Song of the Day:
Lotus Flower by Radiohead
watch on youtube[i-watch on youtube]
Because all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what it is
Just to see what gives
Take the lotus flowers into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
All I want is the moon upon a stick
(Click on the picture to watch the video on YouTube)
Discovered via Matt Brown, who shot the video.
More Songs of the Day on The Road Read the full post...
Song of the Day: Lisa Hannigan - I Don't Know
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My vote of Song of the Day... Well, even Song of the Season... Nice!
Thanks to Samuel!
Requiem for Luc
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Last night, my nephew posted his last Facebook update after years of fighting cancer.
Tonight is the last night.
It was a privilege knowing you all.
Eva Cassidy, Somewhere over the Rainbow. For Luc. Read the full post...
Song of the Day: Live like Horses
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I stepped onto the moving stairs
Before I could tie my shoes
Pried a harp out the fingers of a renegade
Who lived and died the blues
And his promise made was never clear
It just carved itself in me
All I saw was frost inside my head
On the night he said to me
Someday we'll live like horses
Free rein from your old iron fences
There's more ways than one to regain your senses
Break out the stalls and we'll live like horses
Song of the day: Angel - Sarah McLachlan
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For the five friends and colleagues we lost due to senseless violence today.
The lyrics:Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There's always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight
In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there
So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time
It's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees
In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here
Song of the day: Wait it out (Imogen Heap)
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Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond these questions...
Clambering for the scraps in the shatter of us collapsed
that cuts me with every could-have-been
Pain on pain on play repeating
with the backup, makeshift life in waiting
Everybody says time heals everything
but what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in between
are we just going to wait it out?
There's nothing to see here now,
turning the sign around
We're closed to the earth 'til further notice
A stumbling cliched case,
crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles
All I want, only one, street level miracle
I'll be an out and out, born again, from none more
cynical
And sit here cold, we will be long gone by then
In lackluster, in dust we layer on old magazines,
fluorescent lighting sets the scene
in the one life that we've got
And sit here
Just going to wait it out
And sit here cold
Just going to sweat it out
Wait it out
This song should be played at the opening of the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit meeting.
Video courtesy TED Read the full post...
Song of the day: Run Away (The Corrs)
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Say it's true, there's nothing like me and you
Not alone, tell me you feel it too
And I would runaway
I would runaway, yeah
I would runaway
I would runaway with you
Cause I have fallen in love
With you, no never have
I'm never gonna stop falling in love, with you
Close the door, lay down upon the floor
And by candlelight, make love to me through the night
Cause I have runaway
I have runaway, yeah
If you are in for a magical life version of this song, try this.
More music on The Road. Read the full post...
Song of the day: The Corrs and beatboxers
I have two variations of music for you today.
If you feel romantic and in the mood for a bit of floating, try "Only when I sleep" by The Corrs:
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If on the other hand, you have to shake that rhythm out of your booodeh. Then... these two British beatboxers performing at the cafeteria of Google London will probably do the trip:
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So which one worked for you?
Beatbox video discovered via The Next Web who got it via Michael J. Cohen's FriendFeed
Song of the day: Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
I keep on telling you all. The daily worries are not important... Go beyond. Listen to this song and close your eyes.
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Or listen to the official music video clip of the same.
More music and videos on The Road.
Song of the day: Always look at
No matter how tough stuff gets, at least at work... Sometimes it is just better to take a distance and see the relativity of it all... Does it all really matter that much, in the wider scheme of things?
At those moments, this song comes to mind:
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More music and videos on The Road.
Song of the day: Je pense a toi - I am thinking of you...
Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, who met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind.
The duo's early recordings in the 80s and 90s feature spare arrangements of guitar and voice. Since the late 1990s Amadou & Mariam produce music that mixes traditional Mali sound with rock guitars, Syrian violins, Cuban trumpets, Egyptian ney, Colombian trombones, Indian tablas and Dogon percussion. All these elements put together have been referred to as "Afro-blues".
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More music and videos on The Road.
Song of the Day: Stand by me...
From the documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", comes the first of many "songs around the world" being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe.
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More music and videos on The Road.
Video courtesy Playing For Change.
Song of the day: Beautiful Flower - India Arie
Song of the day: Vaporous
When I drove to work this morning, this music was playing...
Driving on the highway.. Looking at the sunrise and the mountains behind Rome.
Ready for a new year.
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Vaporous by Elsiane. For a better quality audio recording, check her site.
More videos and music on The Road.
Song of the day: Miriam Makeba’s last song
South Africa is in mourning. Mariam Makeba, better known as "Mama Africa" or the "Songbird of Africa", is no more.
The South African singer who, along with Nelson Mandela, came to be identified with her country’s struggle against apartheid rule and whose songs became a rallying cry for black freedom, died near Rome today after performing at a protest concert. She was 76.
She had been singing at a concert protesting Mafia rule in Italy and in support of Roberto Saviano, an author who has received death threats since writing about organised crime.
After the South African regime cancelled her passport in 1960, Mariam Makeba spent 31 years in exile, living in France, Guinea and Belgium, and the United States. She was prevented from attending her mother’s funeral after touring in the U.S.
Her music was banned on state-owned South African radio and television after she condemned the racist South African regime at the U.N. headquarters in 1976. (Full)
Her best known song was the world hit "Pata-Pata".
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More music and videos on The Road.
Songs for me - Leaving on a Jet Plane
sunset in Brindisi with trails of planes[i-sunset in Brindisi with trails of planes]
| All my bags are packed I’m ready to go I’m standing here outside your door I hate to wake you up to say goodbye But the dawn is breaking It’s early morning The taxi’s waiting He’s blowing his horn Already I’m so lonesome I could die… So kiss me and smile for me Tell me that you’ll wait for me Hold me like you’ll never let me go cause I’m leaving on a jet plane Don’t know when I’ll be back again Oh babe, I hate to go. |
On several occasions, I have told you music plays an important part of my life. Music picks me up when down, makes me float when on a high, calms me down when enerved and inspires me when too deflated for any inspiration. Music pumps me up when low on energy, soothes me when sad.
Many individual memories are linked to music. Hearing a certain song brings back the image, scent, vibe and mood of a certain event or period. I can be talking with people, and just like a remote perfume of a person walking by, a few seconds of a song can snap me out of the discussion, out of the present, and just have me float on the feeling of that memory for a few minutes… Gone are discussions, or conversations, or anything in the present. This is the moment where my partners in conversation think I am nuts. These are the moments where I completely loose my way, while driving, dreaming with a song on the radio, while ending up in quarters of town previously unknown.
“E” brought “Leaving on a Jet Plane” back into my memory. Not the original by John Denver, but the remake by Chantal Kreviazuk (listen to the song) which was also the title song for the movie Armageddon in 1998.
This song was always there, in my mind, with memories hidden behind a wall of time. Once hearing Chantal Kreviazuk’s version, scents of memories picked over… It took a while until I had all of the pieces of memory:
- When I was 20, I hitchhiked through France and Spain. I crossed the Pyrenees via Andorra. I bought my first walkman there, with a few music tapes. John Denver’s Greatest Hits was one of the tapes, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was one of the songs. (and yes, mum, this was the summer of the two girls in the one hotel room in Benidorm. But I never confessed the whole story!)
- I saw Armageddon for the first time on an Air France plane, crossing the Atlantic on the way to Honduras for the Hurricane Mitch emergency. That was the first mission, and the proof of concept of the UN fast intervention team we had just started then.
And Armageddon shone through Liv Tyler, with a face and above all a shape of hands that.. anyway..
- “Leaving on a Jet Plane…” has a special meaning for me, as I lead a life where I am often leaving on a Jet Plane, leaving loved ones behind. Close the door, close my heart, and climb the steps into a plane. Sit down, buckle up, close my eyes and just get on with it. Knowing I can not stay, but hate to leave. Knowing I love, but have to feel the missing too, otherwise I stop appreciating, knowing that love is the only thing that keeps me going.
Liv Tyler[i-Liv Tyler]
Picture Liv Tyler courtesy lovelylivtyler.com
Read the full post...
Song of the Day: Gabriel by Lamb
On the beach in Fregene (Lazio-Roma)[i-On the beach in Fregene (Lazio-Roma)]
but I want her wings
I can shine even in the darkness
but I crave the light that she brings
Revel in the songs that she brings,
my angel Gabriel.
I can love
but I need her heart
I am strong even on my own
but from her I never want to part
She’s been there since the very start,
my angel Gabriel, my angel Gabriel.
Bless the day she came to be,
my angel Gabriel.
"Gabriel" by Lamb
from the album Café del Mar Vol.8
(text slightly modified)