Feeling Good :: Nina Simone

Amazing!

Birds
flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin on by you know how I feel

(refrain:)
Its a new dawn
Its a new day
Its a new life
For me
And Im feeling good

Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel

(refrain)

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, dont you know
Butterflies all havin fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
Thats what I mean

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel

Road to Nowhere :: David Byrne

David Byrne is simply amazing. This is a live version of an old Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere."

Bad Kids :: Black Lips

I love these guys! You can sing along.

Roxette

I stumbled across some old Roxette videos on YouTube... holy hell they were good! They prove that all awesome pop-rock music comes from Sweden. I am totally in love with these guys again.

Their wikipedia has some interesting facts about them- for example, they tried for a good five years to break into the US market, to no avail. How did they get in? An American exchange student from MINNEAPOLIS brought their single for "The Look" from Sweden to KDWB (that shitty pop station we have here). KDWB started playing it, people started calling in saying "What was that???" And they passed the tape on to other radio stations. This was all before "The Look" had even been released in the US. So yay for the strong Minnesota-Scandinavia ties.

Here are their four number one hits:

"The Look"

"Joyride"

"Listen to Your Heart"

"It Must Have Been Love"

Roxette - New Music - More Music Videos

You Oughtta Know :: Beyonce????

I approve of this cover!!! Oh wow.

Destroy Everything You Touch :: Ladytron

Ladytron - New Music - More Music Videos

Not Fair :: Lily Allen

Lily Allen's ode to partners who are sweethearts but selfish in bed.

oh he treats me with respect he says he loves me all the time
he calls me fifteen times a day he likes to make sure that I'm fine
you know I've never met a man whose made me feel quite so secure
hes not like all them other boys they're all so dumb and immature

there's just one thing that's getting in the way
when we go up to bed you're just not good it's such a shame
I look into your eyes I want to get to know you
and then you make this noise and its apparent it's all over

it's not fair and I think your really mean
I think your really mean
yes I think your really mean

oh your supposed to care but you never make me scream
you never make me scream

oh it's not fair and it's really not ok
it's really not ok
it's really not ok

oh your supposed to care but all you do is take
all you do is take

well I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed
I'm feeling pretty hard done by, I spent ages giving head
then I remember all the nice things that you've ever said to me
maybe I'm just overreacting, maybe your the one for me




there's just one thing that's getting in the way
when we go up to bed you're just not good it's such a shame
I look into your eyes I want to get to know you
and then you make this noise and its apparent it's all over


it's not fair and I think your really mean
I think your really mean
yes I think your really mean

oh your supposed to care but you never make me scream
you never make me scream

oh it's not fair and it's really not ok
it's really not ok
it's really not ok

oh your supposed to care but all you do is take
all you do is take

Love Lockdown :: Kanye West

I'm kind of into Kanye West's new stuff, from 808's and Heartbreak. It's such a departure for him, it's so stark. People have criticized him for singing instead of rapping, and for using weird vocal-distortion effects, but I really like it.

I think Kanye West is a total egomaniac, but he truly is an artist, and I can respect him for what he does. He makes me think of Peter Gabriel for some reason.

This video is pretty stunning. It makes me think of ancestors and blank canvasses and love and stuff. Oh yeahhhh.

Kanye West - New Music - More Music Videos

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
What I had to do, had to run from you
I'm in love with you but the vibe is wrong
And that haunted me all the way home

So you never know, never never know
Never know enough, 'til it's over, love
'Til we lose control, system overload
Screamin', "No, no, no, n-no!?

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
See I wanna move but can't escape from you
So I keep it low, keep a secret code
So everybody else don't have to know

So keep your love locked down, your love locked down
Keepin' your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, you lose

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
I can't keep my cool, so I keep it true
I got somethin' to lose, so I gotta move
I can't keep myself and still keep you too

So I keep in mind when I'm on my own
Somewhere far from home, in the danger zone
How many times did I tell ya ?for it finally got through?
You lose, you lose

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
See I had to go, see I had to move
No more wastin' time, you can't wait for life
We're just racin? time, where's the finish line?

So keep your love locked down, your love locked down
Keepin' your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, you lose

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
I bet no one knew, I got no one new
Know I said I'm through, but got love for you
But I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to

Gotta keep it goin', keep the lovin' goin'
Keep it on a roll, only God knows
If I be with you, baby I'm confused
You choose, you choose

I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to
Where I wanna go, I don't need you
I've been down this road, too many times before
I'm not lovin' you the way I wanted to

So keep your love locked down, your love locked down
Keepin' your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, your love locked down
I keep your love locked down, you lose
You lose, you lose, you lose, you lose

Where Everybody Knows Your Name :: Cheers

Loved it! I was just in the Westside version of Cheers, the "Cozy Cantina." Excellent.

Stand :: Get a Life

"Get a Life" was this crazy show that was on in the early 90s, on Fox back when Fox was barely even a network. When Fox first started, they would put anything on the air! Remember "In Living Color"? Remember the "Tracey Ullman Show"? And of course the super-controversial-at-the-time, "adult" cartoon show that is "The Simpsons."

"Get a Life" was on for just two years, 1990-1992. It starred Chris Elliot as this super demented man-child. I loved the theme song when I was a kid- I would sing along and it was just great. It was not until many years later that I realized the theme song was "Stand" by REM. How did such a crappy, low-budget show get an REM song as their theme?? I have no idea.

Anyway, I found the opening credits on YouTube... and guess what?? I guess the show was set in the Twin Cities. I had no idea. But he is delivering issues of the Pioneer Press (St. Paul's second-rate daily).

Enjoy!




Chris gets run over. Like all the time.

Thank You For Being a Friend :: Golden Girls

Back in my halcyon days of cable, I had a routine every day of coming home and turning on Lifetime (Television for Women!) and watching a full hour of "The Golden Girls." I don't know what the schedule is now, but at that time you could probably watch six hours of GG a day on Lifetime. But for once, they played something a lot because it is GOOD.

I loved this show when I was a kid, I loved it in college, and I love it now. When I was a kid, I loved how it showed old people being sassy with each other. As an adult, I really came to appreciate the messages it sent about friendship, women, power, and life's ups and downs. Your partner may leave you, your partner may die, but you will be ok as long as you have your friends and some coffee and cheesecake. Isn't friendship what it all boils down to?

The show also had a lot social commentary, both implicit and explicit. The four main characters showed how women of diverse backgrounds could come together and form friendships. You had the Southern belle (Blanche Devaroux), the New York intellectual (Dorothy Zbornak), the immigrant (Sophia Petrillo), and the earnest Minnesotan (my favorite, Rose Nyland (nee Lindstrom). The show also took on a lot of emerging issues of the 1980s- there was drug abuse, AIDS, kink, homosexuality, safer sex, racism, all kinds of stuff. And the messages were always positive and progressive.

Probably my favorite memory of watching "The Golden Girls" was when my friend Kjersti and I sat down to watch some serious movie one night in college. She had taped the movie off of TV and we were excited to watch it. About half way in, that familiar "Thank you for being a friend!" with shots of a plane and Miami came on! It was so funny, she had taped an episode of GG over this serious movie. And the best part? We got really excited about it and watched the whole episode.

Here's the theme song. I couldn't find the exact opening credits, but this is a song over a tribute to Estelle Getty (the woman who played Sophia, she died this past year).

Enjoy!

Standing Tall :: Perfect Strangers

I believe that February is "Music from TV and Movies," am I correct?

I will give you a bit of inspiration for the day- this is the theme song to "Perfect Strangers," a show that was perfectly stupid but had a really great theme song.

"Standing tall/ on the wings of my dreams / rise and fall/ on the wings of my dreams..." pretty cool! Plus I would like to say that this show inspired me to work with immigrants and refugees. Is that true? I dunno. But I loved this song when I was a kid... I think I am a bit of a Balki- I like to show up at the houses of random people in other countries and proclaim myself to be their cousin. Also, I have difficulty with revolving doors.

Staring at the Sea : The Singles 1979-1985 :: The Cure

Another great album from my adolescence was this "greatest hits" (right!) collection from the Cure. Not that this album came out when I was adolescent; rather, I was about ten years too late. I really liked early Cure stuff, though! It is sparse and fatalistic, just a little bit of that punk aesthetic mixed in. My love for the Cure goes up until the "Friday I'm in Love" era, and that is where it ends.

"I'm alive / I'm dead / I'm the stranger / killing an Arab..." holy hell. What great lines, delivered in that droll Robert Smith style. I think Smith had a really nice way of composing songs about love, too. Love is something to cherish and relish in the moment, be we all know it can be gone in an instant... "The day I start is the day you change, and fly away from me..." ("The Caterpillar").

TRIVIA: What book inspired "Killing an Arab"? Post answers in the comment section.

If You're Feeling Sinister :: Belle & Sebastian

It would come to no surprise to anyone who knows me that "If You're Feeling Sinister" by Belle & Sebastian is one of my favorite albums. Sometimes in the course of your life, everything that is going on around you sort of leads you to a particular album or group, and that is what happened to me. My sophomore year of college was basically hell. Everything in my life was terrible, and every day, I only thought about how much I wanted to die. I have very little memory of that horrible, depressing year of my life, but I do remember a beautiful thing that helped sustain me: this album.

I remember clearly setting the CD player to "Play" and looking out my dorm room window at the world somehow going on with life while I was stuck. "Make a new cult every day to suit your affairs.... kissing girls in English at the back of the stairs..." God, how I loved that album. And I still love it today! Those opening lines were like a balm on my poor wounded soul. Stuart Murdoch's voice was like a big bear hug. It's a really dorky thing- between Erika and I, we can probably sing every line of every Belle & Sebastian song.

In music-dork circles, this is considered one of the best albums OF ALL TIMES. It's so good that B&S actually re-recorded the album live in concert and sold it exclusively on iTunes a few years ago. Interesting trivia- there are at least TWO bands named after Belle & Sebastian songs. What are they? Post answers in the comment section.

Pretty Hate Machine :: Nine Inch Nails (1989)

I think we decided to dedicate December to talking about our favorite albums, right? Well, I dug deep to find one of my all-time (still) favorite albums. I don't listen to it all the time anymore, but I still get a lot of pleasure out of "Pretty Hate Machine" by Nine Inch Nails. Sometime around 1995, Nine Inch Nails got very popular and almost mainstream, but before that, they projected this amazing edginess, that I think influenced a lot of people that came after them.

1989 was a little early for me (I was nine), but I benefited a lot from having an edgy older brother. My brother was into all kinds of cool music. I still can't figure out how he knew all these cool bands- we lived way out in the sticks and this was wayyy before Al Gore invented the internet for us all to enjoy. But anyway, when he made his big switchover to CDs (circa 1993) I was the lucky recipient of his wonderful cassette collection (Cure, NIN, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, everything).

I think a good test for an album's quality is if it sounds as good to you now as it did when you were an angsty fourteen year-old. This one passes! Listening to it now, it still seems amazing. If anything, my added years only make me see how good and pure the music actually was. Like, when Trent Reznor sings, "Seems like salvation comes only my dreams / Can this world really be as sad as it fucking seems?" those lines seem really good and pure and honest to me still today.

The tracks:

1. Head Like a Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down in It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want to
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. The Only Time
10. Ringfinger

The video for "Head Like a Hole" (from MTV, there might be an ad for a couple seconds before it starts):

Nine Inch Nails - New Music - More Music Videos

Shirin :: Jens Lekman

This song is by my boyfriend, Jens Lekman. He is the most lovely Swedish man, so romantic, with his little stories. He comes home after working all day, and sets his anecdotes to music so that I can enjoy them more fully. I love him. He is also a good cuddler, so bonus points for him.

Anyway, I don't actually know Jens Lekman, but I feel like I do after listening to his songs. This song is a story about an Iraqi refugee, Shirin, who runs an illegal hair salon out of her apartment in Stockholm. She has a magical touch and knows how to make her clients feel safe and calm (much like my stylist, Matthew...)

Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin
Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin

When Shirin cuts my hair
it’s like a love affair
Let those locks fall to the ground
or let them stay there

I show her my passport
what I look like
But she just smiles and lets me know
it’s gonna be all right

Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin
Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin

When Shirin cuts my hair
her mama's sitting in the rocking chair
She tells me stories from the war
in Iraq cause they were there

Shirin pulls my head to the side
but in the mirror I can see
a tear in her eye

Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin
Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin

Your hands are soft
your hands are soft just like silk
You're a drop of blood
You're a drop of blood in my glass of milk

Your hands are soft
your hands are soft just like silk
You're a drop of blood
You're a drop of blood in my glass of milk

When Shirin does her magic
to my frizzy straws
Immigration and tax represantatives
stumbled upon the lot
But what if it reaches the government
that you have a beauty salon
in your own apartment

I won’t tell anyone!
Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin
I won’t tell anyone!
Shirin Shirin Shirin Shirin
I won’t tell anyone!

Dancing in the Streets :: David Bowie and Mick Jagger

I like this video because it makes me feel gay. Super gay. But like, gaiety gay. I like the sexual tension between David Bowie and Mick Jagger. I also like when Mick Jagger pauses to drink from his Diet Coke, and when the camera does a freeze frame on their butts. -Brenda

Is it me, or is Mick Jagger wearing Reebok Princess sneaks? Cuz those were my shoe of choice for grades 4-6. I think Bowie could have danced the blues even better if he was rockin the Princess sneaks. Now that I'm on the subject of Mr. Bowie, all I can say is that his trench-coat flutters like a nightingale's song at dusk. -Erika

Bang Bang :: The Knux

Thanks to Kim for pointing out that MTV has a new YouTube-ish website for searching for videos and interviews...

Here's another song by the Knux, two brothers out of New Orleans. These guys are so cool. I love hip-hop that is fast and fun and not about being a sociopath. So, here's the video for "Bang Bang." I love how the video references the early-80s movie "The Outsiders" and how the blonde chick looks like a Twin Peaks-era Lara Flynn Boyle.

The second video is the Knux talking about being labeled "hipster rap" by the hip-hop community... interesting stuff!

The Knux |MTV Music

The Knux |MTV Music

Come Up and See Me :: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

Here's a sentimental song for Memorial Day-

Come up and see me,
Make me smile...
Or do what you want,
Running wild...

You've done it all, you've broken every code
And pulled the rebel to the floor
You spoilt the game, no matter what you say
For only metal - what a bore!
Blue eyes, blue eyes, how come you tell so many lies?

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

There's nothing left, all gone and run away
Maybe you'll tarry for a while
It's just a test, a game for us to play
Win or lose, it's hard to smile
Resist, resist, it's from yourself you have to hide

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

There ain't no more, you've taken everything
From my believe in Mother Earth
How can you ignore my faith in everything
When I know what Faith is and what it's worth
Away, away, and don't say maybe you'll try

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

Coast is Clear :: Curve

I was on a mission to find this song! I remember this blaring through the wall of my older brother's room when I was a kid. I think I even had an old hand-me-down cassette with this song on it, but today I couldn't remember what it was called.

So. Curve. So Beautiful. I always loved the singer (Toni Halliday). She's so plaintive and mesmerizing. Enjoy.

P.S. I also love how this clip is from MTV's "120 Minutes." People who had cable used to tape it and then pass the tapes all over school. I remember it being so cool! To catch some Cure or They Might Be Giants and get a whiff of that other world out there, somewhere...

Above my bed in this ugly room
Hangs the whisper of the sandman
You can be my father, for the love you show
It's just a little too late
It's never enough to swallow those pills
Now I'm sick, and always will be

Take it, I don't want it, you can have what you like
Just don't try and trick me to sleep
Then turn out those lights

You can be my father, for the love you show
It's just a little too late
It's never enough to swallow those pills
Now I'm sick, and always will be

Dreams of meeting truth (be my father)
Dreams of meeting truth (for the love)

I said you can be my father for the love you show
It's just a little too late
It's never enough to swallow those pills
Now I'm sick, now I'm sick, now I'm sick

Just when you thought it was alright [x2 ]