My day at work....

The circus boy is feeling melancholy.

The cruelty of an elephant's memory

From Rachael Yamagata's new album (she did keep her promise made at her concert in Singapore last year):

And how dare that you send me that card 
When I am doing 
All that I can do
You are forcing me to remember 
When all I want is 
To just forget you

Great stuff packed in this double disc.

Camera Obscura!

I don’t believe in true love anyway

Oh, who’s being pessimistic now?

I could document this as our first and our last row.

The more you look forlorn, the more to you I warm.

29 Oct 08

Pick out your cloud

Do you think
Just like that
You can divide this
You as yours
Me as mine
To before we were us
If the rain has to separate from itself
Does it say "Pick out your cloud?"

Here is a website featuring amazing pics of clouds.

We'd fight and never lose

So goes a song that I don't remember when I first heard. But it was immediately sad.

Those Were The Days by Mary Hopkin.

May Primary School Song

Knowledge lights my way
As I learn and play from day to day
And to build in me
Obedience to authority in school and country

May Primary is our pride
You'll guide us with your burning light
Through our teachers we will be
Productive to society

Knowledge lights my way
As I learn and play from day to day
And to build in me
Obedience to authority in school and country

~ J J de Souza

To think I sang this song, every school day, for 6 years of my life....."obedience to authority..." indeed.

Silver Apples

Oscillations, oscillations
Electronic evocations of sound’s reality

Spinning, magnetic fluctuations, waves of wave configurations
That dance between the poles off sound and bind my world to soul.

I walk the streets of moment. Head down to the ground.
Cars are stars remotely far. My only world is sound.
Passersby are worlds that fly. Far from the dance of time.
Time whirls round from pole to pole and swirls within the sound… of

Oscillations, oscillations
Electronic evocations of sound’s reality

aaab

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark


And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back


The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon


Then I'll follow you into the dark


(original images from the video for Death Cab For Cutie posted without permission.)

This is a low

THIS IS A LOW
BUT IT WON'T HURT YOU

When AssTee got wind that the local dominant political party was worried about the coming elections and wanted to discredit their opponents by stooping to a new low, their headline reads:

PAP SMEAR CAMPAIGN!

WHEN YOU ARE ALONE IT WILL BE THERE WITH YOU
FINDING WAYS TO STAY SOLO

Only This Moment

[OK]

Only this moment - Holds us together
Close to perfection - Nothing else out there
No one to guide us - Lost in my senses
Deep down inside I know our love will die

[OK]

Only this moment - Holds us together
Lost in confusion - Feelings are out there
Scared of devotion - Doubting intentions
Deep down inside I know our love will die

[Stay or forever go]
[Play or you’ll never know]
[What heaven decided]
[You can’t deny it’s all you’ve been waiting for]

[OK]

[Stay or forever go]
[Play or you’ll never know]
[Your spirit's divided]
[You will decide if I’m all you’ve been waiting for]

Guilt in my head hath been parted by grace by the voice of an angel revealing her face and her words they make sense and I do understand falling in love isn’t part of a plan

Forces within me mix reason with lust but I try to accept it and not make it worse cause I know I might lose you by taking the chance but love without pain isn’t really romance

[OK]

Only this moment - Holds us together
Close to perfection - Nothing is out there
Always beside her - Trusting my senses
Deep down inside I know love will survive

Only this moment - Holds us together
Close to perfection - Nothing else out there
Always beside her - Trusting my senses
Deep down inside I know love will survive

[OK]




How rocking is this?

Away From Her

I remember there was once this email meme that I filled up before. I remember that there was a question inside that went something like "What name would you give to your first daughter?"

Weirdly, the name jados wanted for her daughter was the same one I would have given - Chloe.

I remember quite well, or perhaps I imagined to have remembered well, that there was this other question. It was asking what was your greatest fear.

Some of the friends I hang out with might think it's wet sticker labels (very funny....haha....ok, don't tease me with that) that I fear the most. But I remembered (or imagined to have done so) putting down "desperation" as the answer.

I dread being in despair. I fear the choices I might have to make and the decisions I might take in desperate moments. Or worse, to be so desperate that there are simply no choices.

I must have said to a close friend once about this other dread that I have. And that is not to be able to remember my past. As one would if stricken by Alzheimer's or dementia. What are you if not a composite of where you have been?

I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the movie Away From Her. It should be made compulsory for all married couples above 65 as well as families with elderly.

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.

~ Harvest Moon by Neil Young

P.S. thanks for the company auntie

Heart And Soul - one will burn

Heart And Soul

Instincts that can still betray us,
A journey that leads to the sun.
Soulless and bent on destruction,
A struggle between right and wrong.
You take my place in the showdown,
I'll observe with a pitiful eye,
I'll humbly ask for forgiveness,
A request well beyond you and I.

Heart and soul, one will burn.
Heart and soul, one will burn.

An abyss that laughs at creation,
A circus complete with all fools.
Foundations that lasted the ages,
Then ripped apart at their roots.
Beyond all this good is the terror,
The grip of a mercenary hand.
When savagery turns all good reason,
There's no turning back.
No last stand.

Heart and soul, one will burn.
Heart and soul, one will burn.

Existence well what does it matter?
I exist on the best terms I can.
The past is now part of my future,
The present is well out of hand.

The present is well out of hand.

Heart and soul, one will burn.
Heart and soul, one will burn.
One will burn, one will burn.
Heart and soul, one will burn.



Joy Division

This is not a "A song a day X"

Sleepy and tired. But thought I should listen abit of iTunes before sleep....haven't heard this track in a while......

King of the horseflies, dark prince of death
His tragic forces are heaven sent
In sweet things, in a lover's breath
In knowing this was meant to be the last

A go-go-kids, a go-go-style
A suck suck kiss, a suck suck smile
As always, in young need
A veiled promise to never die

On dead highways, her black beauties roam
For june angels, so far from home
For a love lost, a faded picture
To tread lightning, to ink the lavender skies

So get on the bomb
Get back where you belong

Get on get on get on the bomb
Get back get back where you belong

Get on
The bomb

Where Boys Fear To Tread
Music and Lyrics by The Smashing Pumpkins

Little Fluffy Clouds

It - they were beautiful
The most beautiful skies as a matter of fact
The sunsets were purple and red
And yellow and on fire
And the clouds would catch the colours everywhere
That - it's neat
Because I used to look at them all the time
When I was little
You don't see that
Little fluffy clouds.....

Recommended listening: Little Fluffy Clouds ~ The Orb featuring Rickie Lee Jones

This was from 1997 - The Crocketts

Will You Still Care

Will you still care for me,
When I lie dead and crumpled at the
Bottom of your ten-storey, high rise flats.
I can be your rubber man.
You can scoop me up and put me in a can.
And bury me underneath a stone.
A stone that says that I am only 19 years old.
Will you still care for me?
No, No, No, No!
I don't fucking think so! I don't fucking think so!
You're just gonna let it go.
You say there is no specific story line.

I am just a figure on a stone mountain.
I think I'd like to jump & float into the sky,
By & by I will reach the bottom,
I will be dead and crumpled underneath your,
Ten-storey, high rise flats,
Will you still care for me?

No, No, No, No!
I don't fucking think so!
You're just gonna let it go.
I don't fucking think so!

You say you're a beautiful woman.
But I've got something to say.
I've been to the factory.
Where women are made.
I've seen what they do to them.
I've seen what they put inside.
And now I'm going to stay away.
'Cos I found out. That girls aren't made
From all things nice. Girls aren't made
From sugar & spice.
Let it go slow. Let it go slow. Let it go slow.

'Cos I,
I don't fucking think so!
You're just gotta to let it go. I just want to know.
Will you still care for me?

The Crocketts

This song is just so funny. A must-listen. I first heard it in 1997. It was part of a compilation CD which included Brokenheart by Spiritualised. Came free with the 6th Anniversary copy of the Big Issue.

How do you begin to describe these things?

You should skip straight to the song and lyrics below........

I make weird analogies. Sometimes. Usually they don't work. Mostly because it's so lousy an analogy that instead of reducing complexities, it further obfuscates. Instead of a logical inference, the analogy becomes illogical.

After buying Plans by Death Cab For Cutie, I didn't really gave it a good listen because I thought I had already found my favouritest song off the album with I Will Follow You Into The Dark.

Until some few days ago I read off some blog that What Sarah Said was a really heart-wrenching song about hospital waiting rooms and the lyrics painted such vivid imagery that you can smell the piss and the 409 (name of a floor chemical cleaner) emanating from the hospital floor.

Heart-wrenching? Vivid Imagery? I was in want and eager to listen to it in a heartbeat.

And that was when I saw the weird title of the next song - Brothers On A Hotel Bed. It was easy to know what What Sarah Said was singing about. But it took a number of listens to get what Brothers On A Hotel Bed was about. Yeah, I'm dense like that. Dense as in dumb, slow and not intelligent.

The lack of a proper chorus makes the song even better but again, that's just me.

The song first starts by describing the physical changes of the person, how he retains none of the youthfulness that had once graced his face. Then it's about the non-physical changes; mental, emotional... He no longer recognises himself. The younger version of himself. He remembers how he didn't want to grow old like this because he didn't want to be a tiresome old fudge.

The two versions of him tries to rationalise but however much they try, he can never recover any of it that has come to pass. And his attempts are futile however much he yearns to regain what he has lost in the in-between years that has slipped by. And the title of the song, Brothers On A Hotel Bed, is used to describe this distance between himself and his former self. Two brothers on the same bed, will try their best to sleep as far apart as possible and there is an awkwardness compressed within that space. Mumbling their goodnights with their faces turned away.

Brothers On A Hotel Bed

You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be

No longer easy on the eyes
But these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below,
Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for; both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident

On the back of a motorbike
With your arms outstretched, trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete and the city where we still reside

And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men
Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed

You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be

Death Cab For Cutie

True?

Music is the only thing that makes sense anymore ...
Play it loud enough and it keeps the demons at bay.

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry
Still, you don't regret a single day

~ Girl, The Beatles

What "Love" means?

I'm trying to come up with a list of definition for "love" as described in a song.

Alternatively, for those who grew up listening to eurothrash dance hits like Haddaway's What Is Love, we're trying our best to save Haddaway. "What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.", you can take it as a mission to save Haddaway from being hurt. Very silly, I know. Hahahahaha...

For eg. in Massive Attack's Teardrop which features the inimitable Elizabeth (with a "z") Fraser, "Love, Love is a verb. Love is a doing word."

And Death Cab For Cutie, What Sarah Said, "Love is watching someone die."

If I have to go through my entire iTunes, it can be really tough.

I just remembered that U2 says in One that "Love is a temple. Love - the higher law." and also Eurythmics has a definition in You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart that starts off somewhat similar, "Love is a temple, love is a shrine. Love is pure and love is blind. Love is a religious sign. Love is hot and love is cold, love is rock and love is roll."

Can you all help out or not? Otherwise Haddaway will keep on asking what is love and his baby will hurt him. Domestic violence.

The New Year

The New Year

So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance.

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back.

There'd be no distance that could hold us back

So this is the new year

~ DCFC ~

The Love I'm Searching For -

As covered by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I don't think I'll find a love I want
The love I'm searching for in this machine
Oh, visions fail and all the circuits blow
And the message lost in this machine

Oh, I tried.
You know I'll try, I'll try
And hard as it may be, you know you should be with me
Even though it seems its all a lie
I still believe you should be with me

Original by The Rentals