I have proclaimed my love for Junip's music quite a few times on this blog, and now I have moved to the solo work of the soul of the band, Mr. José González. I feel that this song is very Junip-like and of course I couldn't not like since the first listen. Plus, the storm is a concept that has been quite present in my life lately, which is the reason why I'm sharing this song with you now! Things here in Hong Kong are starting to fall into place step by step, but the adjustment process is not over yet (if there ever existed something like adjustment)! I am starting to create my daily routine and to identify my reference spots though, which is an incredibly important part of the settlement process for me, so things are definitely going in the right direction! Tomorrow and the day after I will have two lunch gatherings here in uni, and then the lectures will begin, so I guess that the intro-time is coming to an end. I hope I'm ready to start this new challenging adventure, sure enough I'm more ready than I was 2 weeks ago!
My goodness, I haven't been posting for 5 days straight and I didn't even realise it! I just thought I missed a couple of days... anyway, quite a few things have happened in these past few days. First of all I have to mention the most recent, i.e. Island victory over England in Euro 2016, a great and unforgettable sports moment! Then again, do I need to speak about the Game of Thrones season final? I stayed up until 6 in the morning to wait for it to be available and watch it and it's been worth every second of my time! Put in a few days enjoying the summer sun at my grandma's pool, some sightly disappointing news about my future that will require me to make an extra effort, nothing exceptionally relevant anyways. And of course summer music, which is what I'm leaving you with tonight, fresh off the boat!
I won't talk about my opinion on Nelly Furtado's latest releases as the few things I got on my hands (or better in my ears) made me believe that we totally lost her. I loved her debut singles, songs that are part of my early teenage, then lost her a little bit and starting loving her again with 'Loose' and her new mainstream success. Ok, that album was already quite "poppish", but still greatly likeable in my taste. So instead of going forth, I decided to go back and explore her earlier releases, of which I only knew a handful of the more famous songs. The first one is her 2003 sophomore 'Folklore', and this is one of my favourite songs on it!
Today I got to hear Dido songs around twice, so I take it as a sign I should be posting a song of hers on this special day! She's been this hugely influential singer for me in my teenage years, she's been my favourite for a long time and most of her (older) songs still hold an incredible affective value for me. I got to listen to a sh*tload of music in the last years and many artists entered my heart, yet Dido still does and will retain her special place in it. Today is also my birthday, a day that didn't start well, I was in a bad mood for no reason in particular, but it's been improving by the minute and hopefully it will continue to! After all, 26 years later "I haven't really ever found a place that I call home, I never stick around quite long enough to make it..."
Hey guys, sorry for not posting yesterday. I was about to skip today too but then I decided to make an effort...! I got some hideous thing, probably a sunstroke or something like that... the strong wind hasn't been helping either, anyway I've got a fever (I think), a bad headache and some general malaise... not the best way to end this holiday in such a beautiful place as Algarve, but I got the best of it anyway! I've decided to post this song that has been there as a draft in my post list for a month and a half because it really feels like the perfect one to summarise how I'm feeling. I discovered it at the end of a 'Queer as folk' episode a few years ago and loved it immediately, and now it's time to share it with you! It's a little gem, so make sure you don't miss it out (the video is amazing too)!
Right after relieving my soreness with some eye drops, here I am, once again in front of the computer ready to perform my last couple of tasks of this long, long day. A long long day that started with our "usual" Abu Dhabi routine: walking to the beach, relaxing, eating out at night... then we packed our luggage and after sleeping some 1.5 hours we got up and left for the airport, our flight leaving at 6.25 local time (3.25 in Italy). After a Doha stopover, I slept another 1.5 hours on the plane and got here, enjoyed at best the little part of my day that was left, tried to rest a little bit more, had dinner and after looking for a few things (why do I always leave stuff around?) that I mostly found, I am posting this. I am posting one of the favourite songs of my teenage years, off what has probably been the album that has had the biggest impact on my teenage years in music, this being Dido's 'Life for rent', the first album I ever bought (as a xmas gift for my father, even if I ended up listening to it waaaaay more than he ever did). I cannot think of a better moment to post this lovely song than now: I literally still have sand in my shoes, I am back to wintery Italy after a glimpse of summer, I am dead tired and I am here in need to understand what to do with my life, a thought I could easily avoid on holiday.
"Two weeks away it feels like the world should've changed but I'm home now and things still look the same. I think I'll leave it till tomorrow to unpack, try to forget for one more night that I'm back in my flat on the road where the cars never stop going through the night, to real life where I can't watch sunset. I don't have time. I don't have time."
PS: I already unpacked, first thing when at home! Aha!
Our road trip through Switzerland is going on, and after the beautiful Luzern, Zurich and Bern we have come to Basel, a city I have been willing to come to visit for the longest time! After a first, superficial look, the city center is maybe not as pretty as in the other cities we've visited, but my impression is not negative! Of course we have been driving miles and miles and music has been a good companion. I've been playing extensively out of my 2000s music playlists and today I am posting another song we've listened to (and of course sung to) in the car!
This first week of work has almost come to an end and I'm so already within that framework and state of mind that it already seems like I've been working for months, it's gonna be tough to get used to this rhythm of life, especially considering that I'm gonna have to get it for... the rest of my life!! Well, I'm sure I'll get it done! While driving to and from work I've been listening to a few songs and I let the playlists play automatically. They do play alphabetically one after the other, so after the current (the last one titled numerically) the usual first ones starting with 'A' play and well... that way I got to listen to this song, which is one of my favourites of Indonesian singer Anggunn, whom I've been liking for a long long time!! She sang it on the soundtrack of the movie 'Open hearts' (which I don't think I've watched, but... well... whatever)!
I don't know why, but I found myself listening to more and more Dido today, first only on the computer, than also with my ipod (and my new bluetooth earphones I got for my graduation!) walking in the streets of town and then cleaning home and finally also with my old ipod while having a quick shower! I still can't figure out what the trigger was, but I found myself having her song 'Go dreaming' in my head, and so it all started from there! I didn't even remember I posted a song of hers already a few days ago, and then I realised that I've been mainly focusing on her latest album, that is also my least favourite, and on her first album, which I love unconditionally. A love that is (almost) equally directed towards her second album, Life for rent, which I spent my whole teenage years listening to. I thus wanted to post 'I'm no angel' out of her debut, but I wanted to give some room to Life for rent more, and so here I am with See you when you're 40, a song that I remember I liked at the very beginning, then it kind of got lost just to be found again and fully understood and appreciated just in the last few years, to become one of the songs I love a lot (like, a lot!) on an album that I love a lot (like, a lot!). The song is about Dido struggling to end her relationship with a man she's attracted to but who is not good for her, up to the point when she finally decides that it's time to leave. Of course I didn't understand it fully when I was younger, I only loved the melody, but now I do and it's even more beautiful in my ears!
Hello everybody! Strange as it seems, today I'm finally posting on time! This morning I woke up with a song in my head, a very weird one picked by my subconscious (of course it is the one I'm posting about)! My relationship with The Raveonettes has always been quite weird: I remember that PJ Harvey was having a concert in New York one of the few times I was there and I really wanted to go. When I asked the group of people who were coming with me whether there was anybody willing to come with me (I believe it was 2011 and I was taking part in a United Nations simulation program), somebody told me that the Raveonettes were playing too in the same night at a different club. Out of curiosity I started listening to them (I think that happened in Canada, so almost a year later) and I didn't dislike their album Chain gang of love, though not feeling so inspired by it to listen to other stuff from them or so. Yet sometimes it comes back, like today, and what the hell, why not post this song? There are actually two of them I really like, one is this and the other one is my favourite. I wanted to post the other one, but I decided it will have to wait a little longer, as today is the Love Gang's day!
Today I spent a very beautiful sunny day with my "colleagues" (let's say friends) on Exmouth beach, playing volleyball with bare feet in the sand, under a timidly warm sun, lashed by a chilly wind (which brought gray and gloomy clouds in the end). Yet my face is a little bit burning, which is a thing I can only be grateful for: coming to England I was ready to face the worse and I didn't expect to get the chance to enjoy such spring-like weather (at least not so often). Thinking about the sun theme for my #sundayrevival, the first song that came to my mind was this and I think it is actually a perfect match: British singer, the chance to see the sun again, hope and expectations for the future while living in a pretty uncertain present... well that's me! And so it is, enjoy the sunshine (if you are so lucky to get some of it) and Dido and let's hope that summer is gonna come soon!
It's sunday again! Time for another sunday revival! It's time to go about 10 years back in time, down to the time when the first Lord of the Rings movie was released. Since yesterday I've been trying to learn how to play this beautiful song by Enya that is part of the original soundtrack of the Fellowship of the Ring. I must confess that my harmonica playing doesn't even come close to the pleasantness of Enya's voice, but I am content anyway, especially having the perspective of improving a little bit with time! For the time being yet I will just leave you with the original and I'll save you from my harmonica cover! Have a merry sunday and a nice start of the new week!
I bet that every music fan has been looking for a rare piece of collectible (be it a CD, a collection, a single, a T-shirt or else) of one of their favourite singers at least once in their lifetime. Well, my desperate search has been for Tori Amos's collection A piano, with almost all of her CD-songs plus a collection of B-sides, unreleased tracks and remixed material. Since around 2009/2010 I've been looking for it around the world, in the US, in Canada, everywhere but... no success. Until recently! A few weeks I was walking around in Milan, wasting my time before meeting the rest of my class for an aperitivo, and I decided to stop by Fnac, a media retailer (my favourite actually). I was just wandering inside the store, while my eyes fell on something that looked familiar and... there it was! My beloved and sought-after A piano! I was so overwhelmed with joy, but it wasn't the end. At the cashier, they told me that I could use my loyalty card, even if it was expired, as they were dealing with a change of ownership and messing around with the whole organization and everything... so I even got a 20% discount on it (and on 50-something euros of item it's not just coins!). This really made my day (and even the few days after, for that matter). So I started paying some more attention on some B-sides I already had in my library but I really didn't listen to with the "right ear". And there was Mary, a beautiful piece of song that I quickly fell in love with. It is so very interesting the whole relationship of Tori with the concept of Mary and the various Marys of the Christian tradition, but this discussion will not find its place here.
PS: If you're interested you can try to give a look to Tori's biography, it's called Piece by Piece and it has actually been another one of my most sought-after items!)
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