Regardless of the fact that I don't know what the heck the word 'Eluardian' means, I know that everything else about the song feels like I'm listening to things I already know and love deep in my bonemarrow.
The kinda song that makes you grin wide and feel like running in the rain with your best friend and getting sick the next day so you can spend the day at home watching E or Tootsie together.
And a break for horns! Every thematic song for the good life needs that.
Of Montreal ~ An Eluardian Instance (2008) Dir: Jesse Ewles from jesse ewles on Vimeo.
Does she know, does she know that I am not just searching for some first-time high?
I know it's all about perceptions, and I accept you as my very first move
Oh, oh yeah
Ah yeah
Ah la la la la la la
(horn break)
I remember riding bikes on Coaster Island
Planning midnight raids on the Swedish plum trees
That summer, it was too cold to swim, so
We climbed upon the rocky shore and freaked out
on the mountain goats, but they were not impressed,
or scared of us
Do you remember, our last summer as independents? (4x)
Do you remember, do you remember
I was a foreigner when you appeared
From the shadows at the motor club
I was a hater in the depths of an emotional hibernation
You sat me down, we had some drinks
And you told me your kinds of insanity
I asked your friend if you were available
She answered, 'no but yes oh well oh well yes and no,'
Now, I'm viewing my memory reel in reverse
Scrolling back to: come to feel your whether-than
Now, I'm noting the limits of our parabola
To predict: the points of thou-shalt-not-return
This inbreeding of ideals is intolerable
I wish David was here
Take your persecution complex and
I'm not gonna absorb your stress output any more
Oh don't you pimp out my heart
Don't you pimp out my heart
(ok so it's actually a love song. but who cares. i'm making it my... good-life song.)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Transatlanticism- by request
Just so you know, I made it a point to never never never 'critique' or 'review' anything I didn't like. Because there's just no point. I might as well start expending a lot of negative energy on all the bad stuff permeating as soundwaves, which I don't see beneficial to anyone (unless it's very very funny. but even then, I'd still sound like an asshole.)
So I decided that if I didn't like this song, I wouldn't review it.
---
Out of the Transatlanticism album, my favorite, and maybe because I saw it first, is Title and Registration. That and the lackadaisical sadness that is expressed, a sorta nonchalance to it (which is always so cool, because it's not cool to care!!) blanketed in metaphor after metaphor, makes Title and Registration easily likable. Then you have catchier tunes like The Sound of Settling, and any song with a 'bappa bappaaa..!' gets more frequent play from yours truly.
So at first listen, Transatlanticism is not something Kye would play on loop. In fact she would probably skip it after 10 seconds of play.
Because it's difficult to deliver a sad song, that is unabashed about being sad. A song about being at the losing end of a deal that everyone else seems to accept with glee- it makes even the listener feel a bit pathetic for listening.
And Ben Gibbard has never sounded more earnest and breakable in his sadness then he does when he raises his voices to insist,
"I need you so much closer"
Because there's nothing sadder than calling for help from someone you know won't answer.
But then. Staying with him to the end of the song is rewarding.
Each time he repeats, "I need you so much closer" you can feel that his need is less and less, and it is more a determined want and hope rather than sheer desperation.
So Transatlanticism is redeemed because it isn't just a sad song- with that surge of energy at the end, the kind one gets when one makes peace with it all- it gathered enough strength to burst free from its own fetters of desolation.
And you will feel like that friend, that kind of friend- the kind that sticks around until a person down gets up again.
The Atlantic was born today, and I'll tell you how:
The clouds above opened up and let it out.
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.
Most people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing floodlands to your door
Have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.
I need you so much closer [8x]
I need you so much closer [x4]
So come on come on [x4]
So I decided that if I didn't like this song, I wouldn't review it.
---
Out of the Transatlanticism album, my favorite, and maybe because I saw it first, is Title and Registration. That and the lackadaisical sadness that is expressed, a sorta nonchalance to it (which is always so cool, because it's not cool to care!!) blanketed in metaphor after metaphor, makes Title and Registration easily likable. Then you have catchier tunes like The Sound of Settling, and any song with a 'bappa bappaaa..!' gets more frequent play from yours truly.
So at first listen, Transatlanticism is not something Kye would play on loop. In fact she would probably skip it after 10 seconds of play.
Because it's difficult to deliver a sad song, that is unabashed about being sad. A song about being at the losing end of a deal that everyone else seems to accept with glee- it makes even the listener feel a bit pathetic for listening.
And Ben Gibbard has never sounded more earnest and breakable in his sadness then he does when he raises his voices to insist,
"I need you so much closer"
Because there's nothing sadder than calling for help from someone you know won't answer.
But then. Staying with him to the end of the song is rewarding.
Each time he repeats, "I need you so much closer" you can feel that his need is less and less, and it is more a determined want and hope rather than sheer desperation.
So Transatlanticism is redeemed because it isn't just a sad song- with that surge of energy at the end, the kind one gets when one makes peace with it all- it gathered enough strength to burst free from its own fetters of desolation.
And you will feel like that friend, that kind of friend- the kind that sticks around until a person down gets up again.
The Atlantic was born today, and I'll tell you how:
The clouds above opened up and let it out.
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.
Most people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing floodlands to your door
Have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.
I need you so much closer [8x]
I need you so much closer [x4]
So come on come on [x4]
Monday, December 15, 2008
childhood pictures
i was once wise
in a time when my knees were round smooth things larger than my legs
i watched girls and boys play
and i played on their periphery- with them but never with them
i was never the queen
i was never allowed
i was always accused of cheating, even when i didn't know the rules
but i never declined to play the game
i was once at the height of my solitude
when i hid beneath chairs covered with a blue blanket
but my vision saw everything yellow
like the yellow of a white man's skin
in a dark room
with the soft flames of a quiet fire caressing his face
i was quiet, my mouth did not move
but with my doll
i went away, so far away
much beyond the unseen borders made by the chair's legs
and Mok and Ayah forgot i was in the house
but they didn't know i had long escaped
i was once hovering just above the nadir
when i lived in a box with walls that climbed high, up to where a cellar should have been but never was
where i scarfed down book after book
to try and fill my belly with the warmth that people couldn't give
because there were none
these are things the photographs can never tell you.
in a time when my knees were round smooth things larger than my legs
i watched girls and boys play
and i played on their periphery- with them but never with them
i was never the queen
i was never allowed
i was always accused of cheating, even when i didn't know the rules
but i never declined to play the game
i was once at the height of my solitude
when i hid beneath chairs covered with a blue blanket
but my vision saw everything yellow
like the yellow of a white man's skin
in a dark room
with the soft flames of a quiet fire caressing his face
i was quiet, my mouth did not move
but with my doll
i went away, so far away
much beyond the unseen borders made by the chair's legs
and Mok and Ayah forgot i was in the house
but they didn't know i had long escaped
i was once hovering just above the nadir
when i lived in a box with walls that climbed high, up to where a cellar should have been but never was
where i scarfed down book after book
to try and fill my belly with the warmth that people couldn't give
because there were none
these are things the photographs can never tell you.
Friday, December 12, 2008
If I were young, I'd flee this town, I'd bury my dreams underground
-Elephant Gun
I was recently asked, if in an alternate universe, I could choose to marry a book or a song.. would I? I replied, 'as opposed to marrying what? A person?' She said, 'Yeah.'
And I thought, I have another question. If I had to choose to marry a book or a song (where other people didn't exist, because if they did, DUH I'd marry a person. you can't have sex with a book.) which one would it be?
For a song, 'Elephant Gun', above is a definite Mr. Maybe.
A hint of everything, but meshed in a way that make the individual sounds, the different facets of character, distinguishable. Elephant Gun promises me of a journey to foreign lands, the wind on my skin, where nothing is just what it is. It doesn't promise me that everything will be pretty, or everything will be fun, but it promises to go through the sights and the motions holding my hand.
What more could a girl want?
Speaking about what girls want (and I know this is a music blog, but sometimes we don't need demarcations because everything is, in their core, connected anyway), I want to tell you about a new friend I made last night.
Her name is Sara, and she is an architecture student in Melbourne University. She loves photography (like you and me), and she loves cycling. And by cycling, I don't mean like me, riding on my bike to Iza's house and back. I mean she knows who the top cyclists are, her friends cycle for the national team, she follows the tournaments, and her hero is Lance Armstrong.
She can't wear heels (like me).
I met her in her blog posts from March to October 2008. And a recurring character in her posts is this 'boy' who comes and goes, and leaves her wanting. There are days she is okay about him, and she sounds so happy, that I grin reading. There are days when he lets her down, and I am furious.
Sara wanted what most of us wanted- to do the things she loved, and to have that person beside her, and her friends around her. Many of her friends, who met her in the real world, seemed like the friends that anyone would wish for. (friends that I believe I have too, though their faces are different.)
What I like most about Sara, because I don't usually decide to be someone's friend through their blog (my ego prevents me from doing that), is that she is so full of life and inspiration and DESIRE. She is a car with a seemingly endlessly fuelled tank- with a map, she could go everywhere and anywhere.
But He has His reasons.
I made a friend and lost her in the span of 2 hours.
Sara was 20 when she made her final journey in October. After launching a great war (because she wasn't merely battling) against an aggressive lung cancer for 6 months. And now, thanks to her blog, she will always be 20 and beautiful.
Excerpts from Sara's Xanga blog:
----
(I'm putting Elephant Gun on loop right now.)
I see these faces of people, who are still very much people to me, and not arwah or past-tenses. I'm confused, because, I see them so vividly sometimes. I remember how they sound like when they laugh. The way they chewed their food. And sometimes, it's so difficult to remember how they look like. Like they never really existed.
I went to sleep last night, feeling heavy and...
I wish, and it's such a futile wish, because it's a wish for the past- I wish I spoke to my dad more. I wish I had more conversations like the one I remember every now and then, when he said, one morning on the way to the KTM station,
'Tengok Kayyah. Chome deh langit?', he touched the clouds through the car's windshield.
I nodded. I NODDED. I'm such an idiot some times. I still am. With my mother.
Last night I wondered what my dad thought about a lot of things. And it kills me that he doesn't keep a diary, or a blog, or anything, other than his spoken words and performed actions, so I'll never know all these others parts of him that I know he is full of.
I share so much of myself with friends, sometimes complete strangers (when it strikes my fancy), but it's so difficult for me to say anything more than functional words when I'm surrounded by family. I'm so sorry for that, I don't know what to do about it. And it kills me even more.
Like my sisters. I know they want to get to know me. Especially Afifa. Whatever they know about me, it's from what they overhear in my conversation with my friends. They get the scraps of me.
Okay. That's enough.
I'm just still a bit shaken. I dreamed of snakes last night.
-Elephant Gun
I was recently asked, if in an alternate universe, I could choose to marry a book or a song.. would I? I replied, 'as opposed to marrying what? A person?' She said, 'Yeah.'
And I thought, I have another question. If I had to choose to marry a book or a song (where other people didn't exist, because if they did, DUH I'd marry a person. you can't have sex with a book.) which one would it be?
For a song, 'Elephant Gun', above is a definite Mr. Maybe.
A hint of everything, but meshed in a way that make the individual sounds, the different facets of character, distinguishable. Elephant Gun promises me of a journey to foreign lands, the wind on my skin, where nothing is just what it is. It doesn't promise me that everything will be pretty, or everything will be fun, but it promises to go through the sights and the motions holding my hand.
What more could a girl want?
Speaking about what girls want (and I know this is a music blog, but sometimes we don't need demarcations because everything is, in their core, connected anyway), I want to tell you about a new friend I made last night.
Her name is Sara, and she is an architecture student in Melbourne University. She loves photography (like you and me), and she loves cycling. And by cycling, I don't mean like me, riding on my bike to Iza's house and back. I mean she knows who the top cyclists are, her friends cycle for the national team, she follows the tournaments, and her hero is Lance Armstrong.
She can't wear heels (like me).
I met her in her blog posts from March to October 2008. And a recurring character in her posts is this 'boy' who comes and goes, and leaves her wanting. There are days she is okay about him, and she sounds so happy, that I grin reading. There are days when he lets her down, and I am furious.
Sara wanted what most of us wanted- to do the things she loved, and to have that person beside her, and her friends around her. Many of her friends, who met her in the real world, seemed like the friends that anyone would wish for. (friends that I believe I have too, though their faces are different.)
What I like most about Sara, because I don't usually decide to be someone's friend through their blog (my ego prevents me from doing that), is that she is so full of life and inspiration and DESIRE. She is a car with a seemingly endlessly fuelled tank- with a map, she could go everywhere and anywhere.
But He has His reasons.
I made a friend and lost her in the span of 2 hours.
Sara was 20 when she made her final journey in October. After launching a great war (because she wasn't merely battling) against an aggressive lung cancer for 6 months. And now, thanks to her blog, she will always be 20 and beautiful.
Excerpts from Sara's Xanga blog:
April 22, 2008
i'm really glad i reached 20.
thank you, God,family and friends :)
i'm so lucky to have all of you in my life.
May 6, 2008
my mom said,
i can't bear looking at you being in pain.
and i said.
give me pain, as long as i recover and continue with what's ahead of me.
they're still considering other options , ruling out chemo.
chemotheraphy will be the last resort.
and i hope i won't have to go through it.
but if that's the only thing that can keep me alive,
i'd say, BRING IT ON.
Lance Armstrong quotes " Cancer happens to strong and good people " :)
and papa said , "What God can do, God can undo"
and I believe it.
miracle happens.
the percentage of surviving at this stage is less than 5%,
and i'm going to be the lucky fews.
i Believe.
I went to bed thanking God.
another painful day saved.
yet .. another day of surviving this battle.
July 5, 2008
oh ya.
DID i tell youuuuuu,
my doctor said,
my cancer case only happens to one in 10 million.
gila kannnn. i'm so the chosen one.
i'm special ;)
to those yang sihat walafiat,
eat while you still can.
coz once dah sakit,
you have to restrict yourself from eating those unhealthy food.
so... DONT THINK ABOUT BEING FAT.
just enjoy your health and keep fit :)
takyah nak diet diet.
buang masa je.
i dah regret coz when i was healthier i was a bit too concious about my weight.
so kalau makan lebih sikit rasa guilty then skip the next meal.
the only solution is get your lazy ass off the couch and runnnnnnnnnnnn.
*besides, guys dig curvy girls*
i have a llllooooonnngg list of food that i want to eat after i get well...
till then.
<3
----
(I'm putting Elephant Gun on loop right now.)
I see these faces of people, who are still very much people to me, and not arwah or past-tenses. I'm confused, because, I see them so vividly sometimes. I remember how they sound like when they laugh. The way they chewed their food. And sometimes, it's so difficult to remember how they look like. Like they never really existed.
I went to sleep last night, feeling heavy and...
I wish, and it's such a futile wish, because it's a wish for the past- I wish I spoke to my dad more. I wish I had more conversations like the one I remember every now and then, when he said, one morning on the way to the KTM station,
'Tengok Kayyah. Chome deh langit?', he touched the clouds through the car's windshield.
I nodded. I NODDED. I'm such an idiot some times. I still am. With my mother.
Last night I wondered what my dad thought about a lot of things. And it kills me that he doesn't keep a diary, or a blog, or anything, other than his spoken words and performed actions, so I'll never know all these others parts of him that I know he is full of.
I share so much of myself with friends, sometimes complete strangers (when it strikes my fancy), but it's so difficult for me to say anything more than functional words when I'm surrounded by family. I'm so sorry for that, I don't know what to do about it. And it kills me even more.
Like my sisters. I know they want to get to know me. Especially Afifa. Whatever they know about me, it's from what they overhear in my conversation with my friends. They get the scraps of me.
Okay. That's enough.
I'm just still a bit shaken. I dreamed of snakes last night.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Postcards from Italy
i'd like to kill some things in the mush of my brain. but postcards from good times are not one of them- no matter how angry i get that they're only flat tacked on my wall, that i can't smell the oils, that i can't hear the laughs.
and let's get married under willow trees. preferably in the fall. i'll wear a golden dress, like an autumn chameleon. you can wear black, and shine.
The times we had
Oh, when the wind would blow with rain and snow
Were not all bad
We put our feet just where they had, had to go
Never to go
The shattered soul
Following close but nearly twice as slow
In my good times
There were always golden rocks to throw
at those who admit defeat too late
Those were our times, those were our times
And I will love to see that day
That day is mine
When she will marry me outside with the willow trees
And play the songs we made
They made me so
And I would love to see that day
Her day was mine
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