Burning bridges - OneRepublic

Burning bridges - OneRepublic

The first CD I bought here in Exeter, the same day I got here, was OneRepublic's last album, Native. I have never been as much in love with it as I am with their 2 previous records, but step by step I learned to love a good half of the songs on it, which makes it still better than a good 80% of the stuff that is around and better that 50% of what I've been listening to lately. Still, in the (to say the least) controversial relationship I've been having with this album, some of the songs I've fallen for... well, they keep on growing into me, even when I don't listen to them for a while. This is one of them, try to let it grow into you too and maybe you'll be able to tell me how to appreciate this whole album better!

Intervention - Arcade Fire

Well... my day didn't start in the best way possible, let's say. Actually, the bad beginning of today was the aftermath of last night, the last message I got before leaving work was not... well, nice. And this morning didn't turn out to be much better: other (mildly) bitter messaging, wrong data, non-working Internet and so on... the little things that all summed up together make your day unpleasant. Well, I'll face it and survive it (hopefully, as given how crazy British drivers are you are never sure you'll make it at home on your own two legs! And they say that we Italians drive badly, I found out... well... what can I say?).

Intervention - Arcade Fire

Been working for the church

While your life falls apart

Singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart

Every spark of friendship and love

Will die without a home

Hear the soldier groan, 'We'll go at it alone'

Hear the soldier groan, 'We'll go at it alone'

Free money - Patti Smith

Free money - Patti Smith

Hey yo! I don't think I mentioned you that I started playing the Harmonica lately, about a week ago. I am slowly slowly improving step by step, now I'm starting to try out whole songs. It's getting better and I'm really happy I finally got to start playing an instrument! I'm not gonna talk about the songs I'm playing now (just know that they are a small step beyond Jingle Bells!), rather I'll give you one song that I've been keeping on draft for weeks! Just because the harmonica is bringing me back in time a little bit and Patti's career beginning is kind of back in time too. I know, that's not a plausible connection, come on, I was just trying to make sense out of a post that doesn't have much of it!

So. Central rain (I'm sorry) - R.E.M.

So. Central rain (I'm sorry) - R.E.M.

Today it's been kind of a REM day for me. Time to get back to the (almost) origins! I've been through Reckoning and Fables of the reconstruction, and sure enough I'll pick what is probably my favourite of the whole mid-80s period. So, I'm sorry (for the others), but for now I'm gonna pick Central rain!

On top of the world - Imagine Dragons

On top of the world -
Imagine Dragons

Well... until 1 minute ago I was planning to post something else here today, but this image here on the left I found on my Facebook wall made me change my mind. Today it's been one of the first days I've not been listening to the entire Night visions on my iTunes, yet it has been fully played in the office, so I didn't miss my daily dose of Imagine Dragons. I guess I just can't help posting On top of the world today, given my inspiration.

"It's a revolution I suppose." They say.

"I take it in but don’t look down." I say. 'Cause I'm on top of the world.

#sundayrevival Sweeter than anything - PJ Harvey

Sweeter than anything - PJ Harvey

I hope you are all having a good sunday! I am still recovering from yesterday's intensive bike trip, but in the end sunday is the day of resting, isn't it? Anyway, I just wanted to explain a little bit the concept behind my #sundayrevival, to you (and also to myself, 'cause you can never be clear enough). Sundayrevival is my chance to leave room on this blog to my favourite songs, the ones I have been in love with for quite a while and whose posting is not really linked to what I've been listening to lately or to old songs that have come back in fashion. The sundayrevival songs are ALWAYS in fashion for me!
Today's is one of the most beautiful songs I know, quite sad and melancholic, but very powerful and emotional. It is a b-side (goodness only knows how such beauty could be left out of an album) of the 'Is this desire?' era, perfect for a rainy-February-sunday remembrance (and anticipation) of summer days.

Just dance - Lady Gaga

Note: I wrote this post at 1 o'clock last night, almost 24h ago and I only got Internet working now, I trust it will still be "fresh" enough!

Just dance - Lady Gaga

Well guys, Internet is failing me now, so I suppose this post won't see light until morning, but now it's

past 1 at night. I felt the urge to write it now as it does make sense, I waited long enough already.

If you were walking in Exeter a few hours ago and you have seen a crazy guy shaking and moving weirdly, like if he was suffering of some kind of mental illness, well… it was me! You might have noticed me in Milan too. I know, it will probably look very bad and weird from the outside, but from time to time I can't help myself while walking in the streets listening to music, if the vibe is good I need to shake it! This time felt somehow different (it's the first time I'm doing it here) and liberating (it was the first I've done it here indeed)! Well, that's just it. In the end, who cares about what people who walk near you think about it? Just enjoy your life and express yourself! (And maybe make sure that no one you know is around, you might want to put a little break on your creativity)…!

All of this makes sense in my head but not in yours if I don't explain myself… The beat I was dancing to tonight was Just Dance (ironic, don't you think?), picked by the shuffle mode of my iPod. Well, what can I say? Good timing!

Talk - Kodaline

I see I am in the mood for "talkative" songs in these days! After Talk to me yesterday, another Talk today! No, it's not Coldplay's song (that one was featured here). Now it's (again) Kodaline time! The guys are quite good, I've started listening to them recently and they're getting a quite good (and deserved) level of attention, I think. Give them a try if you don't know them, and even more so if you do know them already!

Kodaline - In a perfect world

Talk to me - Joni Mitchell

New day, new post! Today I'm featuring a song by one of the most influential singer/songwriters of last century, Joni Mitchell. The song is taken out of her 1977's album Don Juan's reckless daughter. Enjoy!

Invisible - U2

U2 - Invisible

A few days ago U2 took part to the umpteenth social campaign, this time for AIDS prevention. U2 made available this song for free download on iTunes in collaboration with Bank of America, which donated 1$ for every download to Red, an organization co-founded by Bono to fight AIDS. I can't say how happy I am that people such as Bono and many others make such a good use of their fame to try and help others. I think that, besides U2's (many) music-related merits, this attachment to social causes and campaigning makes Bono & friends worthy of mention.
Coming to the song, it is quite good too and it also makes sense for the occasion: the lines "I’m more than you know, I’m more than you see here, More than you let me be", "You don’t see me but you will I am not invisible" and "There is no them, There’s only us" can be interpreted as a loud condemnation of discrimination of any kind. It just comes natural (to me) to apply them to gay people, the ones whose discrimination is most often linked to AIDS. And all of this happening during the olympic games in Sochi, with all the fuss that is taking place in Russia. Is it just a coincidence? I'd like to believe that it isn't. As it's never too early to dream of a world with no unjust, bad and unjustified discrimination and violence. And the sooner we dream of it, the sooner the dream will become reality.

Missing persons 1 & 2 - OneRepublic

Ups and downs... you can't escape them. And the moments of down are always so damn powerful and frequent. Luckily enough, there is a great weapon to help you fight them: music. The songs you love, the ones whose lyrics mean the world to you, the ones that are able to describe perfectly your current mood and you get to ask yourself how the hell the songwriter could make it so and if he/she is by any chance reading your mind.
Well, I want to thank you, music, for being of great comfort in these moments.

Elastic heart - Sia (ft. The Weeknd & Diplo)

Another day is passing by, very slowly, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second... well, I think you guessed already that today it seems like time is never passing by! To improve our day a little bit, I'll share another one of the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack songs. Another one by a singer (actually a whole team of them) I have not really been into before. But here it is, enjoy this Elastic Heart!

Miracle - OceanLab

Dear guys, I owe you another post today, at least to try to compensate my missed post of yesterday. What I'll give you is something special: this song comes out of the only CD I think I have ever preserved in my life, meaning that I tried not to listen to it too much. The story of it is that I got interested in it looking at its beautiful cover on iTunes and when I listened to it, I understood that it was a perfectly relaxing and focusing music for me. I have thus decided to use it only while studying in noisy places to isolate my mind and focus myself on studying. And it worked. Until I started really getting the songs in my head... now I like them a lot and kind of remember them, so it's not working as well as it used to, as I'm more concentrated on the music than on what else I should do. But this brings it back to a whole new level of liking. And this transition is taking its complete form with this post.
This post is for the whole Sirens of the Sea CD; the song I have chosen is still one of my favs of the whole album.

PS: For the optimization of G+ previews of my posts I will start putting a picture of the CD or the artist or anything else relevant to the song/post of the day. Let's hope it's gonna work!

Knees of my bees - Alanis Morissette

Hey guys! Yesterday I didn't post, I'm very sorry but I went to Plymouth with the other guys working with me, it's bee a very awesome trip with a beautiful sunny day we enjoyed till the end! Sadly enough, I was so tired that I realised just today that I didn't post anything. Anyway, yesterday my colleague T. withdrew a keyboards set in Plymouth, my other work mate H is about to buy a guitar and I felt excluded, so I decided to order a Harmonica on Amazon, a thing I have been planning for quite a long time. And so it is! I've been listening to Alanis Morissette today to refresh the songs I wanna learn to play, and in the end I'm posting a song that has no harmonica in it, but... it's so funny I know you'll love it anyway!

All comes down - Kodaline

I've been keeping a couple of songs on the side for quite a few days and I was almost ready to start posting one today, but I changed my mind at the last moment. As I realised that I still haven't posted anything of Kodaline. Luckily enough, one of their songs popped out a few seconds ago from my last playlist and it occurred to me that it makes sense. So it is, and so it should be. Enjoy!

Supernatural superserious - R.E.M.

Woah, another working week has gone by! It's been really tough until the last moment, up to the point that the (British) driver of the (British) bus complimented with us (foreigners) for being able to stand at the (British) bus stop and not being carried away by the (British) worst wind I've ever experienced in my whole life, obviously together with a bit of (British) rain, 'cause we don't want to lack for anything. Goddamn! Goddamn Britain and its weather!
We will survive.
Back to us, the song of today is something powerful and cheerful and has in itself all the best and happy and positive things I can think about. As I really need it.
Let's hope for better. Never let go of hope.
Happy friday to y'all!

Nightcall - London Grammar

As you may have noticed, I pushed London Grammar quite a bit lately. Well, I think I didn't push them enough actually. I think they're preeetty good and if you don't know them yet, give them a try (or two). This is one the last single extracted from their debut album. Enjoy!

The Celts - Enya

Today is a very hard day, I'm having difficulties in concentration, my head is a bit annoying and... wow, everything seems so blurred. I started listening to Enya to try and find some peace: the result is that now it feels like I'm running through green meadows, with butterflies and unicorns and sun and... well you got the point. Like I was stoned, even if I'm not (and I've never been actually). You can imagine how good a day today is being for me!

Filthy/Gorgeous - Scissor Sisters

Hi there! Hope you are well, I am kind of tired after this beginning of working week, but the weekend is getting closer and closer! I actually thought about posting this song yesterday, as it would've made much more sense, but in the end I got busy and decided to postpone it a few hours, so as to be able to write a decent comment to it (which is not gonna happen, I know). Anyway, yesterday they played this song while I was getting out of the office and I must confess it cheered me up quite a bit! I mean, how can you not be amused by this one? Ok, I know... it's not a thing for all tastes, so BEWARE! Just watch the video only if you are open-minded enough (and wanna have some fun). I can only say this is probably the most Scissor Sisters-style video of them all!

Shooting arrows at the sky - Santigold

Hey guys! Hope your week started well, mine is ok but I'd rather be home wasting my time or, better, doing some trip. It's hard to say goodbye to weekends, as they are soo far away from one another! Anyway, back on track. Lately I've been listening to the new Hunger games film (Catching Fire methinks) soundtrack: lots of big names on it and a really nice one I must say. The best thing about it is that I discovered other songs I would've never got close to otherwise. And I'm actually liking some of them better than the ones by my favourite artists (for now). One of them is this one, and I really suggest you shouldn't miss it out, 'cos it just sticks in your head and doesn't go away!

#sundayrevival Welcome to England - Tori Amos

This sundayrevival's post has a strong correlation between past and present: it is one of the first songs of Tori I have listened to and fallen for when I started discovering her music in 2009. Moreover, after moving to England recently (I'm in Exeter, which I believe is not very far from Tori's Cornwall house), I think I can understand and share Tori saying "You gotta bring your own sun". Ok, the first days were actually better than I thought, but the last week / 10 days have been pretty much awful in terms of weather and I'm starting to suffer a bit from it. Luckily enough, I couldn't really bring my own sun as in Italy the weather was as bad as here, so it's been relatively less worse. Anyway, I think I might as well deserve my own Welcome to England.

G+ page + Canvas (instrumental) - Imogen Heap

Hey everybody!
Great news for A song (or two) per day! The blog finally has its own Google+ page! Check it out at A song (or two) per day G+ page and make sure you follow so as you don't miss anything! It will also feature content exclusive to G+, so you don't really wanna miss it! The page is still in its building-up phase, so be patient if there's anything still not 100% working.
In the meantime enjoy one of my favourite instrumental songs, Canvas by the awesome Imogen Heap!

Brother - Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

Good morning people! Today I had to wake up pretty early for a job interview (it's saturday, I know, but the business world never rests!). This morning we already got sudden changes of weather, from full sun to mini-storm to sun again now, it's getting crazier every day. We actually tried to plan a trip out of the city for this weekend, but in the end being late and not having a good weather forecast, we decided to stay in town and we'll see what happens. So, as a soundtrack of this weird but productive (?) morning I'm having the Magnetic Zeros: enjoy them too!

By the way - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Awesome music today at the office, I got loads of inspiration for posts! I really enjoyed work today, the music was good (so good that I didn't even put my own earplugs on), the tasks were diverse and the atmosphere relaxed and enjoyable, you gotta love fridays! Today's song is one of the few we got more than one time (there must've been some kind of weird repeat mode on), but this is one of the great songs that you don't mind listening more than one time a day! Have a good friday night! Cheers!

It's oh so quiet - Bjork

Hey guys! I hope your thursday went well! Mine did, I had a pleasant day at work. Yet, from time to time, each day in the office has a moment of alienation I think. This is where my mind went today during one of these moments!

Love like a sunset - Phoenix

Lately I have been completed Phoenix's discography by listening to her last album, Bamkrupt! I must say their best work, in my opinion, is still the first one of theirs I've listened to, i.e. 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Which I've been listening to lately. And, guess what? This comes from there. I was actually somehow disturbed by this song at the beginning, especially its weird and untuned part in the middle; yet I remember listening to it in a yogurt shop in New Orleans last year, and that was the moment when the spark took place and I started loving it!

Off to the races - Lana del Rey

So, time has come for the tunes I put aside on sunday, at least for one of them. On saturday, as I mentioned already methinks, I bought two new CDs and one of them is Lana's Born to die - Paradise edition. My relationship with Lana has been pretty peculiar, at first I didn't like her at all, then I started being interested in her music with Young & Beautiful, the song she composed for the Great Gatsby's soundtrack, and from that moment on my liking has been growing and growing. To the point that around new year's I was listening back to some music I have been loving in 2013 and I came to realize just how much I've been listening to Lana's album last year. And now I'm still pleased to give it a listen or two form time to time. This time I've decided to post one of my personal favs (nothing new for the blog...!).

Seven devils - Florence + the Machine

You remember that yesterday I told you I had some tunes ready for the blog already? Well... they'll have to wait a bit more! Today at work I've been listening to Florence and it occurred to me (again) just how much I love her and her band (not to say that I need to listen to her to remember!). This is actually what has been for a long time my least favourite song on Ceremonials, her last album. I started coming to terms with it when it has been used as the soundtrack for a Game of Thrones trailer, than a friend of mine got close to Florence through it and so on... in a few words I ended up falling in love with this one too. So now I don't have any least favourite song on Ceremonials. Cool. 'Cos such an album doesn't deserve to have something as bad as a least favourite song!

#sundayrevival Be with you - Natalie Imbruglia

Today I have been taking a trip to Exmouth to be on the sea at least a little while. It's been totally worth it, notwithstanding the wind it wasn't too cold, the sun was actually warm and the weather was fine! While walking on the sea front, I also had the chance to listen to some good music and I got inspired for some tunes to put up here, yet none of them fit for the sundayrevival theme. I'll just keep them warm for the next few days!
One of the albums I've been listening to is Natalie Imbruglia's last one, Come to life, which dates back to 2009 (hey Natalie, isn't it time to record some more music?). The first single out of that album was Want, a song I like but I've never been in love with. The third verse of it is actually a quote from a Natalie's older song, the one I'm featuring here now, that was on her Greatest hits Glorious. Enjoy!

It's time - Imagine Dragons

This year has begun just a little while ago but I have bought a lot of CDs already (9 of them! and people start mocking me for still buying CDs...!). I guess I'm giving my support to the music industry as well as I can. Anyway, today I have bought another couple: one of them is Imagine dragons's debut CD, which I've been willing to buy for almost a week. This (longed for) purchase has made me understand (not that I really needed a proof of it) how much I value my free time and how much a normal working time kills me, especially in a town where even big shops are not open after 6 p.m. I really need 24/7 in my life! And I'm gonna work freelance..!