Songs Meme
24/5/05 00:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienTotal volume of music files on my computer:
I don't know; I'm not on my own computer at the moment.
Not a lot.
The last CD I bought:
Was a collection of Elizabethan-era English music, both vocal and instrumental. More recently, I picked up a free CD single by a guy who was busking in the train station, but I haven't listened to it yet.
Song playing right now:
The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," playing in my brain.
Five songs that mean a lot to me:
1. "Bread and Roses." This song acknowledges two important facts I have never seen in any song before or since: 1.) "Hearts starve as well as bodies." 2.) Roses must be fought for--and the song implies that they are inherently worth the fight.
2. The entire album of "Before these Crowded Streets" by the Dave Matthews Band has a lot of meaning to me, and can almost be taken as an extended song in the same way that some of the Beatles' albums can, or in the way that work by the Moody Blues was all of a piece. If you want to look at it that way, as I do, it ends up being a song cycle about isolation, destruction, joy, happiness, physical pleasure, childhood, dreaming, and how they all feed off each other. All this, set to some of the best music I've ever heard, with this really elegant counterpoint and amazing lyrics. If I had to pick one song off the album, though, I'd go for The Stone. It's really sad and downcast, but retains the slightest glimmer of hope. And the lyrics are poetry. They quoted one line--my favorite--wrong, and I'd like to correct it here: And now it weighs on me/heavy as stone/and a bone-chilling cold.
3. "Me and Bobbi McGee" by Janis Joplin. I can never tell if I will cry or smile when I hear it; it tends to set off either great crying jags or fits of ecstatic singing and dancing. I also have this reaction to "Blackbird" by the Beatles, but it's nowhere near as strong. I will occasionally go over to the radio and turn it off when this song comes on, which is something I hardly ever do.
4. Okay, here's the embarassing one. "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. Why? I guess I rather like the idea of people always being there for you, but I first heard this song when I was four and liked it immediately then just as much as I do now, so I have no idea why I like it. And there are other songs that say the same thing better to a better melody. I don't know what it means to me, just that it means a lot and my world would not be the same without it.
5. There is a particular piano piece by Chopin which has the most beautiful line in the whole of music; it sent literal shivers up my spine when first I heard it, and I kind of slumped into a chair. I will try to look up the title and post it here tomorrow because the sheet music is in another room.
*bonus*
6.) "Run, Wolf Warrior" from the Wolf's Rain soundtrack. It's beautiful music, wonderful floating voices over it, a beautifully resonant drum beat, and lyrics that both speak directly to my soul's purpose and passions and stem from its dreamscapes.
There are more--"Broken Alleluia," "Mack the Knife," "Galileo," various church hymns, the 'Duck Theme' from "Peter and the Wolf," "Fields of Gold" by Sting. But those stories aren't for this post--it's time for me to go to bed.
I don't know; I'm not on my own computer at the moment.
Not a lot.
The last CD I bought:
Was a collection of Elizabethan-era English music, both vocal and instrumental. More recently, I picked up a free CD single by a guy who was busking in the train station, but I haven't listened to it yet.
Song playing right now:
The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," playing in my brain.
Five songs that mean a lot to me:
1. "Bread and Roses." This song acknowledges two important facts I have never seen in any song before or since: 1.) "Hearts starve as well as bodies." 2.) Roses must be fought for--and the song implies that they are inherently worth the fight.
2. The entire album of "Before these Crowded Streets" by the Dave Matthews Band has a lot of meaning to me, and can almost be taken as an extended song in the same way that some of the Beatles' albums can, or in the way that work by the Moody Blues was all of a piece. If you want to look at it that way, as I do, it ends up being a song cycle about isolation, destruction, joy, happiness, physical pleasure, childhood, dreaming, and how they all feed off each other. All this, set to some of the best music I've ever heard, with this really elegant counterpoint and amazing lyrics. If I had to pick one song off the album, though, I'd go for The Stone. It's really sad and downcast, but retains the slightest glimmer of hope. And the lyrics are poetry. They quoted one line--my favorite--wrong, and I'd like to correct it here: And now it weighs on me/heavy as stone/and a bone-chilling cold.
3. "Me and Bobbi McGee" by Janis Joplin. I can never tell if I will cry or smile when I hear it; it tends to set off either great crying jags or fits of ecstatic singing and dancing. I also have this reaction to "Blackbird" by the Beatles, but it's nowhere near as strong. I will occasionally go over to the radio and turn it off when this song comes on, which is something I hardly ever do.
4. Okay, here's the embarassing one. "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. Why? I guess I rather like the idea of people always being there for you, but I first heard this song when I was four and liked it immediately then just as much as I do now, so I have no idea why I like it. And there are other songs that say the same thing better to a better melody. I don't know what it means to me, just that it means a lot and my world would not be the same without it.
5. There is a particular piano piece by Chopin which has the most beautiful line in the whole of music; it sent literal shivers up my spine when first I heard it, and I kind of slumped into a chair. I will try to look up the title and post it here tomorrow because the sheet music is in another room.
*bonus*
6.) "Run, Wolf Warrior" from the Wolf's Rain soundtrack. It's beautiful music, wonderful floating voices over it, a beautifully resonant drum beat, and lyrics that both speak directly to my soul's purpose and passions and stem from its dreamscapes.
There are more--"Broken Alleluia," "Mack the Knife," "Galileo," various church hymns, the 'Duck Theme' from "Peter and the Wolf," "Fields of Gold" by Sting. But those stories aren't for this post--it's time for me to go to bed.