were all going out, albeit only having about an hour before last calls), wanting to come home instead and just curl up against my pillow with my book of the moment.
January 18, 2007 at 1:38 pm · Filed under life thoughts, music
A while ago, I discovered this song called Fairytale (童话). I remember this past summer when I would walk around all day with this song playing repeatedly on my newly-acquired iPod Nano. After a bit of a hiatus, I’m still equally addicted. After discovering last night that YouTube has the music video version of this song, I have just kept playing it in the background …
I think the sad-inducing song makes me feel better about life in general because it lets me wallow in my own self pity, which for whatever reason is what I really need and want to do right now. It makes me reflect and miss people … friends, family, relationships, people I wanted to have been in better touch with …
全世界都不理我的时候， 只有你不可以不理我。
September 20, 2006 at 12:21 am · Filed under music
I never find out about music on my own; I rely on my more musically savvy friends to keep me posted. They usually don’t disappoint. I just got an email from a friend announcing that two bands are coming to town: Death Cab for Cutie and Ani Difranco. My first choice would be to go see Death Cab for Cutie, but sadly (or not so sadly), I will still be in China when they come through on Nov 2. That leaves Ani Difranco …
Was I ever a fan of Ani Difranco? I don’t think I ever truly followed her, as much as I touted the angry white female sound of Alanis Morissette. I also didn’t know Ani Difranco was still out on the circuit. It must have been early high school years when she was hot on the scene. Ani, Alanis, Sarah MacLachlin … they were all around the same time of mid-90s, where they not? Though Sarah’s not angry, I sorta lump all three of them into the same era with similar fan bases.
Anyways, I can’t decide … Ani Difranco … to see or not to see?
August 17, 2006 at 6:32 pm · Filed under music
Liang, who is traveling through China this summer spreading aero/astro joy to Chinese students, introduced me to the forefront of asian pop through his latest, most illustrious blog entry. People, this is the cool of the cool. For someone as untrendy as I am, this is a huge step for me to actually know what’s popular! I’ve never felt so “in” :)
The song is 童话 by 光良, which I joked was essentially double “Liang” (see my comments on his entry). His entry also has instructions for how to download the song from baidu to listen for yourself. Apparently, this is what’s hitting China like a typhoon this summer (not literally, because Typhoon Saomai is no laughing matter).
The chorus of 童话 goes as follows:
我愿变成童话里
你爱的那个天使
张开双手
变成翅膀守护你
你要相信
相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局
Which roughly translates to: “I want to become the angel you love in the fairytales, open my arms and have them turn into the wings that will protect you. You need to believe, need to believe that we will have a happy fairytale ending.”
The full poetic eloquence in the simplicity of the lyrics and melody is lost in translation, but you get the gist of the chick-flick/romantic-comedy cheese :) That’s why we girls (and Liang) love it so much! And as Liang writes, “it’s sung from the point of view of a guy whose girlfriend is dying of cancer.” Awwwww, so bittersweet.
Gotta love the good-for-nothing-except-cheesy-karaoke asian pop :)
August 11, 2006 at 6:34 pm · Filed under music
Wait, where the f- have I been?? Guster’s playing the Bank of America Pavilion tonight and tomorrow night, and I find out through stupid Myspace?? Gosh, I am so clueless. I didn’t even know they were touring. Maybe this whole floating around with no direction thing really doesn’t work out so hot. I can’t believe I’m missing Guster.
March 3, 2006 at 2:01 am · Filed under music
My new favorite song: Damien Rice, Blower’s Daughter
Today was a mellow mood day. I woke up ecstatic that I no longer had a fever, tried not to crack a smile about last night, wondered why in the world I got a bike with an xsmall frame, got a slight temperature again in the early evening, cured it with some ice cream (and I act as if I have no idea why I have been packing on the pounds lately), and mellowed out for the rest of the night listening to above song on repeat (courtesy of a friend/acquaintance trying to get back with his ex-girlfriend). No work done, no problem sets graded, no recitations prepared, but lots of “can’t take my eyes off of you.”
The song has several mesmerizing cello pieces (during the chorus), and they remind me of my beloved Jump, Little Children. During these cello interludes, the only image that runs through my head is Ward with his goofy glasses, slightly nerdy lopsided tie, and a suit, playing the cello on the right-hand side of the stage. Someone asked me yesterday if I go to concerts often. My immediate response was no. Then, I thought about it, and I realized that I don’t go to non-J,LC concerts often. I have been to some 10-15 concert-like events (which is not very many, I admit, but hey I spent my college years attending Balls instead of concerts. Go on, call me musically uneducated … see if i care). Of those 10-15, ~5 are big musicfest-esque things, one was a Wallflowers concert way back when, and the remaining were all Jump concerts.
J,LC once upon a time played Dublin pubs back in the mid 90s hoping to make it big with their American-originated Irish sound. Damien Rice is Irish. These (co)incidences, taken together with some recent events, has gotten me thinking that maybe there is some kind of an Irish theme threading itself through my life …
January 30, 2006 at 11:28 am · Filed under music
And if I had a boat
I’d go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I’d ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat
- Lyle Lovett, If I Had a Boat
January 30, 2006 at 12:32 am · Filed under music
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
- Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
January 13, 2006 at 2:03 am · Filed under music
Searching around google in order to place “Afterlife” chronologically into Jump, Little Children’s music career, I came across this review of JLC’s show in Atlanta during their Farewell Tour this past fall. Reading this review immediately brought me back to New Year’s Eve: during a respite from drinking, my friend Ryan told me, through tear-filled eyes, the emotions behind the Dec 30th Jump show at Dock Street. Not unlike the emotions described in the review.
This naturally led me thinking back to the 29th, when I trotted down to Dock Street with friends myself (we weren’t cute enough to score Dec 30th tickets). I remember having my arms in front of me, on top of the old theater’s bannisters, with my chin on my arms, mesmerized . As song after song flowed from the stage, bits and pieces of the last 6-8 years of my life flashed before my eyes.
From dancing with My Guitar during our monthly dances in the Assembly Room, to the Govie compilation CD that I still have, to swaying in a circle of friends during Cathedrals at Jump’s Underdog Tour kickoff, to a first date, to awkward family friends at my first Dock Street, to shared interests with an English major, to anniversaries, to the black hole that is Boston, to weddings, but most of all to the dear friends who introduced me to JLC and with whom I have shared the music ever since.
If I were to make a soundtrack of my life from 11th grade to present, it would be full of Jump songs, not because the lyrics necessarily apply to my life, but because I associate very specific songs to specific events and life segments. Now that Jump has likely played their last show ever, I find that my soundtrack is ending too. Just before Christmas break, I remember telling a friend that I think the older I get, the more I feel that I have out-grown Jump. I said that I felt most of their fans are teeny-boppers, and because my fan-ship really grew out of high school when I was a teeny-bopper, I am losing touch with Jump.
After I said that, I felt like a traitor. I am glad that Dock Street completely threw my logic out the window and proved to me that I still love JLC as much as ever. However, I think the source of my love has switched from “I like their fun sound” to “I like the emotions and nostalgia their music invokes.” Inevitably, the end of Jump, Little Children leaves me feeling empty. How could I not? Someone just pulled the plug on the soundtrack of my life.
September 27, 2005 at 10:24 am · Filed under dating/relationships, music
“Sunrays And Saturdays” - Vertical Horizon
Open the window
Let the sunset in
If only for the last time
Let me see you smile again
I’ll take my records
You can have your books
I’m sorry I never read them
But it says so much about us
Always trying
To make love out of care
The perfect recipe
But something wasn’t there
Sunrays and Saturdays
Perfect starry nights
Sweet dreams and moonbeams
And a love that’s warm and bright
Sunrays and Saturdays
Friendship strong and true
Oceans of blue and a room with a view
To live the life you choose
You’ll write me letters
I’ll call you on the phone
A wire away from touching
And never quite alone
We’ll get to know ourselves again
And we’ll heal our hearts
It’s not that we’re bad together
We’re just better off apart
Always trying
To have one and one make two
And even though it never worked
I still feel love for you
I wish you
Sunrays and Saturdays
Perfect starry nights
Sweet dreams and moonbeams
And a love that’s warm and bright
Sunrays and Saturdays
Friendship strong and true
Oceans of blue and a room with a view
To live the life you choose
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