Fun And Heartbreak

Those streets of everywhere...

2008-12-01T23:10:00.001Z

For friends and lovers... loved, and lost

Missed, but remembered, 4 eva.

xxx

Just for you, because you're perfect...

2008-11-13T08:14:00.009Z

" Will you jump up here next to me?
The moon is close and warm and serene
And it's mine for you.
In this cave I have found just for us
Forget your fat it's a pillow soft for my neck
In this cave on the moon built for you
Just for you because you're perfect
O mental patch it swells and shudders
All your skin and hair in moonlight
With a hole in the roof
Where we can watch our planet circle away.
Will you touch the cave's cream stone walls?
Here I'll hold your tender years
And they're mine your youth is mine in this cave.
So jump up here onto the closer moon.
I'll have the food and downy warmth.
Your love will rear a family in this cave on the moon.
Where we can watch our planet circle away and come back.
In this cave on the moon. "

---

Auden, Blake, Browning, Burns... Fitzgerald...

---

it's a kind of slow, undignified torture isn't it?

ill-timed love, I mean?

for missed connections do not break my heart alone

my love, my moon

though you'll never know for sure

because a silent humour engulfs us

words ceaseless in fractured meanings

here waiting in my cave,

for you; your never great escape...

for you

(and pf, i knew your playfulness, i did. for you made me who i am)

xxx

[d, p, j]

My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels...

2008-11-02T04:05:00.003Z

I am not in the office at the moment. Yes please, with custard. My wimple appears to be stuck, and I would kindly request that all inquiries be directed here.

That's Alright Then

2008-10-22T21:31:00.000+01:00

Phew! I was worried a prospective Vice President of the U S of A didn't know anything about 'forrn' policy until I saw this.

Garbage - 'Stupid Girl' (1995)

Otterly Devastated

2008-09-25T02:54:00.005+01:00

Heartbreak this time. No, really. You see, this morning I heard the inconceivably sad news that Nyac, one of the Vancouver Aquarium's sea otters, had passed away at the age of twenty. She had had both a good innings and good luck; two score is a venerable age for an otter to reach and she had been rescued from the oily apocalypse that was the Exxon Valdez disaster. Along with her pal Milo, she had also become a celebrity; the YouTube video of the two lazily floating hand-in-hand on their backs catapulted them into the giddy stratosphere of the global mega-cute.

I was actually very fond of Nyac. We frequently visit the Vancouver Aquarium and we always stop by the otter tank. I am genuinely fascinated by the beasts and their seemingly familiar behaviours. I will even plead guilty to anthropomorphizing these maritime mustelids somewhat. But I think the real reason I'm feeling rather sad about Nyac's demise stems from temps perdu. One of my fondest memories of my first trip to the city I now call home was visiting the aquarium and marvelling at the charismatic Nyac and Milo. I was in love with Dearest Wife-to-Be, in love with the wonderful Pacific Coast, and in love with Vancouver. Each subsequent visit with Nyac & Milo brought back echoes of the breathless freshness of that moment. And I guess now I'm afraid it'll be that little bit harder to recapture that memory.

Goodbye, Dearest Nyac.

Box Codax - I Swam With The Otter (buy here or e-here)

Is Fun & Heartbreak Dead?

2008-09-19T13:50:00.000+01:00

Or is it just 'resting'?

Fleet Foxes - 'Quiet Houses' (2008)

Where Are They Now?

2008-08-19T05:45:00.003+01:00

After those last two gems, I bet you're all wondering whatever happened to The Muppets and those who rolled with them. Well, here's a partial answer:

After the Muppets' regular TV appearances petered out in the late 1990s, Dr Teeth left house band The Electric Mayhem to start his own strip club. Beaker replaced him on vocal duties and took the band in a grittier, more brutal direction. The group abandoned their psychedelic blues-funk in favour of a harder, death-metal sound, and they achieved minor chart success in Latvia with their cover of Cryptopsy's jaunty "Mutant Christ." In a 2002 interview with Kerrang!, Animal was quoted as saying: "Fucking hell, I waited thirty years for this shit."

Oh Goodness, Look What You've Done...

2008-07-12T00:51:00.003+01:00

It's not my fault. If Davy hadn't posted wot he did below, I wouldn't have gone back in time to Sesame Street and none of this would have happened.

They Called At My Stage Door

2008-07-11T13:03:00.003+01:00

My girlies discovered this recently, but I am old enough to remember it from the first time around.

Genius bit at the end when he phones it in.

Am I barred yet?

He Called At My Door

2008-06-27T06:07:00.004+01:00

He's back. Bugger.

Nick Drake - Black Eyed Dog

hey you!

2008-05-24T18:04:00.008+01:00

Thank goodness our dear Colin resurfaced last week, because I was just about to summon him from beneath his bed with this:

Underwater Getdown--"Hey" mp3 off Supersymmetry

But now I don't have to. :)

Fun And Heartbreak - 1:08

2008-05-14T22:03:00.003+01:00

Yes, yes, I've been watching this AGAIN.

mid life crisis ? what mid life crisis ?

2008-05-10T09:50:00.006+01:00

so that's it never again gone goodbye finished. i know i'll be tempted. i'll think this time it'll be different this time it'll be fine but i'll remember last night and order another large one and stay right where i am. fat and bald and grey and saggy and shoddy and terrible dancing and clapping along for fucks sake. it was the clapping along that did it. and the being stuck right at the back without the tiniest view cos we were late and the bus had taken forever. but the clapping sealed it. and the seeing myself reflected perfectly in all the past it sad old soaks who think they've still got it.

dexys midnight runners - burn it down

i want it back

2008-05-05T16:27:00.000+01:00

I want it back. I want everything back that I ever gave you. I want every minute and every word and every fucking song and every good thought and every prayer I ever prayed and every god damn fucking thing I ever said to you or hoped for you or wished would happen for you. I want it back. It doesn't mean anything to you. Nothing I felt or said or did ever mattered to you in the least. The only person it ever meant anything to was me, and I want it all back.

Devotchka--"Curse Your Little Heart"

More fun, less heartbreak...

2008-05-01T20:17:00.002+01:00

...and what better way than with the funnies.

Ladies and gents: Clowntime Comics!

Scroll through the archives. Embrace the work-a-day boredom.

a copy of a copy of a copy

2008-05-01T06:35:00.002+01:00

More of the heartbreak and less of the fun here, lately. But it's new, at least. To be heartbroken over a life you once had. And not an actual person. But now there's this nothingness. It's just a hole where what you did and thought and knew everyday is gone. There was no lover's quarrel. There was no infidelity. There was no wandering eye. There were no sparks that ceased to set off. It was there, and now it's not. No other flesh and blood to blame. Only myself. And I'm a lousy student.

get it together now

2008-04-27T10:20:00.002+01:00

i miss you people.

fontella bass and bobby mcclure - don't mess up a good thing

x

teardrops

2008-04-26T08:56:00.002+01:00

i'm sorry i haven't a clue

Try some of this

2008-04-20T11:36:00.003+01:00

Dear Friends,

I've not posted here for a long while. I've been neither ecstatically happy nor mind-numbingly down, and I never wanted to say something just for the sake of it.

But today, with some time on my hands, I've been reading a few things that have been written by some of you in recent days and weeks. You know who you are.

I hope this helps:-

mp3 : The Beloved - Up, Up And Away (Happy Sexy Mix)

With much love,

JC
xxxx

Picture

2008-04-20T02:01:00.003+01:00

A picture of Alki that reminds me of Rothko.

the saddest songs in the world ?

2008-04-19T09:26:00.002+01:00

they're over at the walrus apparently. i need more convincing but there's a few killers.

maths

2008-04-19T08:15:00.004+01:00

this marvelous but terrifying thing by our dear pal bltp made me want to do a fun and heartbreak one but i'm far too useless at maths graphics computers and innumerable other things so i'll have to kind of just talk you through it. with helpful records for illustration. bugger it i'll just play you the records and you can work it out for yourselves...

free design - bubbles

the ronettes - i wish i never saw the sunshine

and now let's try that again to make sure we've got it

i'm starting to think about organising my records like this. not that i actually will obviously. that'd be ridiculous.
x
ps
there's loads more graphs - most of them rubbish to be honest here

Love Letter

2008-04-06T00:28:00.004+01:00

Dearest Ally, look what you've made me do...

Round our house, Dearest Wife usually does the cooking and I do the washing up - seems only fair. While scrubbing and drying, I often have the radio tuned to the Canadian Broadcasting Centre's CBC Radio One, which (NB: Facile Comparison Alert) is rather like a blend of four parts NPR, two parts BBC Radio 4, and one part BBC Radio 2.

The 8:45 to 9:00 weekday evening slot is occupied by Outfront, a programme that features stories told and recorded by listeners. And I find each episode either poignant, or hilarious, or revelatory, or distressing, or life-affirming. Or sometimes all of these.

I want to share last Tuesday's story, a splendid weave of words and music, with you right here. It is for everyone who believes in life and believes in love. It's also for those who need to believe in life and believe in love.

And when these songs came on, I danced in front of the sink, casserole in hand...

The Pixies - La La Love You (buy here)
James - Laid (buy here)

Failure

2008-03-23T20:45:00.004Z

The last embrace. It is leaving. That smile and laugh. The simplicity. It is leaving you sat on the lonely king-sized bed. And there is nothing you can do. You've done it all. Thrown your life down, and, if its not enough then surely this is for the best?

So why do I feel this pain?

Camera Obscura - Country Mile [via YouSendIt for 7 days]

silly things to do

2008-03-22T09:34:00.006Z

well it's sure gone quiet over here lately so let's kick things off again with a bit of something funny. half past six monday to friday on bbc radio four is usually time to cringe and swear at posh idiots being irritating and smug as hell but occasionally there are lumps of brilliance like 'i'm sorry i haven't a clue'. my day always goes better if i start it with a bit of a giggle so i hope this works for you too
x
i'm sorry i haven't a clue - with barry cryer, graeme garden,, tim brooke-taylor, jeremy hardy, and humphrey lyttleton

Who Is This?

2008-03-04T06:09:00.003Z

Right now I'm really not sure of who I am...

X-Ray Spex - Identity (buy here)

Country Western Singer

2008-02-26T16:44:00.004Z

I used to feel like a new man
After the day's first brew.
But then the new man I became
Would need a tall one too.

As would the new man he became,
And the new one after him
And so on and so forth till the new men made
The dizzy room go dim.

And each one said, I'll be your muse,
I'll trade you song for beer:
He said, I'll be your salt lick, honey,
If you will be my deer.

He said, I'll be your happy hour,
And you, boy, you'll be mine
And mine won't end at six or seven
Or even at closing time.

Yes, son, I'll be your spirit guide;
I'll lead you to Absolut,
To Dewers, Bushmills, and Jamisons,
Then down to Old Tangle Foot.

And there I'll drain the pretense from you
That propped you up so high;
I'll teach you salivation's just
Salvation without the I.

To hear his sweet talk was to think
You'd gone from rags to riches,
Till going from drink to drink became
Like going from hags to bitches,

Like going from bed to barroom stool,
From stool to bathroom stall,
From stall to sink, from sink to stool,
From stool to hospital.

Now the monitors beep like pinball machines,
And coldly the IV drips;
And a nurse runs a moistened washcloth over
My parched and bleeding lips,

And the blood I taste, the blood I swallow
Is as far away from wine
As 5:10 is for the one who dies
At 5:09.

Wilco - A Shot In The Arm (Mp3)

before and after

2008-02-20T13:05:00.012Z

I had to make a choice, and I decided to let the song do the talking.

Greenland--"Breakin' Down"

Too Close

2008-02-13T21:22:00.002Z

I haven't met you yet. I'm out the door,
late for a bus, suitcase spilling open,
disgorging my life so far.

I won't be needing it, but don't know that yet.
Bus driver, go slowly around the bends
of dream so as not to wake me.

But don't fall asleep yourself, no matter how empty
the landscape of childhood seems.
There is dust on the dust

of the past. Through my reflection, I look
out the window onto nothing:
a fence full of tumbleweeds

trying to keep a vast emptiness off empty highway.
The past takes forever to cross. Bus driver,
don't drive so near the river —

or is that an irrigation ditch? Is that thunder
I hear, or engine trouble?
It never rained in the past.

Love, am I on my way to you? It will take years
of nights like this for me to arrive.

Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine (Mp3)

it's no small trick to beat beat the pessimistic motherfucker sleeping inside your head, or me and jane wyman, we were right

2008-02-11T15:27:00.001Z

I was right. God damn it, I was right all along. At the time I thought I was losing my mind and it nearly killed me. Hollowed me out and crushed me and unraveled everything I thought was true. But it turns out I was right. Woo hoo.

Cloud Cult--"We Made Up Your Mind For You" mp3 and "That Man Jumped Out the Window" mp3 off Advice From the Happy Hippopotamus

walking through walls.

2008-02-09T23:19:00.001Z

how to disappear completely
by radiohead [kid a, 2000]

whenever i hear this song, it reminds me of these simple but special moments in my life. from the very first time i heard it all by myself, alone and quiet, feeling motionless if everything that once seemed so hectic was still and frozen in time. then i remember.. surreal like a movie on a rainy warm late night, sitting with old friends inside a car on the side of a boston city street, listening in comfortable heartfelt beautiful silence and believing in that understanding which only comes over when all that truly matters is the people that you're with. and now bittersweet, no matter how hard sometimes i try to forget that time peacefully laying down in a white nyc hotel featherbed with a secret crush before going to radiohead at madison square garden, dreaming of them playing and an hour later... seeing this song performed live.

a tale i find heartbreaking...

2008-02-05T23:10:00.000Z

If you don't know it, just listen.

mp3 : Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

We love and we lie

2008-01-31T01:00:00.000Z

Apart from a few local write-ups in the Portland Mercury there's not really much out there about Kele Goodwin yet, which is understandable I suppose since his entire recorded output consists of a series of handmade EPs, enclosed in cardstock that he sews together with his own sewing machine and then passes out free at his gigs. The few things I've read about him have name-dropped Nick Drake right at the outset, and that's fair enough I guess. There certainly is something in the intimacy of the tunes and the timbre of Kele's voice that recalls Nick Drake at his most reserved, but to me the comparison doesn't stretch much further than that. It's a subtle difference in mood that strikes me most. When I hear Nick Drake's music I think of Tamworth, gray skies, green lawns and cold fingers, whereas Kele's music puts me in mind of the American west, with its immense blue skies, painted deserts, and arid heat. It's intimate, yes, but it's also expansive, if that makes sense. It has much to do with environment I'm sure. Kele Goodwin is originally from Alaska and spent some of his younger years on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. He's not technically a part of that whole "Nevada City scene" that produced the amazing Alela Diane and Mariee Sioux, but he belongs in their company. Well, y'all can judge for yourselves I guess.

I've had the pleasure of exchanging a few emails with Kele and he was kind enough to send me these two tracks. That's Laura Gibson who sings with him on "A Kiss For Your Eyes," and apparently she'll also be providing backing vocals on much of his forthcoming "semi self produced" full-length, which he's working on right now with help from Sean Ogilvie of Tristeza and Musee Mecanique. Laura Gibson records on HUSH Records here in the States and has several terrific albums of her own out, most of which are available on eMusic, iTunes, Amazon, etc. I can especially recommend her 2006 record called "If You Come To Greet Me."

Well, I hope you enjoy these. I think they're beautiful.

Kele Goodwin: A Kiss For Your Eyes
Kele Goodwin: The Days Debt To Sunrise

Photo of Kele Goodwin by James Beucler

am left speechless

2008-01-30T00:44:00.000Z

it's not just about fun and heartbreak after all

or the music

it's about hope

it's about change

i hear JFK, MLK, JJ

yet he has his own passion, determination, focussed 'voice'

please, pinch me someone

is this happening?

am left speechless

[with thanks to myshele, one of my most brilliant phd students, for passing this my way]

ps, please, watch it all

no chance to say goodbye

2008-01-28T13:58:00.000Z

I work at a rehabilitation clinic that cares primarily for cancer patients, mainly women with breast cancer. We see a lot of women who are very sick, who are coping the best they can with the ravages that this disease can wreak on their bodies. Sometimes, even though they've fought the good fight, they die, and it's terribly sad.

We also work with other people. People who have non-life-threatening conditions but who can benefit from the treatment we give. Some of them are young and otherwise healthy and can expect to live long and normal lives.

We got a call the other day from the emergency room at the local hospital. They had a man in there and the only card he had in his wallet was ours. They wanted to know if we had an emergency contact for him. From the way they asked for the information, it was clear the situation was serious. We said, yes, and gave them the number. Then we waited.

It was bad. It was the worst, actually. He'd died very suddenly--we think it was some kind of industrial or work-related accident. We were stunned. He'd just been in the night before for therapy. He was a smiling, sweet, extremely nice man who couldn't have been more than 35 years old. And now he was gone.

I can't stop thinking about him, how in an instant his life was over, how his wife and children will be forever changed--damaged--by this horrible event, this loss, this robbery of life.

Edie Brickell--"Lost in the Moment" mp3 off Picture Perfect Morning

is this a song of sadness....or a song of joy?

2008-01-27T20:08:00.000Z

This is a posting about a song called My Sister by Tindersticks.

It's someone's life (I have no reason to believe it is anything other than fictitious) captured in a song, from childhood to death. One person's brush with violence, arson, disability, under-age sex, more violence and ultimately, a tragedy. By rights it should be a song of utter desolation and sadness...and if I listen to it alone when drunk, the tears will flow.

But when I hear it played live in concert surrounded by hundreds of other Tindersticks fans, I find myself almost spiritually uplifted by it. It's an incredible piece of music, filled with strings and horns, underpinned by Stuart Staples rich baritone near-spoken delivery. The song becomes a celebration of life itself, and the happiness that folk can find in the most trying of circumstances:-

"Do you remember my sister?
How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes?
I couldn't work it out.

I swear she could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one glance.

Maybe she was stripping herself away, saying
Here I am, this is me I am yours and everything about me, everything you see... If only you look hard enough I never could.

Our life was a pillow-fight. We'd stand there on the quilt, our hands clenched ready.
Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age, and a Stanley knife in her hand.
She sliced the tyres on my bike and I couldn't forgive her.

She went blind at the age of five.
We'd stand at the bedroom window and she'd get me to tell her what I saw.
I'd describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open that Dad was always going to fix.

She'd stand there quiet for a moment.
I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head.

Then she'd say:
I can see little twinkly stars, like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows. Rings of brightly coloured rocks floating around orange and mustard planets. I can see huge tiger striped fishes chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes, all tails and fins and bubbles.

I'd look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains.

She burned down the house when she was ten.
I was away camping with the scouts.
The fireman said she'd been smoking in bed - the old story, I thought.

The cat and our mum died in the flames, so Dad took us to stay with our Aunt in the country.
He went back to London to find us a new house. We never saw him again.

On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our Aunt's garden and broke her head.
She'd been drinking heavily.

On her recovery her sight returned, a fluke of nature everyone said.
That's when she said she'd never blink again.

I would tell her when she started at me,
With her eyes wide and watery,
That they reminded me of the well she fell into.
She liked this, it made her laugh.

She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all muscles he was.
He lost his job when it all came out, and couldn't get another one.
Not in that kind of small town. Everybody knew everyone else's business.

My sister would hold her head high, though. She said she was in love.

They were together for five years until one day he lost his temper.
He hit her over the back of the neck with his bullworker.
She lost the use of the right side of her body.
He got three years and was out in fifteen months.

We saw him a while later,
He was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town.
I don't think he recognised her.

My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time.
She'd get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand.
She'd laugh like mad because it didn't hurt.
Her left hand was pretty good though.

We'd have arm wrestling matches.
I'd have to use both arms and she'd still beat me.

We buried her when she was 32.
Me and my Aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole.
She said she didn't want to be cremated
And wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly.
She said she liked the idea of it, though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat and our mum."

I think one of the reasons this song affects me so much is that I have a godson who, at the age of five, went blind and ended up in a wheelchair with little or no use of his left side after an accident. We were told his life expectancy would be early teens, if we were lucky.

He's now 16 years of age - still blind and still in his wheelchair. He's a real cheery sort most of the time, albeit his dad reminds me that he is a teenager with all the tantrums that come with being that age. While I was in Canada, he was chosen by a charity to highlight their latest appeal - and his face appeared on loads of advertising billboards. He also appeared in this TV commercial:-

I'm very very proud of him. His name really is Kevin.

But the song....it makes me realise that he won't ever have what the rest of us would classify as a normal life.

mp3 : Tindersticks - My Sister (Mark Radcliffe Show - BBC Radio 1 - 8th March 1995)

Fun And Heartbreak: Unique Genius

2008-01-25T18:56:00.000Z

A musician who's spent his entire life trying to get a record deal is feeling extremely depressed. He's been turned down by every record company he's ever contacted. No one seems to recognize his unique genius. So, he decides to kill himself, and comes up with an ingenious plan to get back at all the record companies who've rejected him all of his life. He books time at a recording studio, and instructs the sound engineer to record everything he says, and every sound he hears, and then copy it all onto 500 CDs, and send one to every record company executive on the list that he hands the engineer.

The guy walks into the vocal booth; the red light is on, and he begins...."This is a message for all you sycophantic, talentless, stupid record company assholes who've ignored me for all these years. I've dedicated my life to writing and performing beautiful, emotive, soul-touching music, and all you bastards do is discard my tapes, and sign these horrible, no-talent, ridiculous, stupid bands, and these filthy, dirty rappers! Well, you bunch of fuckin' morons; you dumb pricks, I've taken all I can of your puerile, shallow industry, and it's YOU who've driven me to this! Goodbye you fuckin' murderers of art!" With that, he places a gun to his head and blows his brains out.

The sound engineer looks up from the console, hits the talk-back button, and says, "Okay, that's fine. I've got a good level...let's go for one."

Hamell on Trial - Downs (Mp3)

Mr Burns Night

2008-01-25T12:04:00.000Z

Hey! It's a great big howdy doody to all of my Scotch friends up there in Scotchland and all over the world who are celebrating the birthday of Springfield's evilest nuclear plant owner again today! I so totally love you crazy Scotch with your haggis and deep fried Mars bars, your cute little parliament and all that rain!!! You guys are the best!!! I'm wearing my Pitlochry knitwear today just for you!

Have a great nite!! This tune's just for you!

.
The Jesus & Mary Chain - Happy When It Rains mp3 (3:37)

Promises

2008-01-24T14:30:00.000Z

I will not let anyone make any promises to me. A promise is a huge declaration that is often thrown around like confetti. No consideration for the impact, effects or how they fall, scatter and ultimately become discarded.

Words will conjure something really quite trying, laden with pressure and expectations very easily. A promise will fall from the lips to be lapped up by the recipient.

When promises are used for things as banal and trivial as doing the washing up or remembering to take out fish to defrost, then how can they suddenly transform into something with such a powerful magnitude as to mend a shattered dream or crystallise an undeliverable future?

A promise is just a way of alerting to someone how you will probably disappoint them. For my brain will retain the promise. Hold on to it. Make any deviation away from the promise an immediate blight on myself. You realise it’s the way of the world. People will let you down. So don’t promise.

I can’t make promises to anyone else. Not anymore. The hurt transfers itself into guilt.

All I’ll promise to do is try. Like I do every single day.

I hold myself up for you.

Cut Copy - Autobahn Music Box [via YouSendIt for 7 days]

the use of the word heart...with a bit of fun thrown in

2008-01-23T20:27:00.000Z

It was a great fear of mine when responding in the affirmative to Comrade Colin's request to contribute to Fun And Heartbreak that I would find myself out of my depth somewhat. And I kind of think sometimes that I am.....

I have a load of things that would be appropriate under 'Heartbreak', but unless prompted by something else, I find it difficult to put words to paper.

I read what others contribute with huge admiration - not just for the brutal frankness of what is said, but for the stylish prose adopted.

Above all else, I find it near-impossible to contribute something frivolous on the back of the posts that have been left behind this past few days. I hope I've allowed enough time to heal any emotional scars as I want to share a great little song about being in love with life with all of you:-

mp3 : Hey! Elastica - Eat Your Heart Out (12" version)

Hey! Elastica were from Edinburgh, and were part of a glorious age of Scottish pop in the early 1980s that rode on the back of the critical acclaim afforded to Orange Juice. Three singles and one album - all of which flopped. They've long been forgotten by almost everyone. But not me.

Enjoy.

please, take this heart of mine

2008-01-21T17:34:00.000Z

After reading mulrine's post "just one of many . . ." I couldn't stop thinking of this song.

Please

I don't need your enchanting words
that keeps on falling from your mouth
your mouth with your lips
these lips I used to kiss
these lips are no longer mine

like your words once were meant for me
now these words aren't meant to be
but you still give them to me
cos you don't need this
and you don't need me

so I won't love you
won't you please hold this heart of mine
take it, keep it, no need to cherish it
I'm not begging you to embrace

I'm not begging at all
I'm just simply asking, all nice and politely
to take this from me
it's been yours to have and hold
all through this time
and I've made up my mind
I won't love you
so I won't need this

Munck//Johnson--"Please" mp3 off Unlike You

Just one of many..

2008-01-20T22:01:00.000Z

For the years that you've inhabited this little world in this epoch of wholly instrumental people, with great consistency you have let those you love break your heart.

You'll just hang it up, publicly, for all of those that can see you, largely you detest them, but a small few, you adore. With heavy consideration and intense formation of intimacy, its there. There is nothing you wouldn't do, no length to please too far, no minuscule detail too trivial as to not remember.

So why is it not enough?

Maybe you've become too complacent. Maybe all the intrigue is gone, leaving predictability and a shallow future landscape. Maybe you've put too much weight on and the stress and turmoil has aged your young face. Maybe you have managed to drive him away, again.

You carry the difficult burden of your past. As everyone does. So you seek simplicity, praise and love. You ache, pine and hurt on a moment-to-moment basis. But for him you'll hide it all. You'll dress all pain and smile for him. But as you do, he'll forget. He'll stop seeing you with that glint. And the consideration you once craved above all else has died so long ago you can't even pinpoint it.

You carry on holding your heart out in public. For it is the only thing you know. If you even wished you could rip it down.

I've come to realise that 'different' and 'special' are two very separate and different things. And I now know that I'm only the former. Definately not the latter.

Rads

2008-01-19T01:00:00.000Z

So there was this very bad morning--August 29, 2005, the same day Hurricane Katrina hit--when I discovered that my body had betrayed me. In the long whirlwind months that followed, my vocabulary was involuntarily expanded to encompass many scary new words, words with harsh consonant sounds like neoplasm and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. I learned some important lessons about the physiology of nausea, I took pills that cost $1000 a bottle, I dwelt on mortality (although I was only 36), I lost 20 pounds. And I lost my love of music. Completely lost it, for nearly 6 months. Today, when I hear the songs I was listening to then (Acid House Kings, I'm talking about you), my gorge literally rises from the aversion I developed. It doesn’t go away. And I'm afraid I’ll never quite get over it. Something broke.

Echo & The Bunnymen: The Disease (buy here)

i want to be...

2008-01-16T00:12:00.000Z

plain and simple fun, this one.
tinkly electric pop to bring a smile to your face, no matter what the weather.

(fun for some, heartbreak for others. but once again, another story best left for another day.)

Jim Noir - Key Of C (3.25)

I Read This And I Thought Of You

2008-01-15T09:21:00.000Z

"When I listen to a Tom Waits record, I want to go and make a record. I get happy. It sounds like so much fun. Not like rollercoaster fun, more like breaking a window kind of fun. More like joining the French Foreign Legion kind of fun" - Frank Black*

(*From his Foreword to this, which is warming my heart nicely on these cold, wet winter nights).

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs mp3 (2:57)

Hey! This one's fun!

2008-01-13T20:09:00.000Z

This is Canned Hamm, Vancouver's finest. And I'm frankly disappointed with FiL for having held out on us. Sure, Joy Division is OK, but...

I think last night you were driving circles around me . . .

2008-01-13T13:56:00.000Z

I've never been a huge Throwing Muses fan for some reason, but this song always leaves me speechless. Like now, for instance.

Kristin Hersh: Your Ghost (please buy Hips and Makers)

I never knew how weak I was...

2008-01-13T06:33:00.000Z

-
I sat in the kitchen
Without a fire on the range
I knew this house had lost the cause
To ever make me warm again
-
This song is almost too sad to play, if that's even possible. There are many associations that can (and do) accompany this piece of music, the lyrics, different layers, interpretations, meanings, some of which are very personal to me and could never be shared here or anywhere else, I'm afraid to say. Sometimes you just need to keep things to yourself, for fear that once spilled they won't fit back into the shoebox under the stairs that's labelled 'pain and hurt: do not open'. But even at face value, if this song is entirely new to you, it should leave a visible lump in your throat. We hear the voice of a woman, having lost her man to some righteous and noble cause, contemplating a future without him. She is lost, alone, frightened... and angry. The tears on her cigarette telling their own story. For he will remain young, touched by the hand of some kind of greater glory, whilst the years will bear heavy on her until she can lie beside him, 'where the rose was flung'. We learn that she has a child growing inside her, one that he will never meet, hold, smile at, play with. It is just one of the most haunting songs I can think of, capturing the essence of youth, death, loss, longing... all hope snatched away... and the title of the song is just such a heart-wrenching direct plea - 'come back to me' - something that took on a further meaning in December 2001 when Stuart Adamson, Big Country's Manchester-born lead singer, was found dead with a cord around his neck...
-
To be played with some caution, occasionally...
-
Big Country - Come back to me mp3 (4.56)
(via YouSendIt)
-
Stuart Adamson RIP (1958-2001)
-
Big Country - website / Track taken from this 1984 LP
-

no words

2008-01-11T17:57:00.000Z

Broken Social Scene--"Pitter Patter Goes My Heart" mp3 off You Forgot It in People

I'm In The Mood For Ska

2008-01-11T05:40:00.000Z

Prince Buster on Orange Street

Right, enough with the sad, back to some fun. And nothing shouts out "fun!" to me more than ska. My introduction to the genre came through the 2 Tone revival bands - you know, like Madness, The Specials, The Selecter, Bad Manners etc. But it's really the old skool stuff that makes me ache with joy. It all seems so insouciant, so innocent, and just so plain happy. Plus the warmth and fidelity of the recordings add a lovely varnish of rose-coloured nostalgia.

Oh, can't stand it any longer - I'm off for a bit of a dance. Anyone care to join me??

Lord Tanamo - I'm In The Mood For Ska (buy here, if they get more in stock...)
Prince Buster - Madness (buy here)
Shenley Duffus - Rukumbine (ripped by me for you from this bit of vinyl cuz I love you all)

Oh, Heavy

2008-01-10T20:58:00.000Z

So here's The Battle of Land and Sea, who I mentioned in passing in my last post. They're based in Portland, Oregon (and let's face it, who isn't these days?), and they have a self-titled 8-track CD coming out in about a week on notenuf records. They'll be doing a short tour of the East Coast this week and will be hitting Baltimore but flagrantly discriminating against DC. Last I knew they were a two-piece, consisting of Sarah O'Shura on vocals/acoustic guitar and Joshua Canny on electric guitar, but lately I've noticed that Sarah has appeared alone in "band" photos, and their write-up on the notenuf website certainly makes it look and sound like this is primarily the O'Shura show. Which is fine, because she's quite the talent. I'm sorry if I seem a little fixated on this whole gently-strummed-guitar-pretty-hushed-vocals thing, but dammit! I'm an unreformed sentimentalist and I just can't enough of this shit. So here's "Saltwater Queen," which will be song 1, side 1 of their new record. It's right purty, I think you'll agree.

The Battle of Land and Sea: Saltwater Queen

Also, in case you're interested there's a short video on youtube of the band playing and talking about their inspiration for this song in an appropriately bucolic setting.

Bus Journeys

2008-01-10T20:14:00.000Z

Everyone has posted lots. I might be cowering slightly.

So, I find bus journeys to create a huge amount of emotional turmoil for me. I look around at the faces of dissatisfaction, aged and run-down by a life of the relentless pursuit to just break even.

Queuing in the cold at some ridiculous time of the early morning. Bleary-eyed, not at all prepared for the day ahead of some monotonous, soul-crushing, awkward job that will pay barely much more than minimum wage. Early morning cleaners, hospital porters, playworkers and dinnerladies, factory workers.

Cramped into a dilapidated vehicle, that should have been condemned in the 90's. The silence is only eased by the creaking of the bus. Heads drooped down with the occasional glance towards a window of condensation. No signs of mental preparation for the day ahead, but, why bother for the sorts of standards they are expected to upkeep, turning up is good enough.

In a moving tunnel coughs, sneezes and sniffs are echoed throughout. Germs and illness are part of the health hazard of those living in poverty or in low paid jobs. But these are not jobs that allow for any time off. If you are disposable you hang in the balance. The sickness spread is carried on through. Because above all else, missing out on a days wage is not an option.

The standards of living within Britain, many feel, are something to cherish. But not when you are on the underside of that trying to achieve those basic standards.

Living in a comfortable life of affluence can give a bubble of ignorance. You don't see this. You don't ride the buses, walk the dangerous streets, live in the worthless terraced houses. This is it. This is the difficulty that can never be shook off. They dress the same, they look the same, they read the same news, they are effected by the same politics, they strive to own the same products. But they live a life in which they will fall short. Lie awake thinking of debt. Wonder for their childrens future whilst they work their second or third job. And are demonised by those whom are supposed to extend a helping hand to them.

These are the people I ride the buses with and it makes me weep inside.

I blast music into my ears to make it a possibility to deal with.

Jackson and His Computer Band - Rock On [unfortunately via MySpace]

There ain't no sanity clause

2008-01-10T16:51:00.001Z

'Right now I'm looking around for the right words
For all you special gorgeous things
Oh, don't you know they only make those pop records out of plastic? '

mp3 : The Jazz Butcher - Southern Mark Smith

With thanks to my friend Jacques the Kipper for bringing the song to my attention away back in 1993, and to whoever Bollops is for doing the mock LP cover over at flickr.com

Oh, em I should make it clear that this is not a sad-off entry....just in case anyone gets the wrong idea.

holy spicoli!

2008-01-09T22:00:00.000Z

Holy Spicoli, you dudes are warming the cockles of my heart with your awesome response to the sad-off! I just had to say thank you and keep it coming. Never has it been so much fun to be so sad . . .

Tobias Froberg--"Thank You" mp3 off Somewhere in the City

I Thought That We Would Wear Our Matching Scarves Forever

2008-01-09T17:05:00.000Z

Is it possible to be giddy with melancholy?

A few months ago I was absent-mindedly trolling around myspace looking at the profile of a group from Portland I'd come to admire called The Battle of Land and Sea. I noticed this polaroid in their friend list. Hmmm. The Other Also? Interesting name. Perhaps I'll just give a little click. A momentous decision.

"I thought that we would wear our matching scarves forever / Stars exist the naked eye won't see / But as far as I can estimate I've lost myself in the worst of ways / Patching holes in my sinking ship at sea. / But believe when I say / My heart was in the right place / But my mind was in the gutter / Stuck with leaves of Fall."

Well, sheeeiiiit! My heart was broken. All from such simplicity. Fingers gently gliding over strings and the voice of an angel. A primal reaction. I was touched, exhilarated with sadness.

All thanks to George Lewis III, who is based in Los Angeles and a really nice man. I ordered his 3-song EP, "Broken Clocks," which is now available on iTunes and well worth every penny, and he tells me he's recording 8 new songs. He also plays guitar and Wurlitzer and sings in a really good band called Allegra Gellar. Check them all out. And try to enjoy your sorrow.

The Other Also: Leaves of Fall

A Sad Six

2008-01-09T15:18:00.000Z

Fuel for the fires.

It's Immaterial - The Better Idea (Mp3)
Arnold - Oh My (Mp3)
The Bathers - Sundown And Longing (Mp3)
Gary Clark - Baby Blue No. 2 (Mp3)
Bee and Flower - Riding On Empty (Mp3)
The Blue Nile - High (Mp3)

Oh! Caledonia

2008-01-09T10:35:00.000Z

Well. Blogging then. OK, we'll give it a whirl. Apparently my New Years' resolution for 2008 is to spend a lot more time on the computer. Not precisely what my wife had in mind I expect, but I suppose we must follow our bliss.

Kind Colin, dear man and great humanitarian that he is, has in a regrettable moment of impulsiveness invited me to experience (and even spread a bit of my own) Fun And Heartbreak. I've explained to him that I'm a bit of an imbecile, and I have serious doubts as to whether he obtained the proper advance clearances from the Fun And Heartbreak Steering Committee; but the die is now cast, and I'll do my best to vindicate his faith in me, however misplaced.

I begin with a tribute. Since I first began to cop a bloggitude about a year ago now, there've been two fellers who have particularly floored me with their words and musical generosity: the aforementioned Colin, oh melancholy man, with whom I share an abiding love for all things Chameleon; and everyone's favorite amphibian Matthew, whose passionate honesty, drunkenness and acerbity is an inspiration to us all. It is through them that I first insinuated myself into this beautiful community, and for that I'm truly grateful. Curious that many of my favorite blogs are Scottish (cheers JC, Ed & Beth). At first I thought it might be something in the water, but I see that water is not a beverage with much hold on the Scottish imagination. Instead, there must be something in the black Costa coffee, Tanqueray and vodka.

At any rate, here's a toast to Colin and Matthew, the Twa Corbies, and here's to Scotland, the Athens of 57 degrees N longitude. Drink 'em down, drink 'em down. So much for the fun. Now on to the heartbreak.

Ray & Archie Fisher: Twa Corbies
The Wake: Melancholy Man
Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Man

Contextual

2008-01-08T22:20:00.000Z

The saddest song. Is the saddest song the one with the saddest lyrics or is it the one with the darkest sound?

I think you can make a case for the saddest song being the one with the saddest context. Nine Inch Nails wrote a dark song (and also a sad song) called Hurt. The video and the music conveyed a sense of the artistic and of the spectacle of sadness. However, the song never reached the nadir (the zenith?) of pathos (even bathos?) until it was sung by Johnny Cash several years later.

Accompanied by a solo guitar the great country singers failing voice is not just heard but also felt. His illness ravaged voice and dying body saturate every note. He almost speaks the words rather than sing them. The words take on so much more meaning when sung by a dying man whose career in music is almost over.

I have never teared up for a video, but Hurt does it every time, every single time, again and again it reminds me of our bodies' fragility and its inability to maintain us... the tragic made human. The universal artistic held for a few brief years in this vessel that is us.

Johnny Cash: Hurt

PS man, now I'm depressed, I am going to read some Nietzche and get me a 7-UP.

say it ain't so joe say it ain't so

2008-01-08T12:32:00.000Z

if you're planning anything that doesn't involve crying your poor heart out till you just can't cry no more for gawds sake don't play this tune. really. just walk away now. and never play it with children present. ever. they'll be destroyed. innocence and joy lost forever.
don't say you haven't been warned.

peter,paul and mary - puff the magic dragon

Sad-Off: Tell Me That You Will Wait For Me

2008-01-08T11:44:00.000Z

I don't think sad quite covers this. Mrs. Toad and I met in about 2003, I think, when she was living up in Edinburgh and I down in London. From April to about November we fell into this whirlwind romance that was completely overwhelming in its intensity and sheer reckless giddiness. Within a month I had told the girl that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, I was that smitten and that certain.

For months things were joyous - the kind of celebratory happiness that just spills from you in anything and everything you do - but the inevitable cloud on the horizon was of course the 400 mile gap between us. Seeing each other every other weekend was great in many ways, but we both knew that one of us would have to move if this was going to work in the long term. As any fool knows, long-distance relationships just don't work.

Well she wasn't going to move down to London, realistically speaking. She had worked in the London financial community before and it had nearly killed her - punishing hours surrounded by unspeakable pricks and caught up in a spiral of stupid spending and the out-of-control debt brought on by it, whilst at the same time dating some clown who spent his entire life in the office. She talked a good game, but in retrospect she was never going to move, and maybe at the time I knew that subconsciously too, which won't have helped.

So as Winter closed in there I was, in a relationship that was the most precious thing I had ever known with a girl who I knew with a kind of fanatical certainty was the one I wanted, and yet given the near total absence of my industry in Edinburgh, and the nagging doubts about her willingness to move to London an atmosphere of slightly oppressive apprehension was starting to take root.

It all came to head eventually, and what prompted it was an unsuccessful interview I had with a small design consultancy who were interviewing more for recreational purposes than with any real intent, and the failure of which came as something of a shock to my other half.

Anyway, over the course of the next six weeks this apprehension started to eat things from the inside. She was suddenly horribly concerned about backing the wrong horse; about falling headlong into a relationship that was perhaps impossible. I was tortured by the unspoken knowledge that something was going wrong but, from 400 miles away and with her unable to crystallise her nebulous doubts into anything concrete, what could either of us do.

I could feel the world slowly dropping away from around me - I was dizzy and sick with fear, and powerless to influence anything. Over Christmas we staggered, she started to compare me unfavourably to her previous boyfriend who, dull as he was, was a very easy choice - wealthy, handsome, geographically to hand - no difficult decisions to make. I was miles away, my job was under threat, I was a flaky and underpaid arty type anyway and there was this huge practical question about whether or not the relationship could actually be made to work in the first place, given the distance.

Ultimately, after getting on for two months of increasing dread and uncertainty it all came to a shuddering halt in January. She was too overwrought with her internal turmoil to be calm and I was too terrified of her obvious doubts to pour much oil on the water. And so, in a very, very brief telephone conversation on January 12th, it all fell apart.

"I can't do this. My ex was round and he was in tears and begging me to come back, and I told him to go, but I think secretly I wanted him to come back and if that's what I'm thinking how can I be with you?"

I paused. There was no answer to this. It was like being in another world.

"You're right," I said eventually. "You can't."

Nothing.

"Okay. Well, I don't want to be friends. I won't email you and I won't call, and I would appreciate it if you would do the same. Maybe in two or three years when we're over this we might meet for a drink if you're in London, but for now I won't be in touch. Good luck."

It wasn't as terse as that, but it was about as brief. And that was that. The next day I threw out every present, deleted every text, every email and all her contact details.

This doesn't fit in the sad category, because what I felt wasn't sadness. It was an horrific, all consuming rage of pain and desolation. Over the following weeks I would frequently drink horrible amounts, turn the stereo up as loud as it would go and scream in wounded fury as loud as my lungs would let me. There was no expression so extreme or so exhausting that it would exorcise the sickness. And if the music wasn't loud, angry guitar-torturing it would not infrequently be this, which would wrap its silky fingers around my throat and gently tighten its grip until I could feel its bones pressing through the skin and squeezing every last breath from my body.

Tom Waits - Fish & Bird

you'll see the sun come shining through

2008-01-08T10:39:00.000Z

that jacques cousteau used to be a professional footballer you know, before all that marine biology stuff. terrible cheat he was. always bloody diving.

archie bell and the drells - everybody have a good time

Sad-Off: The Next Round

2008-01-08T05:06:00.000Z

Veronica 1942-2006

So, Dearest Marcy has challenged us to pony up our saddest, tear-jerkiest songs, and Dearest JC has submitted his fine contender. And Dearest Davy's comment below notwithstanding, I don't think Bill-Oddie sad counts.

Anyway, I thought I'd stand up and throw my hatful of sorrow into the misery ring. No, no Smiths, but instead Ewan MacColl's "Joy of Living," a song the veteran Red folkie (and Kirsty's father) wrote in the twilight of his life.

As some of you know, I lost Veronica, my Dearest Mother-in-Law, to cancer back in July 2006. I loved and respected her tremendously. I wrote at the time that although Veronica had passed on, she was still present. And that remains suffusingly true today.

Like MacColl singing, Veronica knew she was dying, and said her farewells with her characteristic compassion, caring, and mindfulness. But I still miss her fiercely, and I weep whenever I hear this song.

Scatter my dust and ashes, feed me to the wind
So that I may be part of all you see, the air you are breathing
I'll be part of the curlew's cry and the soaring hawk
The blue milkwort and the sundew hung with diamonds
I'll be riding the gentle breeze as it blows through your hair
Reminding you how we shared in the joy of living

Ewan MacColl - The Joy Of Living (buy here)

Fun(ky)

2008-01-07T23:59:00.000Z

My 8 year old daughter knows Bill Oddie only as a BBC TV wildlife programme presenter and respected ornithologist. She thinks he's quite funny in that context, but yesterday I decided that the time was right to share with her the not-so secret secret of his dark past. Oh how we laughed!

Some viewers may find the following clip disturbing.

Bet y'all are sorry you asked me to join in now...

the sad off (barking entry)

2008-01-07T23:45:00.000Z

Strangely enough, this particular song was going to be the subject of my sophomore posting and F&H, and Marcy has given me a hook to hang it on.

There is no sadder opening couple of lines to any song in the world than:-

'Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary there was Mary.
Between the Deep Blue Sea and the Devil that was me.'

It was genius of Billy Bragg to a make a girl's name fit in between a political theorist and something disgustingly sweet and sickly as he did on The Short Answer. All the more so as name of the girl in question was indeed Mary.

Pick up a copy of Still Suitable For Miners : Billy Bragg - the official biography by Andrew Collins for the full details. It's all there in chapters 10 & 11.

Billy fell 'stupidly, madly and obsessively in love' with Mary Bollingbrooke in late 1986. It was a stormy relationship with loads of fighting and arguing - and I remember being quite shocked when I read about it as I'd always placed Billy on a pedestal as being the most easy-going, fun-filled and right-on bloke on the entire planet. Despite everyone in his close-knit group of friends telling him it was a mistake, Billy & Mary got engaged, only to call the wedding off just as the final plans were being made.

When they eventually broke-up less than a year after meeting, Billy was devastated, especially when Mary went back into the arms of the boyfriend before.

He went back to work, and penned a number of songs that dealt with this failure in his life, many of which portrayed him as the one who caused the problems rather than his ex-fiance. All of which appeared on the 1988 LP Workers' Playtime.

And while The Short Answer is a sad song, it's another from that LP, in my view Billy's finest over his 25-year career, that makes the moisture leave my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I think it's fair to assume we've all been there at one time or another in our lives:-

'My friend said she could see no way ahead
And I was probably better off without you
She said to face up to the fact that you weren’t coming back
And she could make me happy like you used to
But I’m sorry to say I turned her away
Knowing everything she said was true
And that’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do

'There’s something inside that hurts my foolish pride
To visit the places we used to go together
Not a day goes by that I don’t sit and wonder why
Your feelings for me didn’t last forever
Girl I love you so much that sometimes it’s such
I’d walk a mile with a stone in my shoe
And that’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do
That’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do

'So keep that phone out of my way for the things I must say
Are empty if you don’t believe they’re true
And that’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do

'That’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do
I love you so much that baby it’s such
I’d walk a mile with a stone in my shoe
And that’s the price I pay for loving you the way that I do.'

mp3 : Billy Bragg - The Price I Pay

Where it all began

2008-01-07T23:37:00.000Z

I remember standing up in my crib, bawling and terrified, as the honey-coloured dog vigorously chewed the wooden building blocks on my bedroom floor. Neither my mother nor the dog's owner, a prospective babysitter, paid any notice to either my wild distress or the splintering apocalypse being wrought.

Though dulled into echoes by time and distance, the memories remain unpleasantly chilling and disturbing.

Public Image Limited - Memories (buy here)

let the sad-off begin

2008-01-07T23:36:00.000Z

Hi everybody. I've got an idea for the blog. I propose a "sad-off" of sad songs. We could each post one and then try to out-sad each other. I think it'd be fun and we could break each other's hearts at the same time. What do you think? :)

Of course, the un-sad among us could do a "fun-off" of fun songs or, if you are so inclined, you could always do both.

So here's my first entry. I must quote the lyrics as they are wonderfully sombre and off-the-wall at the same time. It's by one of my all-time favorite bands, Moonbabies, and it's off their 2004 album The Orange Billboard.

"Over My Head"

All successed, all relieved,
who will need another me?
Over my head
I'm abused, I'm obsessed,
Do we need another rest?
Over my head

And you will need
another meal
of my sour cream
And you will need
my dream . . .

Take your time as you listen and let the piano and their voices and the harmonies wash over your head.

Moonbabies - "Over My Head" mp3

p.s. just so you know, i'm going easy on you in the first round . . .

oh-so-appropriate sad button from here

It's not you, it's me.

2008-01-07T20:49:00.001Z

I'm thinking, "Did she really have to dress THIS alluring to break up with me?" Her back's turned, rifling through my CDs to make a "Best of Our Three Months" mix tape on this cold weekend after Valentine's Day. "I'll need my toothbrush back too," she says crouching down to reach the S through Z portion of the CDs.

Rarely when someone says "It's not you, it's me" are they being honest with you, but in this case, powerless at the time, she was right. And that was only underscored when she took her own life a year and a half later.

Never check your messages at home while on holiday I'd offer, which is what I did and which is how I'd heard. I made it back to town just soon enough to maneuver through the people pouring out of the church after the funeral on a hot, steamy, heavy May morning. Late again for her, I'd imagine.

Thus, the first song she chose for that tape, albeit the loopy 12" remix version ...which is apropos, of course:

Longpigs - On and On

Bloody hell! How did they know?

2008-01-07T18:24:00.000Z

'Listen, I know it must sound absurd, but I can hear the most melancholy sound I've ver heard!' sang Nick Cave in 1984, on the title track of his debut LP From Her To Eternity. I don't know if he was singing about Abba, particularly, but he might as well have been.

In an excllent book called This is Uncool, Gary Mullholland outlines that there is
a link between Joy Division and Abba. 'No more carefree laughter/silence ever after.' Yes, it's Knowing Me, Knowing You' (uhu. Oh, very funny).

But the saddest song ever, seeing as we were challenged to 'outsad' each other, is this. If the line where Agnetha sings 'But tell me does she kiss, like I used to kiss you? Does it feel the same, when she calls your name?' does not make your heart melt, there's no hope for you. You may as well vote Tory, embrace stadium rock and support Rugby. You have no soul. Hell, the line gets me even more than 'Why is the bedroom so cold?/You turn away on your side?' on Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart.' (BTW, how did he know?

Abba -'The Winner Takes It All.' mp3

Interestingly, the song was actually written by the guys in the band, about how they felt.

And I cannot be the only one...

Trembling Blue Stars -'Abba On The Jukebox.' mp3

waxing philosophic

2008-01-06T19:50:00.000Z

I was drinking coffee this fine Sunday morning listening to another "flashback weekend" on the local indie station when The Smiths came on, a song from the great "Strangeways Here We Come" LP (the sad thing is the Flashback weekend sounds more and more like the oldies station the more time passes... [sigh]).

I thought if there were such a thing as a heartbreak blog (which void this blog seems to fill nicely) would not all the music be The Smiths? There are many musical interludes that address the issue of heartbreak, but has any other band filled the niche so well, so completely and so self-definingly (is that a word)? I am thinking a small picture of Morrissey should be blended amongst the flowers and clouds in our title bar to more completely define the high art of heartbreak that The Smths were.

So there you have it, my musings to the collective.

Interestingly since I last posted the name of contributors has expanded which is a wonderful thing. This blog may become some sort of meta-blog perhaps a wiki-blog. No longer the individual sitting alone with his thoughts at night, now many sharing and interacting and connecting.

Very interesting indeed.

The Smiths: Girl Afraid

keeping it simple

2008-01-06T15:12:00.000Z

a man walks into a fishmongers with a halibut under his arm 'do you sell fishcakes ?' he asks 'what sort do you want ?' says the fishmonger. 'you better ask him' the man says pointing to the halibut 'it's his birthday'.

johnny johnson and the bandwagon - breaking down the walls of heartache

Musical Youth

2008-01-06T12:59:00.000Z

I'm going to look a bit stupid if I was the only one who did this in my early teens.....

I had no musical ability whatsoever, so there was never any point in asking mum and dad to splash out on a guitar, keyboards or drumkit (although in my early 20s, I did learn to play White Man In Hammersmith Palais on a Casio hand-held thingy).

But there was no one better in the world than me on playing the badminton racket in the privacy of my bedroom.

I was brought up in a small two-bedroom house, and thus shared precious space with my two younger brothers. It was never a problem until I started really enjoying music which was probably 1976 when I was 13 years of age (my brothers would be 10 and 9 respectively). Then I started throwing my weight around and bullying them outdoors so that I could plug in the Dansette, pick up my badminton racket and play along.

There would also be situations when mum, dad and my brothers would go visit other family members, and I'd throw a strop so that I didn't have to go along. That allowed me full run of the house and I could turn the record player up full blast and run around each room strumming my Yonex. I once got so carried away that I didn't hear everyone returning and got caught mid-strum by giggling brothers and inceredulous parents. Oh the shame of it.....I'd probably have felt less bad if they had caught me with my trousers round my ankles looking at Page 3 of the Daily Record. Or maybe not.

I'm sure most blokes at some point or other in their lives grabbed a badminton or tennis racket at some point in their lives and imagined themselves to be someone famous. Certainly the boys from Madness thought so - have a look at this video some 1 minutes 50 seconds in:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdZrV0j6zM

If that's what teenage boys did, what did teenage girls do in the privacy of their bedrooms???

10 things about nothing much in particular

2008-01-06T12:29:00.000Z

[image removed by photographer]

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last night i washed my face with soap and water for the first time since i was 11 years old and it didn't help much in removing the years

all the music in the world can't hope to match the melody that is in your head and that is a 'good thing'

when shoelaces snap it is a sign that you are not taking good care of yourself

wanting and hoping to be something you are not is perfectly normal and almost expected

seaside piers really do bring me closer to you

at some point you need to stop being a teenager, at least to the outside world

it is not something to be scared of when strangers smile at you in the street

the fridge needs cleaned, again

the late night film you watched last week wasn't about you and your life, it was just a photocopy moment

secrets and lies make the world a more interesting, and yet ultimately disappointing, place to inhabit

-

central message - stop trying to please everyone all the time, it can only lead to heartbreak

-

[mp3 removed by artist]

everything in transit

2008-01-06T00:35:00.000Z

dear you,

i think about this song, and remember a quiet evening, back in the mists of time. i had just arrived, for a brief visit. the sort of visit for which all the time in the world turns into seconds, through dazzled eyes and too-long smiles, and then time to go. the sort of visit by which our friendship was defined. we would meet, under a canopy of light and music, while the hours away staring at the stars, and then leave, breathless and intoxicated for more, but unable to become sated.

your familiar outline made its way into the room. you described how the misty rain clung to the air, heated by the summer haze, whispering a promise of electrical storms in hours to come. as the evening slipped through our fingers, lights darkened, tales were told and sleep crept upon us bewitchingly. you fell first, pulled under with the current, breath becoming deeper as your will to wake drifted away.

the room seemed a cooler place without your wakened presence; i reached to close the window and find you a sheltering blanket. the remote control from an earlier film was slipping from your hand, and as i took your hand in mine to gently slide it away, i could have sworn you held on just that little bit too long, palm to palm and fingertip to fingertip...but this could not have been, surely sleep swished your senses away on its shores?

lights extinguished, and to hide, shivering under a thin blanket, crouched on the floor opposite. unable to sleep and unable to think. the words formed a sort of sense as i made their shapes; that harrowing feeling when you realise what is mostly true. from time to time, i still realise the same. when, no matter how hard you try, you cannot keep this person from your mind, and leave thoughts behind.

i never spoke of this, and now it is too late. we have changed; you have your life, and i have mine. any other way of describing the past would disrupt the memory of that time, and in any case, these are no longer my words to give; they would sound better from the lips and voices of others.

this captured a few minutes of time, a number of years ago. and now it's not yours, not mine, not ours, any longer.

forever passed,

-me.

Butch Walker - Cigarette Lighter Love Song .mp3 (4.23)
(presented in acoustic-ness, to preserve the silent touch...sigh...)

as long as we're reminiscing . . .

2008-01-05T21:47:00.000Z

Do you have a favorite number? Mine is 714. Although back in the day (waaaaaay back in the day), I'm pretty dang sure I never had the real thing, undoubtedly only some sort of watered-down knock-off. Nevertheless, every time I catch the clock reading 7:14, I smile a tiny smile only I can see.

Ludes--Never Had a Chance mp3 (2:42)
Ludes--Badlands mp3 (2:35) both from The Dark Art of Happiness

Voices Off

2008-01-04T23:20:00.000Z

'I'm not picking him this time - we had him last week'

'OK, you can play left back - left back in the changing rooms'

'No, actually, right back - right back over there!'

'OK, get in defence, but if the ball comes anywhere near you, just leave it alone'

'RUN BOY!!!!'

'What the FUCK was that supposed to be? You're supposed to kick it AWAY from the goal'

----

'Lacks co-ordination and is physically weak' (school report).

---

But there shall come a hero, and He shall avenge us all...

The Smiths - 'The Headmaster Ritual' MP3 (4:52)

So Much For Who's Your Daddy?

2008-01-04T19:54:00.000Z

Comment 1: 'Do you have kids, sir?'
'No. If my wife or I tell our cats off for misbehaviour, they don't scream: 'You're ruining my life' run out the room, slam the door, turn their music up to eleven, then reappear ten minutes later, demanding a lift and Ten quid.'

(My stock answer when my students start sticking their noses where it's not wanted,in my private life).

Comment 2: 'Sir, How Come If people want to adopt they have to go through all these checks, and yet birth parents don't have to go through checks to see if they'll be suitable to bring up kids?

(A student of mine, to me, last year)

OK, so the first answer is a bit flippant, and the second one a deeply insightful comment.

I moan about my job as a secondary teacher at times, but then I also got frustrated in previous working positions as a call centre worker, assistant in a book shop and then a record shop, and for two bizarre weeks, as a door-to-door salesman.

Sure, there are some students who are unnecessarily rude, lazy and in a few cases, plain Evil.

But the majority are a pleasure and a privilege to teach. And it's frustrating when there seems to be homes that just don't care about them.

The parents who don't teach their kids basic manners, not just towards their teachers, but any other living human beings. The kids who shrug when I ask about the university applications and it's clear that home doesn't take an interest. The parents who are more concerned about the next drink or fix. The parents who've left their kids.

And I got narked at my parents just because they cared?

If I knew as much now at 31 as I thought I did at 13, maybe I could solve the world's problems.

Oh well...

Glasvegas -'Daddy's Gone.' mp3

Robot vs. The Real Girl (full of not-bad ideas)

2008-01-04T04:08:00.000Z

I think I was eating peanut butter toast when you told me about Robot. Multiple choices and soft spoken voices. My morning routine of a job I hated and effortlessly slipping into insanity. One of those put your head between your knees, and your heart back on the shelf shock waves rushed over me. In a corny, cliché, movie type way. Like they always do. Where do you think movies get their ideas from? Art imitating life, imitating art, etc., etc. Cut to me, hunched over, with my face in my lap, looking like something out of one of those terribly acted dramatic college plays. I'm in the stairwell, the lookers-on regarding me with little more than a glance, not realizing that I could, in fact, climb all the way up, past the floors, and mourn in peace (pieces?). This was the last time my heart was broken.

I am The Real Girl. I sometimes wonder if everyone else views me as the roadside freak show. I am there, quietly nestled between The Bearded Lady and that guy whose body is covered in scales. Snake boy, they call him? He always brings the best lunches. So there I sit, on display, watching the crowd gather outside of my glass enclosure. (They can't risk someone catching what I have. They don't even know if it's contagious yet) Sometimes, the parents, they push their children right on past me. Onto something less....real. Like the twins that are joined at the head. They don't want to have to explain to them what is wrong with me. Maybe if the children don't see me, they wont have the nightmares about me. Screaming out in the middle of the night, their parents bringing a glass of water and a cool washcloth, petting their head, cooing, 'it was just a dream, just a dream.'

So, here I stand. The crowds are drawing near, and the sun is settling. They've come to see me. The Real Girl. I don't have scales. I don't have a twin attached to my mid-section. I am a whole person, not just a torso, propelling myself around on a skateboard.

They attentively watch as I step up to my chair, looking hesitant and broken. As I look into their eyes, I slowly pull down my robe.

And here it is. What they've all been waiting for. What makes The Real Girl. I look into the distance, drowning out the gasps and cries as they see it. Just below my collar bone, on my left side. My heart. In perfect view for all to see. Just there, pumping life blood, memories, and sadness into every limb.

So now it is time for The Real Girl to leave this place. Find Robot and make the world right again. Even if it means losing her heart, and what makes her real, in the process.

Flaming Lips - Yoshimi battles The Pink Robots Pt 1 MP3 (4.46)

the young pretenders have all grown up

2008-01-04T02:29:00.000Z

-
it comes back (to me) every now and then
sitting on your dad's battered couch
bathed in the fading evening light
emotional postcards wrapped up in ourselves

your cold feet resting up against me
socks long abandoned
playing this song over and over
as if it would provide all the answers

smoke clouds formed in circles
we were only young pretenders
but already much older than we thought
teenage adults in the early comfort zone

but truths were untold on the grapevine
realising a future was becoming unstuck
for you wanted him more than you wanted me
and i could only say 'yes, i knew...'

all is unfair in love and war
rolling with the best of the deadbeats
taking punches like there's no tomorrow
smiling for a break in the clouds

but still no break, yet

-
[the audio link]
prince and the revolution - 'the beautiful ones' (unreleased and extended version) mp3 (5.56)
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[the visual link]
is it him or is it me?
-
a petulant ending or a new false dawn?
follow us in our dreaming and denying
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loves from the past

2008-01-03T04:40:00.001Z

My first true-love ™ happened to me when I was 15. She was the cool girl. She was into alt-country and I was very much into the whole mod revival thing. By auctioning off some promises to a very seldom used spleen I got tickets to the upcoming sold out "Rank and File" show (to whom future country-punk and later alt-country owe homage). We went out for one month and life was golden. She had auburn hair and large blue eyes and had the coolest look with her boots and punked up hair and I was enamored.

The day of the show came and as we walked down the warm Summer side walks Los Angeles she told me she was breaking up with me.

This was sheer agony.

My first break up. My first broken heart and the first begging to the powers above to please make this not happen. I do not remember the Rank and File show. But I do remember what song was playing on my cassette player in the car on the long dark speechless drive home.

The Jam: All Around the World (from the All Around the World/Carnaby Street 7")

PS: See those shoes? Because of this photo as a 15 year old I spent ours of hard earned cash on poor fitting Gibsons (as we called them) because I got the last pair and they were a size too small. My feet ached but the thrill of wearing those shoes with my three button vintage suit was worth it...

The redemptive powers of kitchen table dancing can never be underestimated

2008-01-03T00:25:00.000Z

Even though I am currently being heartbroken on a regular basis by a huge number of very depressing and poorly written undergraduate essays, I can still experience a tiny bit of fun thanks to the indie-pop joy-joys of the wonderfully Czech Miou Miou. Indeed, if after watching this short video (and playing the mp3, as below, a few times) you are still wandering around lonely as a cloud - in a sea of despair, confusion and joyless heartbreak etc. - then you are completely beyond hope, I fear. My bet is, however, that 99% of you are dancing on the kitchen table right about... now. Come and join me - it's great! :) (C)

Miou Miou - A l'ete de la Saint-Martin '68 mp3 (3.14)

Miou Miou are meh-spacing right about here

miss you

2008-01-02T22:47:00.000Z

It's funny. Some things you are allowed to miss, others you are not. No one would judge you if you still missed your mother after she'd died, even if many years had passed, even if you and she didn't get along very well or she was a rotten mother. Regardless, it would be very acceptable for you to miss her, at times even still really miss her. But it's not that way with everything, is it? There are times when you will be told that you're nuts to still be missing something, that it's not within the bounds of normal to still feel such pain, that you simply, finally must get over it. That is to say, that's what people would tell you if you could admit to them that that's how you were feeling. Because there are things you miss that you can't express, you can't let on to a single soul that you still desperately wish you could have, whatever it may be. And that makes it hurt even worse. (M)

Song: Blink 182 - Miss You mp3 (3:46)

"It might have been" (are the hardest words to hear)

2008-01-01T08:01:00.001Z

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Introduction (four stories, six songs) ~ this is where we start our humble collective project, four individuals connected by the essentials of fun and heartbreak. It represents a sharing of mindsets, experiences, thoughts, moments and tears. Possibly more, but who knows. We had to start somewhere and this seemed like 'somewhere'. So the words and songs are presented here to you and it is up to you, the readership, to determine our fate, our future. Do we have something to say or not? Are we too bold? Too revealing? What are we giving away here? Anyway, we just hope that you feel moved to return, at some point, to hear more from us - our stories of life and the songs that really matter to all of us who have known, tasted, felt unadulterated fun and gut-wrenching heartbreak... we think we know some of you...
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Story #1 ~ All my life it seems that the emotions that surface most easily for me are sorrow, grief, melancholy - you get the picture? I can feel them in an instant and they are strong and long-lasting. Companions, if you will. Partners. They've been with me so long that sometimes I wonder if I'd even recognize what it feels like to be happy or content. I am able to realize when I feel less bad or less sad. In fact, compared to a year ago I'm feeling waaaaaay less bad. But I'm pretty sure I'm not really happy yet. (In fact, I'm thinking I might even be afraid to be happy because I'm so unfamiliar with the feeling, but that's a whole other conversation). My shrink tells me what I'm looking for in my life is more fun. I can't argue with that, now can I? The only trouble I've had with that assessment is that the fun I found only led to heartbreak. *sigh* So the search continues. I have a feeling that some of you (a lot of you?) will understand where I'm coming from. I'm pretty sure Mark Linkus of Sparklehorse does. I've come to love this song because of how he acknowledges both the pain and the beauty of this world that exist simultaneously. I think my challenge here will be to do the same, without succumbing to the sad or forgetting about the fun. At the very least I hope to have fun sharing the heartbreak, how's that? (M)
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Song: Sparklehorse - Sad and Beautiful World mp3 (3.33)
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Story #2 ~ New Year's Day: yet another chance at new beginnings (at change?) - another chance to make things better in your life and to improve yourself? Perhaps, more exercise? A better diet? To say, “bless you” and “thank you” more often? Or is it simply another chance to go on and to continue to do those same banal daily activities that got you to the mess you are in 2007 in the first place? Do we all have, instead, yet another chance at staying the same in 2008? My mood and my inclination being optimistic I will enjoy my sameness and try to make it something that comforts me and gives me peace. I will tell the same annoying jokes (much to the chagrin or co-workers, kids, wife, et. al.). I will listen to my music, sometimes at night when you can be alone and nobody can disturb those annoying tears that well up with silly songs by Frank Black that should never bring tears to anyone. I will wipe kids bottoms with all the dignity that I can muster. I will be the same. And another year will pass me by and I will tell most people who ask that on New Year's Eve I will most likely go to bed early and I will make no unkeepable resolutions. I will do all the things that make me, me. I will keep my little vices, drink red wine, eat butter, listen to music way too late into the night, not exercise enough, and keep doing the blog thing which has been described to me, by my S.O. (significant other), as a terrific waste of time. To all who wish for change in 2008 I say forget it. You will not be better looking, you will not lose weight and I seriously doubt you will be smarter. However, I bring hope from the protean world of the mundane. Relish the lack of progress, revel in the inertia and roister in the here and now because we are the same but not static. Listen to new music, eat good food, and talk to people. Although we have elected to stay the same, the world inexorably changes around us and I welcome it. So, to 2008, I say, “bring it! It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Maybe it’s time I change. (J)
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Song: The Thrills - Nothing Changes Around Here mp3 (4.12)
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Story #3 ~ Off the cuff. That's where I am right now. Let's not plan too much, dears. It always turns. I've waited to hear some words from you for sometime now, and with them freshly deposited into my ears, I can't say I'm worse for the wear. The Greyhound may be calling, with it's broken vents and mended heats, waiting for my ticket into the past, as it has for sometime now, but I must resist the temptation. At least for the time being. I am not anyone's anything anymore. I won't be your net. Fear not. The net is what we make it. And with the Broken City beckoning me, I almost see the mistakes painted on my eyelids. I was a fake once, and now I'm full of foolish pride. True, I didn't begin a New Year in New Orleans, but I began a new life. A life I'm still living at night after I shut my eyes, pray for forgiveness, and wish for ignorance. But it never comes. The ignorance, that is. A bliss I'll never know. But I'm not disappointed. So why is it that we wait for the turn of the year to make promises we've broken, forgotten, swept under the rug a thousand times before? Are we hoping that the collective, the masses, all praying and wishing at that very moment, will propel our own strength inwards, to the deepest recesses of our being, finally making it real? I can't help but think of the ever building Hippie Movement, when, in 1967, the Youth International Party's leaders, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin planned an exorcism of the Pentagon. They would encircle the building, chant, and levitate the structure to drive out the evil war spirits. In the end, the efforts from the more than 100,000 'Flower Power' children, including Hoffman donning an Uncle Sam hat, failed to raise the building and ward off anything. The only thing Abbie managed to induce was a full bladder, claiming to have urinated on the building. And I can't help but wonder, are we, in effect, pissing all over our efforts to better ourselves come every new year? Is it self-sabotage, or a lack of will power? When asked what my 'resolutions for the New Year' are, I try to hold back from throwing up in my mouth a little bit. I don't need a New Year to declare affirmations I know will be undone by the rising of the sun. I make those everyday. In my bed. After the closing of my eyes. (N)
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Song(s): Elliot Smith - Waltz #2 (live) mp3 (4.32) / Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit mp3 (2.31)
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Story #4 ~ Fun and heartbreak are like identical twins. They dress the same, talk they same, even smell the same. Is that just too weird? They also finish each others sentences, a bit like the twins on that TV show from the 80's. You must have seen it. Floppy hair and parrot earrings? And, fun and heartbreak, they are almost always two sides of the very same damaged and lost copper coin. We can often be having the very best of times and then... [glass smashes, the roof caves in]. You know how it can be? How it can feel? The two songs below, for better or worse, seem to represent, for me, the fleeting yet constant nature of the fun/heartbreak dichotomy. The Waterboys song is associated with a moment in my life, a long time ago now. It was a moment, involving a girl, obviously, that could have seen me transform my life into something else. A major decision had to be made, and I made it, but I later came to regret it, a little. A mistake? Not quite. But... it still lingers... the 'what if...' nature of life is the thing that cuts me up but, ironically, also the thing that keeps me going. It might have been. Is that a bit strange or a lot normal? Although when I think of her now, ten thousand miles away or so, I tend to remember the good times, alongside songs by The Blue Nile and Dead Can Dance, this is the song, 'When Ye Go Away', that can floor me in a second. It was in my head as we parted and the lyrics... well, they tell the story far better than I ever could hope to. Just listen, and drink up that whiskey. For the Teenage Fanclub song, well this is almost nothing but pure Scottish indie rock 'n' roll fun, with an amazing fade out that just lasts forever. I went to see the Fannies play a lot when they were starting up and the shows were always wonderfully happy affairs, largely thanks to the guys in the band being really down to earth and having a very quick wit about them. Some of the banter between songs was genuinely hilarious and inspired, and totally unscripted. Again, the lyrics in this song, 'The Concept', are just very clever and funny... from the opening lines about Status Quo to how the band are good because they 'pull in the slack'. Weegie aceness, basically. So where is the heartbreak in all this? Well, it was at a Teenage Fanclub gig, at the Glasgow Barrowlands, that I realised I didn't love her anymore. It just hit me and the lights in my heart went off. And this was the song they were playing at that moment, which I will never forget. So, you see, in moments of pure fun the heartbreak can still soak through and almost drown you... (C)

Song(s): The Waterboys - When ye go away mp3 (3.34) / Teenage Fanclub - The Concept mp3 (6.08)

Fun And Heartbreak For A New Year