music

Dammit!

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I was going to post something deep, something meaningful, something that would change everyone’s perception of…something.  I’m sure I was.  It was all right there, right at my fingertips.  But then John sent me a link to reddit.  (The only thing more dangerous (in a losing time kind of way) than reddit is TV Tropes.)  This particular thread is about getting songs stuck in your head, or having other people do it to you on purpose.  Every redditor lists another song, and before you know it, reading the thread is like listening to a jukebox on absurd shuffle, where a toddler with ADD is in charge and you only get 10 seconds before the next song starts.  But even with all that constantly-changing noise, you know what I keep coming back to?

I love it.

Caught

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I got caught singing my head off on my drive home tonight.  I was sitting at a stoplight, singing along with Queen, like you do, and I glanced to my right to find the woman in the car next to me staring.  I smiled at her and kept singing.  She looked away.  I win!

I would have lost if she’d been there at the next stoplight, when I was singing along with the Backstreet Boys.  That’s slightly more embarrassing.  A little.

Singing along definitely improved my mood, though.  Totally worth it.

I don’t hate Taylor Swift

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Really.  Hate is not the emotion I feel about Taylor Swift.  I think it’s mostly indifference, really.  Some of her songs are catchy, others are instantly forgettable (if I ever heard them in the first place, which would be difficult to figure out if I forgot them right away).  I don’t care enough about her to know who she’s dating or which song is about which boyfriend.  (I think I’d have to be living under a rock or someplace that doesn’t have internet access (there might be wi-fi under my rock) not to know that she writes songs about current or ex-boyfriends.)  Some of her outfits, when she shows up on TLo’s blog, are cute.  Some aren’t.  So I’m mostly just eh about her.  But I cannot escape “Shake It Off”.  I hear it everywhere I go.  It’s always on the radio.  I heard it in two different stores in the mall today.  I hear it at the gym.  (This morning I was listening to a podcast while working out, and the damn song was bleeding through in the background.)  I don’t like it.  I don’t want to sing along to it.  How can I get away from it?  Do I have to become one of those people who walks around all day with earbuds in, listening to who knows what and ignoring the rest of the world?  I don’t want to be one of those people.  I could avoid listening to the radio in the car.  I could never leave my house and maintain complete control over the music that comes on.  But I like to leave the house sometimes.  And I like to listen to music in the car.  I guess I’m doomed.  I’ve tried nothing, and I’m out of options.

It can’t be that hard

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I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I have been roped into agreeing to do karaoke with coworkers at some future happy hour.  It’s one of those things I can’t really back out of.  I love to sing (haaaaaave you met me?), so I wouldn’t have thought I’d be nervous about this, but I’ve never done karaoke.  I’m more than willing to try it (I think it sounds like fun), but I’m not as comfortable trying it with coworkers.  I like these people, but they’re not my best friends at work.  They’re also not total strangers.  I think I’d be more comfortable in front of total strangers.

Anyway, it’s not that serious, and I’ll manage when the time comes.  That time was supposed to be last night, but the central instigator had to bail (he’d forgotten about his daughter’s Christmas pageant), so I escaped, relieved.  I need more time to figure out what my song possibilities are.  Gotta have options, right?  Now I have more time to overthink this.

My taste in music is beyond reproach, of course

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Obviously, everyone’s musical preferences are a matter of personal taste. There’s no right or wrong. (Yes, there is.) No objective right or wrong. (Yes, there is.) There are classics (the Beatles, Elvis, etc.) that it seems like everyone should like, but I’m sure there are people out there who don’t like them. (They’re wrong.)

Then there are the influential groups or people (who often (always?) overlap with the classics). Is it as imperative that everyone like them? I hope not. I’m thinking of the Doors in particular. I heard two songs of theirs this morning, and they’ve been stuck in my head most of the day. I’m not enjoying it. I mostly don’t like the Doors. Jim Morrison seemed like a pompous, self-important jackass. The only Doors song I really like is “Touch Me” (I like horn sections), and I’m okay with “People are Strange”. I could do without all of the others all of the others that I recognize as the Doors. I suppose it’s possible that there’s another Doors song out there that I’ll like, but I haven’t heard it yet. Or I’ve heard it, liked it, and didn’t know it was the Doors. Find me a handful of those, and I’ll consider revising my opinion of the band as a whole.

Quiet yoga time turned surreal

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I made it back to yoga this week, and we had a few minutes of relaxation time at the end. There was no music playing in the room, no talking, just stillness and breathing.  My mind really went quiet for a little bit, but then the rest of the world began to creep back in.  First, I noticed the ticking clock in the room.  I hadn’t even realized that clock made noise. Then, very quietly at first but louder the more I noticed it, I heard Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” seeping in from the speakers on the main floor of the gym.  But the song and the ticking clock weren’t in sync with each other, nowhere near the same tempo, so they fought, both getting louder.  I was having visions of meshed realities and Doctor Who. All in the space of about a minute. Maybe less.  Then the instructor called us back to reality, and it got less weird.

Good start

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Today is going to be a good day.  It’s nice and cool, perfect weather for running.  I ran three miles, listening to Welcome to Night Vale for most of it.  When the episode ended, I switched to music since I don’t have the next Night Vale yet, and one of the last songs I heard as I pushed to the end was “Waiting for a Star to Fall” by Boy Meets Girl, which I LOVE.  Always have.  So yay happy song, right?  I got home, put Riley’s collar on (making him a happy dog – yay for a walk), and as we left the house, “Mr. Blue Sky” came on.  Super yay happy song!  So I was singing along as we headed up the hill, and Riley seemed to be doing well, and really, how could the morning be better?  The answer, apparently, is to follow ELO with some Queen, since “Hammer to Fall” came on next.  Now I’m home, stretching (and typing), all smiles, and today is going to be okay.

Speaking of music, we saw Guardians of the Galaxy Saturday night (liked it a lot) – the soundtrack is fantastic.

“Waiting for a Star to Fall” , Boy Meets Girl

“Mr. Blue Sky”, ELO

“Hammer to Fall”, Queen

Guess who’s trying new things

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John and I started a mini bathroom remodel this morning that is turning out to be a bit more complicated than expected.  Not a lot, and I’m certain it’s still within our capabilities (or John is certain, which is enough for me), but it’ll take a little longer.  I’ll have some pictures tomorrow.  We went to Home Depot this morning to pick up some things and came right home to get started.  There were a few things John had to do that he didn’t need my help with, so I busied myself with the music selection.  I tried a bunch of existing genre stations I wasn’t in the mood for and then decided to create one based on “Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche (which you may recognize (I know Mom will) as the song played over the credits of Dan in Real Life).  My new station (which is on John’s Pandora account – I’ll have to create it on mine) is AWESOME (in an indie pop/rock kind of way).  And I discovered some songs I like very much.

“Hard Luck Tom” by The Silver Seas

“The Show” by Lenka

“She Moves In Her Own Way” by The Kooks

Here in my head, it’s been a music-filled day

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This morning:

WHY is “Bad Moon Rising” in my head?  I don’t particularly like it, and I’m fairly certain I haven’t heard it recently (certainly not this morning or last night).  Where do those things come from?  I mean, certain phrases trigger songs for me all the time, but I just don’t remember hearing any lyrics from THAT song – where’s the trigger?  And how can I make it go away?

Several hours later:

You know how it goes away?  You wait a couple of hours only to find it replaced by “Hallelujah”.  I think that’s the right version.  Either way, it’s not a huge improvement.  That song is overused, overplayed, over-sentimentalized.  At least I know where it came from – we heard it on an episode of Scrubs last night (the one where Mrs. Landingham dies).

Now:

And now it’s the matchmaker song from Fiddler.  Thanks, Mom.

I used to know Spanish, a little

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Zumba music gets stuck in my head.  It’s not that different from when any other songs get stuck in my head except that Zumba songs are often not in English (quite often).  I never realized how frustrating it could be to have the same 4-8 bars of lyrics I DON’T UNDERSTAND on repeat ALL DAY LONG.  Solution: learn the words to the song (so at least I could sing along, because, oh yeah, not only can I not translate the lyrics, I don’t actually know what words they’re using) and then translate.  Sure.  But that would require finding out the names of the songs.  I’m sure my Zumba instructor would be happy to send me her playlists…nope.  I don’t care that much.  I’ll just deal.

Baking Spree: In the thick of it

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If this were a movie, I’d put a training montage here (because training montages are cool).  Since it’s not, you’ll have to imagine your own or just visualize me melting chocolate.  It’s like watching paint dry, but it smells yummier.  I spent Monday and Tuesday evenings making peppermint bark and toffee bark, and today is about chocolate chip cookies.  Yes, I have a cookie exchange TONIGHT (in less than seven hours), and I am just now starting to bake the actual cookies.  I only need a few dozen.  They don’t take that long, right?  I can totally do this.  See?  I’m prepared.

Also, there’s Christmas music playing (with a few Hanukkah songs sprinkled in, even though that’s way over), and I’m drinking tea.  We may not decorate for the holidays (like, at ALL), but the season is nice.

Update: First batches are out, more are going back in, and I have unleashed all kinds of smoke into the house.  We’ve had to open windows.  Nothing is burned, but I think it’s the wax paper, like, melting or something.  I’ve used parchment paper before, but it always seems to burn at the edges, which makes me nervous.  And I don’t want to just put the cookies straight onto the cookie sheet because they don’t seem to come back up easily.

First batch!

 

Next batch going in.

 

Whole bunch of cookies cooling.

Update 2: Okay, so I googled it, and apparently you aren’t supposed to bake with wax paper (at least, that what some websites say).  I decided to try parchment paper again (for round 2) and do my best to keep it from burning.  And?  Success!  No more smoke, no burning paper, yummy looking cookies.  And now I have 149 (because we ate one – DELICIOUS) regular chocolate chip cookies and 37 chocolate chip and toffee cookies (that I have not yet tried).

Update 3: 36 chocolate chip toffee cookies (we ate one).  I might not have added enough toffee.  Good, but still mostly just chocolate chip cookies.  Not like that’s a bad thing.

Let’s live up to the name of the blog a little, shall we?

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While going through just about everything we own, John found a couple of boxes of cassette tapes.  We threw out all of the commercially made tapes (we’ve got all that stuff in other formats by now, if it’s something we still like), but then we had to go through the ones we made.  Some were easy to throw out.  Some – not so much.  I took a drive by myself over the weekend, so I popped in a pink and yellow Memorex tape labeled “Susannah’s Favorites” that I made when I was about 11 and discovered two things.

  1. I haven’t changed.  The first song on the tape was “If This Is It”, Huey Lewis and the News.
  2. I did not understand the concept of a mix tape.  The first FOUR songs on the tape were by Huey Lewis and the News.  The next four songs were from The Little Mermaid.  The next two songs were by Kylie Minogue, and on the other side, there were three or four in a row by Debbie Gibson and then by Paula Abdul.  Apparently, I liked my music in blocks.

Now you know too much.

Everlasting love

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John and I saw Huey Lewis and the News for the sixth time last night.  It was, as usual, a really good show.  I’m willing to bet poor old Huey can’t talk at all today, though.  Last night, his voice was really going.  He still sounded great, but there were things he just couldn’t do.  (It didn’t sound permanent, thank goodness.  More of a sore throat thing.  Let’s hope that’s not wishful thinking.  Heh – wishful thinking about wishful thinking.  Stop before the world collapses in on itself!)  Poor guy.  I hope he drank a lot of water.  It’s the 30th anniversary of Sports, so they started the concert by playing the whole album, which was totally awesome.  (John noticed it when they started the third song – clever guy.)  This year (unlike two years ago), they did the whole not-relevant-anymore thing right and only played one new song all night.  Man, I love them.  It seems like everyone else in the area does, too, since I’ve never seen such a parking nightmare at Wolf Trap before.  The place was packed, the parking lots were completely full (the police were telling people to park on the grass on the side of the road), and John and I had to park at the Barns and walk over (under a mile, I think, but not by much).  And on our walk over, the skies opened.  We had umbrellas, but when it rains buckets (sideways buckets), you get soaked no matter what.  It poured like that for a solid 20-25 minutes before the intensity backed off, but even then it didn’t stop until around 8:45, just as the real show started.  I don’t know who opened for them (couldn’t hear them over the rain, certainly couldn’t see them), and I didn’t really care that we were missing whoever it was.

Okay, I’m rambling now.  I’ve lost my point, if I ever had one.  Maybe it’s just that I’ll stand in the pouring rain for Huey Lewis and the News because I LOVE THEM.  I could point out that we spent much of the storm under shelter (after getting soaked on the walk in), but what does that matter?  I would have stood around in the pouring rain for them if it hadn’t stopped in time.  I would.

I don’t know my Haydn from my Arrieta

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I was listening to the radio the other day on my way home from work, and the guy (I guess he’s still called a DJ, even if he does work for the classical music station) introduced the next piece of music as The Spanish Dances by I-don’t-remember-who (he remembered who – I don’t).  The music started, and I thought, this doesn’t sound very Spanish, but what do I know.  Then the music cut off, the radio went silent, and after a couple of seconds, the DJ (that just doesn’t sound right) said, “My apologies.  I jumped ahead.  That was Haydn.  These are The Spanish Dances.”  And then something that sounded somewhat more Spanish (more classical guitar, less orchestra) started.

Good story, huh?  I know.  Hush.  It struck me as odd, though.  You so rarely hear silence on the radio, and I’ve never heard music get cut off so abruptly like that, outside of emergency broadcasts.  If it were me, I probably would have let the Haydn finish, then apologize, identify it correctly, and continue with the actual Spanish Dances.

A swing and a miss

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I went to Starbucks this morning, the one with the drive-thru.  I like this one for a couple of reasons:

  1. It has a drive-thru.  I’m lazy and I don’t want to get out of my car.  Also, this drive-thru tends to be faster than going inside and standing in line (the two times I’ve done that at this particular location).
  2. They make my wonderful syrupy drink the right way.  The other Starbucks with a drive-thru (closer to my office) ALWAYS messes it up.  Somehow, they manage to make it taste kinda fruity.  Every time.  So I don’t go there anymore.
  3. Every once in a while, someone starts a pay-for-the-car-behind-you chain.  It’s nice, and I like that it happens somewhat regularly, regularly enough that I’ve been in that chain half a dozen times in the last few months.

Today was one of those days.  I got to the window, and the cashier (is she a barista?) told me that the woman in the car in front of me paid for my coffee.  I handed her my card and asked her to ring up the car behind me, and when the cashier handed me my card and my receipt, she said, “She also wanted you to have this,” and handed me a CD.  A music CD, in a sleeve, like many of the others Starbucks sells.  How exciting!  That’s different – maybe that woman just wanted to make someone’s day (more than buying their order would)!  I’d never heard of the guy on the CD, but I’m open to new music.  This could be cool.  Happy Monday!

Well, I got into the office and googled it.  Surprise!  It’s Christian rock.  I don’t think that should be allowed.  I mean, Christian rock should be allowed to exist (I guess), but proselytizing* via the Starbucks drive-thru is not cool.

Hm.  It just occurred to me – I don’t think she bought it at Starbucks for me.  I assumed she had, but I doubt Starbucks would sell it.  I think she gave it to them to give to me.  Weird and weirder.  Well, it’s not working.  I’ve spent half the day wondering how I should get rid of it.  Do I know anyone who might appreciate it?  Not really.  I don’t want to just leave it somewhere or give it to some unsuspecting stranger – that’s how I got it, and it didn’t make my day.  And I’m hesitant to just throw it out.  Maybe John knows someone.  Or I can always leave it at a church.  I know where I can find some of those.

*Maybe she wasn’t proselytizing.  Maybe the guy on the CD is her boyfriend or husband or son or cousin, and she’s helping him gain a wider audience.

Not a life-changing experience

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I already knew this, but now that I’ve been to a concert, I feel the need to say it again: Bruce Springsteen is not for me.  John and I went to the Springsteen concert in DC on Friday night.  Wait – I need to back up.  A few years back, John went to his first Bruce concert with a few friends of ours who are rabid fans.  I mean, these guys know every song he’s ever recorded, have all the albums, always go to concerts when Springsteen is on tour.  That stuff doesn’t make them rabid fans.  No, they go to as many concerts on each tour that they can manage, sometimes traveling miles and miles to go to back to back shows in three different cities.  Friday’s concert was the sixth show our buddy Joe has gone to on this tour alone.  On top of that, they know the set lists of practically every concert he’s ever played ever.  It’s not unusual to have a conversation with one of them that goes like this:

Hey, I kinda like song X from that one album.

Yeah, that’s a great song, but you won’t hear that when we go to this concert.  He hasn’t played that one live since the Evanston show of 1993.  Now THAT was a great show.

Anyway, John was just a casual fan before he went to that show (he’s more than that now, but hasn’t reach rabid levels of fandom yet) .  These guys (and every Springsteen fan I’ve talked to since) told him he HAS to go to a live show, it’s AWESOME, it’s an experience you’ll never get anywhere else – it’s just amazing.  So John went, and it was great.  He had a really good time, it was a really great show, and he started paying more attention to the Boss.  That’s fine – doesn’t bother me one bit.  He went to a couple more shows over the next couple of years, and I had to suffer through a little more Springsteen in the house, but that’s not that big a deal.  Then this tour started, and the guys got together and decided to all go.  John really wanted me to get in on this, and I’d been hearing how great these shows are, so I agreed and we bought two tickets.

I have to admit to not being all that excited as the date approached.  I love live music, and I knew I’d have a good time, but I didn’t prep for it.  I know a handful of songs (“Glory Days”, “Born in the USA”, “Dancing in the Dark”), and I recognize a few more but don’t know more than a couple lines from them (“Born to Run”, “Thunder Road”), but that’s it.  Frankly, I don’t really like his stuff, so prepping didn’t sound appealing at all.  Why listen to more of what I don’t like?  I was counting on the LIVE aspect of the show to be more entertaining than his depressing and repetitive songs.

Ultimately?  It was fun, but I’m in no hurry to go again.  It was loud and crowded (both in a good way) and energetic and everything, and all of that is cool and fun to watch, but it was still Bruce Springsteen, and you know what?  I still don’t like Bruce Springsteen.  Well, personally, I’m sure he’s a fun guy.  I don’t like his songs.  When the band did some covers (“Devil in a Blue Dress”, “Twist and Shout”) at the end of the almost four-hour concert, I thought it was great.  Did it change concert-going for me forever?  No.  No, it did not.