Jeff Buckley - Grace

The first of two Jeff Buckley posts. In this one, I'm simply going to post the entire Grace record, start to finish. I can't possibly excerpt from it, and if you have never really listened to the record all the way though, you need to. I spent a solid week or so listening to Jeff recently and whenever I do that, it knocks me off my axis for a bit. It reminds me that any moment I'm not spending pursuing my own musical passions is a wasted moment of my life. That's been coming into focus for me anyway lately, so spending a week immersed in the limited oeuvre of Jeff Buckley just made it worse/better, depending on my perspective at any given second.

Right now I'm just pissed off, but maybe I'll use that energy to redirect things.

So here's Grace. In the next post, I'll include some of my favorites from Jeff's posthumous releases.

The track list:

1. Mojo Pin
2. Grace
3. Last Goodbye
4. Lilac Wine
5. So Real
6. Hallelujah
7. Lover, You Should Have Come Over
8. Corpus Christi Carol
9. Eternal Life
10. Dream Brother

The songs I can't stop listening to 11/23/12

I hate the holidays.

1. The Byrds - "Mr. Tambourine Man" (Bob Dylan cover)
2. The Mountain Goats - "For Charles Bronson"
3. Fucked Up - "Queen Of Hearts"
4. Tori Amos - "Cruel" (live, from To Venus And Back)
5. The XX - "Infinity"
6. Old 97's - "Brown Haired Daughter"
7. Billy Preston - "Both Ways"

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand still but not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet,
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there's no place I'm going to...

Set your sights on good fortune
Concentrate
Pull back the hammer
Try to hold the gun straight

"Hello, my name is David, your name is Veronica, let's be
together, let's fall in love. Hello my name is David, your name is 
Veronica -- let's be together until the stars go out."
All we need is for something to give, the dam bursts open, we
suddenly live.
"The boot off my throat, life is returning, the boot off my throat,
let's all emote."

so don't give me respect don't give me a piece of your preciousness
flaunt all she's got in your old neighbourhood
I'm sure she'll make a few friends
even the rain bows down let us pray as you cock-cock-cock your mane
no cigarettes only peeled HAVANA'S for you I can be cruel
I don't know why
why can't my ba.ll.oo.n stay up in a perfectly windy sky
I can be cruel I don't know why
dance with the sufi's celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain
lover brother bogenvilla my vine twists around your need
even the rain is sharp like today as you sh-sh-shock me sane
no cigarettes only peeled HAVANA's for you I can be cruel

I can't give it up
To someone else's touch
Because I care too much

Could you tell
I was left lost and lonely
Things ain't worked out my way

Wish the best for you
Wish the best for me
Wished for infinity
If that ain't me

And I tried
Tried to leave it all alone
...
But I can't
So I won't

And finally:

I need a love that goes both ways.

Vivaldi

So this Vivaldi recording came in the mail the other day, and I keep coming back to this recording of Summer from The Four Seasons. It's absolutely exhilarating. If you have perfect pitch, as I do, it might bother you, but try to get past it.

So here, the three movements of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8/2, RV 315, as played by Elizabeth Blumenstock with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas McGegan.

The songs I can't stop listening to 11/16/12

1. Ferraby Lionheart - "Dear Corinne"
2. Philip Glass - "The Plant-Boy's Song" (from The Witches Of Venice)
3. INXS - "Wishing Well"
4. The Ting Tings - "Great DJ"
5. Bon Iver - "Beth/Rest"
6. White Rabbits - "Temporary"
7. Deerhoof - "Fresh Born"
8. Björk - "Vökuró"

Every song I hear by Ferraby Lionheart, I adore him more:

But when the night falls back over me,
And the moon crawls over the sea.
If my body breaks, then my heart you'll take this time.
And if the wind rushes into my bones, picks me up and delivers me home,
and if my body breaks, then my heart you'll take this time.

A lovely piece from Philip Glass.

Oh, INXS:

Oh, The Ting Tings:

"Beth/Rest" is probably my favorite song of the past year:

all the news at the door
such a revelry
well, it's hocked inside of everything you said to me

you never let it on, all you wanted was a little disaster...

Just a song about the birth of Bambi. Such a jejune topic.

And also, a beautiful Icelandic folk song, backed by a choir:

Michael Bublé

So I got on a standards kick for a couple of weeks there. Dunno why. It started with Michael Bublé, as he covers so many of the "greats," and does them quite credibly in my opinion. Here are some of my favorites:

Save The Last Dance For Me

Home

I've Got You Under My Skin

You And I

Fever

Kissing A Fool

For Once In My Life

The Way You Look Tonight

Song For You (feat. Chris Botti)

The songs I can't stop listening to (11/10/12)

My weekly iTunes shuffle was fun this weekend. The My Bloody Valentine song was particularly welcome.

1. Cibo Matto - "Moonchild"
2. Youth Lagoon - "Afternoon"
3. The Shins - "Phantom Limb"
4. Teedra Moses - "On Fire (Remix)"
5. White Lies - "To Lose My Life"
6. Paul Westerberg - "Love Untold"
7. My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
8. William Elliott Whitmore - "When Push Comes To Love"

Time always shows me it's hard to understand how to be myself.

I'm thinking of you dear
Every moment I'm awake.
I tie my hands with woe, I want to escape.
Did I make a mistake?

So we just skirt the hallway sides
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection

Teedra. Just awesome.

I said I've got no time, I have to go
And I was more right than I will ever know
He said my heart is faded, well mine's regret
And left him crying next to the chapel steps

Let's grow old together and die at the same time...

They were gonna meet on a crummy little street
It never came to be I'm told
Does anyone recall the saddest love of all
The one that lets you fall nothing to hold
It's the love untold...

(Look)
In the mirror
She's not there

One of the greatest songs of the '90's. I've listened to this at full blast approximately twenty times since yesterday morning.

Well you're a rainstorm, a fire and a trainwreck
All wrapped up in ribbons and lace
You're a fistful of roadside flowers and rain
Just the soil in a dimestore vase

And I can't seem to understand
But you got my heart in your hands

That song above, right there, is one of the best things I've discovered in my iTunes in months.

The songs I can't stop listening to 11/2/12

All these "can't stop listening to" posts are based on random iTunes shuffles, so I can get to know my insanely large music collection better. Sometimes, though, I think iTunes has an uncanny way of knowing what I want to hear, and what I will relate to lyrically. Seriously uncanny.

1. Ben Folds Five - "Best Imitation Of Myself"
2. Panda Bear - "You Can Count On Me"
3. Noise Addict - "Chris Martin's Frown"
4. Wild Nothing - "Shadow"
5. Jim Croce - "Time In A Bottle"
6. M83 - "Midnight City"
7. The Chemical Brothers - "Got Glint?"
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Before You Accuse Me" (Bo Diddley cover)
9. Modeselektor - "Berlin"

Ben Folds Five:

Oh, a song that reminds me of several people...

I feel like a quote out of context
Withholding the rest
So I can be for you what you want to see
I got the gesture and sound
Got the timing down
It's uncanny, yeah, you think it was me
Do you think I should take a class
To lose my Southern accent
Did I make me up, or make the face till it stuck
I do the best imitation of myself
...
Last night I was east with them
And west within
Trying to be for you what you want to see
But I can't help it with you
The good and bad comes through
Don't want you hanging out with
No one but me
Now if it's all the same
It comes from the same place
And if my mind's somewhere else
You won't be able to tell
I do the best imitation of myself

Panda Bear:

Know you can count on me
...
Who am I if I'm not up for it
Where are you if I'm not up for it
Want to put a bubble round you
With a force field switch
Keep you secured just a little bit
But I know a secret child is just
A silly trick
Who grows up to lose a force field switch

Ben Lee (Noise Addict):

Just a cute little minute-long song. It starts about 48 seconds in.

Wild Nothing:

Oh why is your hate so addicting and I
Well I wonder where you've been
I don't see you often

I try to feel something for you
But that's all I can do
Give my shadow to you
...
I'd go with you if you asked me to
But we wouldn't get too far
Two strangers in the dark

Jim Croce:

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

M83:

This song is infectious and kind of annoying, but also great.

You know, the song is not actually that annoying, until you watch this, which is just so great.



The Chemical Brothers:

Great. Just great.

Creedence Clearwater Revival:

Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself..

'Nuff said.

Modeselektor:

Another one to chill out to...