The Velvet-een Habit

Velvet Elvis by Alex Winston

This should be a fairly short post as it’s solely on the letter ‘V’ (one of the most excellent of letters, I’m sure you’ll agree…) and I only have seven ‘V’ songs in total.

Slightly randomly I feel though, three of them begin with the word ‘Velvet’. It’s not really a material you would think would come up a lot in songs – I suppose it has a luxurious and sort of, almost seedy, smoothness connotation that can be a metaphor for other ideas and notions. I wonder if any other material comes up more? I would imagine denim and leather are fairly popular… there’s the band White Denim, but I can’t really think of any famous songs that begin with either of those two fabrics actually. Maybe I’m wrong then? Maybe velvet is the most popular of materials with artists. There is Cotton Fields by the Beach Boys, and jeans come up quite a bit (Blue Jeans and Same Jeans), but do they count? Anyway, enough of  the musical material talk (hey, Material Girl by Madonna too).

I’m gonna flick you my ‘V’s:

Vagabond - Wolfmother (I remember there being a big fuss over Wolfmother – some saying how they were the next big thing, others saying they were overrated. I didn’t really pay them any attention, but I heard this in (500) Days of Summer - great film, great soundtrack (although use of Sweet Disposition was a bit tired) – and really liked it so downloaded it. Haven’t heard any of their other stuff)

VCR – The xx (quite like their other singles, haven’t got the album and not that bothered about getting it, but this is very good and the only song of theirs I own)

Velvet - The Big Pink (good, if not a bit overused though)

Velvet Elvis – Alex Winston (bought her album King Con (from HMV, obviously) recently so that’s where this song is from. I think she released it as a single/part of an EP before though. Pretty decent I’d say)

Velvet Snow - Kings of Leon

Vienna - Ultravox (sing with me: “This means nothing to meeeeeeeeeee… Oooooooh Viennaaaaaaa!” Can’t deny the brilliance)

Voulez-vous – ABBA (Again, can’t deny the brilliance…)

So, there you have it: three ‘Velvets’, a ‘Vagabond’, ‘VCR’, ‘Vienna’ and a ‘Voulez-vous’. Fabulous.

Better leave you with some ‘Velvet’ as it is the theme of the post. The Big Pink song is better, but I think Alex Winston needs to be heard more than them or KoL.

See you at the W.

L x

(Bit of an annoyingly kooky video, but the song is fun)

Up and Away

Up Up Up by Givers

Right, second post on a train. I’ve already managed to delete around 100 words I’d already written, so here’s hoping the rest of this goes better.

I have been down in Dorset since Thursday night but am now travelling back to London (on Easter Sunday) because I’m seeing Paul Merton in Richmond tonight. I have time to kill (the train journey is ridiculously 45 minutes longer than usual due to an engineering works diversion) and I’ll be out tonight, so this gives me the perfect opportunity to ramble on for my Sunday post.

I’m finishing the letter ‘U’ today with the word ‘Up’. Without even going on to talking about ‘Up’, it already makes me wonder if ‘Down’ came up? I’m not sure, so I’m going to have a quick looksy…Right, well looking at my song list (I can’t access the Internet to look at any previous posts) I don’t think it can have because I only have two songs: Down the Burning Ropes by James Vincent McMorrow, which is from his fairly-recently-purchased album Early in the Morning, and Down Under by Men at Work (bloody good song). Anyway, this seems to imply that going ‘Up’ is more favourable than going ‘Down’ (quiet now). And this fits in with lots of metaphors we go by in life – you’re on the up, the sky’s the limit, feeling high as a kite, etc. There is a term for this that we learnt in Semantics – where an idea or notion carries across many metaphors and idioms, you would write it [UP is GOOD] and [TIME is MONEY] I think, anyway…

So, ‘Up’, yes. Like I said, it generally means someone, something or some feeling is coming up, approaching and ameliorating (is that a word??). Basically, things are getting good. You can also be ‘Up’ instead of in bed/asleep, which I suppose isn’t always a good thing, though. Are there any other instances of negative connotations for the use of ‘Up’. I suppose a fairly neutral one would be ‘What’s Up?’ and when you are literally talking about something above you… I apologise, I am literally writing down every meandering thought that comes into my brain now.

So, songs!:

Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood) – Counting Crows (this is what made me consider the up/asleep meaning. This is from Hard Candy which isn’t that great, but this is a pretty decent, enjoyable song)

Up from Below – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (have I talked about Ed Sharpe before? Not sure I have but I’ve put a link in just in case, I’ll remove it later if necessary. I heard 40 Day Dream on the Internet somehow when I came across a video of Sharpe and the Zeros playing it in a bookshop – it could be the official video, I don’t know. Anyway, I downloaded it and had it on my iPod for a while, until I decided I liked it enough to try the album (also titled Up from Below. It’s very good, if quite eclectic in style, though I quite like that))

Up Up Up – Givers (the single, as well as Meantime, that spurred the album purchase. I really like the album In Light, though I don’t feel I know it well enough yet; I haven’t got a favourite track for example)

And that’s all my ‘Up’s. Any more famous ‘Up’ songs? I suppose there must be some ‘Upside Down’ ones, hmm.

Anyway, rounding out ‘U’ is Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Love by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Us by Regina Spektor and Use Somebody by Kings of Leon. I think I have a few ‘V’ songs which I’ll go over next time, but then it’s onto ‘W’ which should provide me with quite a few (question) words to play with.

We are just waiting for a platform at Waterloo now, so pretty good timing. I’ll have to wait til I’m home and wifi-ed up to do a video embed, but other than that I’m done. Success!

Well done and thanks if you made it to the end,

L x

Givers – Up Up Up:

We’re Going Under

What Did You Expect from the Vaccines by The Vaccines (Under Your Thumb)

So, onto ‘U’. I only have about 15 ‘U’ songs, but out of those 15 I’m going to manage to make two posts, because there are two words that come up a couple of times. The first one of these is ‘Under’.

After U.R.A Fever by The Kills (rockin’ song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3fZP7QC4PE&ob=av3e considering buying more Kills stuff actually) I have 6 songs that start with the word ‘Under’. I wouldn’t have pegged ‘Under’ to be a word that’s used a lot in songs… I suppose it’s means more than being beneath something physically; it can be in a metaphorical sense, like being ‘under a spell’, or under someone in terms of superiority. And obviously you could be ‘under someone’ physically too… hmm.

Anyway, as usual I’m against the clock and want to finish this before a TV programme starts (Homeland again), though I’m being distracted at the moment by that Once Upon a Time programme on 5 (fairly good, but mostly for Robert Carlyle being Rumpelstiltskin and the looker that is Jamie Dornan…. anyway), so here are my ‘Under’ songs:

Under African Skies – Paul Simon (from Graceland, so wonderful)

Under My Thumb – Rolling Stones (after getting bored with the whole of Forty Licks, I just selected the Rolling Stones songs that I liked enough to not skip when they come on shuffle when I was putting everything on my new iPod, this made the cut)

Under the Sheets – Ellie Goulding

Under the Stars – Hans Zimmer (from the Lion King Soundtrack again. = crying)

Under the Sun – Kidda (from a Bacardi advert a while ago. I don’t really like this sort of music – dance, I suppose you’d call it, though I have no idea… But for some reason I really liked this song, it just seems very summery I think)

Under Your Thumb – The Vaccines (an album track from What Did You Expect from the Vaccines. Really love this one, and not just because it’s about a girl called Eleanor, which is my middle name. Everyone likes songs that mention their name, right? Like School Uniforms by The Wombats which is about a ‘Sweet Louise’. Yes, I’m vain, and I ain’t gonna hide it)

So, which song shall be the feature of my picture and video? I assume fewer people will have heard the Kidda song (though may recognise it from the advert), but the Vaccines song is pretty good… argh. I think I’ll go with the Vaccines, but the Kidda song is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suNBqN-e_B8 it really kicks in just before 1 minute in.

OK, I’m going ‘Up’ next week, so see ya then.

L x

(No exciting video as it wasn’t released as a single, but just so you can hear it:)

Sweet Songs

Sweets for My Sweet by C.J. Lewis (HILARIOUSLY INAPPROPRIATE single cover here!)

It’s time for the last post on ‘S’. After ‘Sun’ songs, I get to ‘Sweet’ songs (I do have three ‘Surf’ songs but they’re all by the Beach Boys – so stereotypical of them tsshh…). So, ‘Sweet’ – an adjective to describe sugary niceness, innocence, and just loveliness, not far off the use of ‘Sun’, actually. Of course it can also mean actual sugary treats; ‘candy’ as Americans would say, but I think generally it will be used in the adjectival form in songs.

My ‘Sweet’ songs are:

Sweet Child o’ Mine – Taken by Trees (used in that John Lewis ad a while back. I quite like the original – you can’t argue it’s not a great song, but it’s a bit tiresome these days and this one’s a nice, gentle version)

Sweet Disposition - Temper Trap (really love this, though it was one of those songs I had to avoid hearing for a while because it was played everywhere and used in every television show and advert possible. I’m still not sure if I can hear it now, but I’m keeping it because I think in a couple of years, after not hearing it in a long time, I can listen to it and really enjoy it. I know I’m silly to like a song less if it gets played a lot, but it’s something I can’t seem to control – a song can be really special to me when the amazingness is still fairly new and I’m still discovering how great it is. The magic is lost when I’ve heard it too many times and it makes me so sad that I can’t get that special feeling back that I used to get when listening to it before – does that make any sense at all?! I find it hard to put into words…)

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

Sweet James - Alex Winston (nice song from the Sister Wife EP. Was going to use this for my picture and video – but there are no videos of it on YouTube! Scandalous! Will have to go with the classic that’s coming up…)

Sweets for My Sweet – C.J. Lewis (From my super-awesome-don’t-knock-it ‘The Ultimate Collection – Nineties 100 Hits’ album. It was a gift, I didn’t buy it… but that doesn’t matter because I love it anyway. Only just found out this was originally a song by the Searchers in the sixties – crikey!)

That’s all the sweets you’re getting. Was this short and sweet? For me, fairly. I’ve just realised though, that I haven’t got Sweet Home Alabama, which is a bit of a crime – I might have to download it now.

And that’ll be it for ‘S’ – all I have after ‘Sweet’ songs is Sympathy for the Devil.

Until next time…

L x

L-a L-a L-a

L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole

Ah scheiße. It happened again. Maybe I should tell myself I just need to post once a week, but then it’d probably end up being once a month.

Never mind. It’s ‘L’ time and we better get going because we have a lot to get through.

I am beginning with spelled-out ‘L’ words, which I have a couple of, randomly, and I don’t seem to have come across with any other letter yet. Odd.

I have:

L-O-V-E - Joss Stone (I will explain below…)

L-O-V-E - Nat King Cole (In the beginning of ‘The Parent Trap’ so, of course, an awesome song. Then there was that Chanel advert with annoying Keira Knightley and annoying Joss Stone doing a cover of this song, but, much against my will, I really liked her version too so had to download it.)

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. - Noah and the Whale (Another victim of overplay – I liked this a lot when I first heard it and soon downloaded it, but didn’t realise at the time that it would get played so much. Hopefully in about a year I’ll be able to listen to it again and it will have regained some of its original loveliness)

What other songs are spelly-outy songs are there? I’ve looked in the rest of my collection and can find: S.O.S., O.N.E. by Yeasayer, and U.R.A Fever by The Kills. There’s also R-E-S-P-E-C-T, though it may just be called Respect (kudos to Anna), D-I-S-C-O, D.I.V.O.R.C.E, S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G by The Pet Shop Boys  and GLORIA by The Doors (kudos to the internet) – any more??

Anyway, next is ‘La’. Not actually an English word, but either a French/Spanish word or a kind of ‘singing’ word, par exemple:

La Bamba  - Los Lobos (FUN!)

La La La  - The Bird and the Bee (Nice ‘twinkly’ sort of song. Also fun)

There must be many more foreign-language songs with ‘La’, and there must be more with ‘La’ as in the singing kind-of-word. But none are coming to mind…There’s Ooh La La by The Faces but that falls under ‘O’. I’m pretty sure there are lots because it’s a useful word for lazy songwriters, but I can’t be bothered to try to find more at the moment – maybe you can do it yourself for once…

OK, that be all. BYE.

L x

Another glorious clip from a magnificent film:

 

I Love to Melt

I Love to Boogie by T. Rex

So, working and having a busy weekend has had a toll on my blog up-keep. How do people do it? They must spend a lot of their free time writing and not watching TV like me…. crazy.

Anywho, I’m continuing the marathon that is ‘I’ and doing ‘I-F’ to ‘I-M’ today, which is not as much as it sounds, don’t worry.

I have:

I Feel Fine - The Beatles

I Get Around - The Beach Boys

I Have a Dream - ABBA (once learnt this on the violin. ‘Nuff said)

I Know What I Know - Paul Simon

I Love to Boogie - T. Rex (I think this is the only T. Rex song I have but I should really have more)

I Melt With You - Nouvelle Vague (I’m not sure who did this song originally, there’ve been so many versions, but Nouvelle Vague always do good covers and I think this was probably on another advert some-when, and it’s nice)

I Met Up With the King - First Aid Kit

There’s not much to comment on here, seeing as the only word that comes up more than once is ‘I’. It’s maybe worth noting that ‘I Love’ only comes up once, which maybe you’d expect more of, but perhaps it’s too obvious and blatant a statement.

I do like the ‘I Melt…’ song because you don’t usually use the verb ‘Melt’ in an animate/personal sense, unless talking about witches (!) or when very hot, and I like the sense of ‘melting’ with someone… though the more I say it, the more strange it sounds.

So, that’ll be all for now. I’m going back to exploring the Pottermore site. Oh yes, that may be another reason why I will have less time to blog. But that’s beyond my control, of course.

L x

I-caramba!

I Ain't Losing Any Sleep by The Sunshine Underground

I’m onto the pickle that is ‘I’. I obviously have many-a-song that starts with the first person pronoun, so now I have to decide how I’m going to tackle them all. Do I almost ignore the ‘I’ and just focus on the following words that come up most, or do I talk about every single ‘I’ title that comes up and just do it in sections??

I think I’m going to go with the latter idea, just because any option to stretch out the number of posts I can make on this whole ‘through the alphabet’ malarkey I’m going to take. Sorry. But if I run out of song titles to talk about, I won’t have anything solid to base my blog posts on, and of course, no one wants that….

So, we begin ‘I’, and I’m going from ‘I-A’ to ‘I-D’ today. Et voilà:

I Ain’t Losing Any Sleep - The Sunshine Underground (I found a song by the Sunshine Underground called Put You In Your Place so long ago I can’t remember how and why I found it, but it was an up-tempo, indie-y, punky song that I liked, so I downloaded a number of their other songs, including this one. They are all much-of-a-muchness, and fairly decent, but not good enough to warrant me buying a full album or anything more recent)

I Can Hear Music - The Beach Boys

I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash (I first heard this when I saw the film Antz, when I was young obviously…, and I remember struggling to find the song anywhere in my musical-naivety youth. I can’t remember what reminded me of it, but I downloaded it fairly recently and rediscovered my love for it)

I Don’t Want to Talk About It - Rod Stewart (I don’t know WHAT this is doing on here…..)

I Don’t Want to Wait - Paula Cole (yes Dawson’s Creek is kind of awful, but this is a niceish song and reminds me of childhood TV watching)

So that’s it for now. I don’t think I need to bother discussing why ‘I’ appears a lot; like I said before, songwriting is generally very self-centric, or if I’m being kinder, self-expressive, so it’s no wonder everyone’s talking about themselves.

And so here I leave you.

L x

P.S. Oh yeah, and here’s the clip from Antz. It’s a bit quiet and seems to have Russian subtitles, but it’s the only one I can find.

Here it is

Beachcomber's Windowsill by Stornoway

I had originally intended to talk about the word ‘Here’ in my last post along with ‘Help’, but I got a bit carried away talking about Fleet Foxes… So, ‘Here’ is getting a whole post dedicated to it, right here… ha ha… oh dear.

I am slightly surprised by ‘Here’. Why would songwriters be talking about ‘Here’ so much? Is ‘There’ etc going to come up too? Maybe it is because ‘Here’ is where the writer would be and a lot of song writing is self-centric and almost self-indulgent at times… but yet again, I think I will disprove this with the song titles I have. And yes, actually I have just looked and ALL my ‘Here’ songs are ‘Here Comes…’ which is more just an accepted phrase, and nothing to do with the actual physical position of ‘Here’.

OK, I should look at my songs more closely before I start rambling about the meaning behind the occurrence of a word. So all the songs are actually talking about something ‘coming’ (no sniggering, please) towards them; either an ominous and bad thing, or something rather more pleasant. And so maybe everybody is just looking to the future, as always. Sigh… I’m tired.

‘Here’ they are anyway:

Here Comes the Anxiety - The Wombats (I’m not a big fan of The Wombats, but I bought their debut album way back when on the back of their first single Let’s Dance to Joy Division for my sister’s birthday, and decided to keep the album myself too. I did like them, but again I heard their songs too many times and got a bit fed up of them. Some of the album songs are fun, especially Little Miss Pipedream and School Uniforms (only because it’s about a girl called Louise), and this one’s OK, but in a word: meh.)

Here Comes the Blackout…! - Stornoway (very lovely band, very lovely album – Beachcomber’s Windowsill. Have had the pleasure of seeing them live too, actually before I had given their album a good enough listen, and it probably encouraged me to listen to it more and increased my liking for them)

Here Comes the Breeze - Gomez

Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics

Here Comes the Sun - Abbey Road (this is a cover version of the Beatles song because I wanted the song before The Beatles’ music was available on iTunes, and I can’t really tell the difference actually, it’s pretty close to the original. I think I will download the original eventually – when I can be bothered. I have to admit, I mainly wanted this song because it features in the 1998 version of The Parent Trap which I LOVED (OK, still do) and so own a lot of music that is used in it because a) the songs are actually pretty awesome and b) they remind me of the film, which can only bring happy times. But in my defence, I was quite young when I watched the film first (probably 8 years old) and so I don’t think I can be blamed for not having heard Here Comes the Sun before then.)

That is that for ‘Here’. I am nearing the end of ‘H’, but I think I can stretch one more post out of it.

See you ‘Here’ soon (sorry)

L x

P.S. I’m liking adding videos, so here is a wonderfully-acted clip from The Parent Trap that introduced me to Here Comes the Sun. I think this is another cover version too, but never mind, and it has Natasha Richardson in it, sad.

Hard to Be Happy

Happy Feet by The Pasadena Roof Orchestra

So from ‘Good’ to ‘Happy’. At least maybe these are slightly happier times than before, though it’s still early to tell. OK, I’ll stop trying to be all ‘topical’ and that.

I am onto ‘H’, and the first word that occurs more than once is ‘Happy’. It’s obviously an emotive adjective so likely to be found in an emotive platform such as a song, but again like ‘Good’, I’m surprised that it is used as many times as it is, when in everyday use it seems a bit passé these days. Well, maybe not in some contexts or with some people, but you don’t hear many young people talking about how happy they are, generally… Although, maybe in a relationship context, people talk about being happy more and so that’s why we see it in songs… I’m just thinking aloud, now. I’ll be quiet.

Anyway, ‘Happy’ songs include:

Happy Alone - Kings of Leon (this is what sparked my ‘relationship’ theory with the word, people do talk about being happy alone, or with someone, I suppose)

Happy Ending  - Mika (VERY embarrassed by this, especially as I have previously exclaimed my dislike for Mika. But, unfortunately this song got to me, and it’s one of the songs I listen to when wallowing in melancholy, as you do.)

Happy Feet - The Pasadena Roof Orchestra (a bit of a random one, and another advert related song. There was a version of this song that sounded like Kermit the Frog singing on an advert a while ago. After much fruitless searching for the Kermit version, this was the next best thing. Plus, it sort of supports my theory, in that this is, if not an actual old song, but an old-style song, and so its use of ‘Happy’ seems more befitting)

Now for slightly different tone. Straight after ‘Happy’ I have ‘Hard’. This word I understand – it’s harsh and strong. Boom:

Hard Believer - First Aid Kit (have I said how much I like this band/their songs/this album?)

Hard Candy - Counting Crows (from the album of the same name)

A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles (slightly cheating here as I have mentioned this already in my ‘A’ fiasco post)

That’s all for now, but I’ve had a peek ahead and it seems ‘H’ will have a lot more to give. What anticipation. Ta ra.

L x

A Little Goodness

Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys

So it appears my comment plea fell on deaf ears… oh well, I think I’ll admit defeat. Onwards and upwards.

The last word for ‘G’ is ‘Good’, which is a little ironic amidst these very bad times (i.e. the insane rioting and looting that is happening). But maybe these ‘Good’ songs can provide a little relief… well, I doubt it, but I feel it’s a bit odd that the word I am talking about is so juxtaposed with the general mood of things. Maybe it’s a good omen… or maybe I’m reading too much into things as usual.

I have three pure ‘Good’ songs, and two ‘Goodnight’ songs, and very boringly so, three out of the five are Counting Crows songs, yawn. It appears my more interesting musical tastes have more obscure song titles that are unique and so harder for me to comment on without individually talking about every single song I own. Anyway, here they are:

Good People - Jack Johnson (from In Between Dreams and a fairly good song. Its lyrics: “Where’d all the good people go?” is rather appropriate at the moment)

Good Time - Counting Crows (song one)

Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys (obviously)

Goodnight Elisabeth - Counting Crows (song two)

Goodnight L.A. - Counting Crows (song three)

I suppose after finding ‘Bad’ came up a number of times, it’s not surprising that ‘Good’ comes up. I don’t think there’s much else to say about ‘Good’; it’s a common word, it has a couple of senses, it can be compounded with other words… that’s it really.

So, onto H next, and hopefully there will be more good by then (eurgh, cheesy, sorry)

L x

PS I’ve added some links to other pages in this blog in an attempt to be more ‘techy’, probably aren’t necessary but thought I’d experiment.