Incomplete - Alanis Morissette

 

Incomplete - Alanis Morissette

Flavors of Entanglement has been a coming-of-age album for me. In 2008, teenage me had just started crafting his musical taste and, after The Cranberries in 2007, Alanis Morissette was the second singer I threw myself into head first—also thanks to my mom’s only cassette in the car being Jagged Little Pill while I was growing up.

Notwithstanding the musical merit of the album, it always held a close place in my heart, being the one just released when I approached Alanis. Underneath was playing on the radio and has been the most played song on my iTunes for years to come. I really (virtually) consumed that album, and have felt a close bond with many of the songs for a long time. As my musical taste (and age) matured, I found myself looking at FoE with more emotional distance and, although I still love most songs very much (even the ones that I was not much into at the time), Incomplete ended up being the least favorite of my adult self. It just sounded… Incomplete? Too light and airy? Just plain forgettable? Silly?

Things have changed in recent times. Facing a low-point in terms of mental health, hope, energy, and general life motivation, I have started to relate to the song much more. “I have been running, so sweaty my whole life, urgent for a finish line” sings Alanis. How not to relate to this? Study in school to open doors for your future. Work hard to set up your life as a young adult. Then, upon choosing an academic life, give your whole time, brain, energy to your work—which you love, but love is ephemeral as we know. Give your whole self to the person you chose as your partner—over and over, but then facing the inevitable disappointments. 

One day I’ll be arrived, I’ll be secure, I’ll be less afraid, I’ll be measured outside my professional achievements (“poems and lyrics and art”) sings Alanis, unclear (to me) whether this is hope for her future self once she’s able to let go or rather the ghost of the past self-imposed demands to be perfect, to live a perfect life, to achieve one’s goals.

The message of the song, apparently, is that achieving our goals is actually not life’s goal. In the end, if we achieved all our goals, what would there be left to do? Embracing the uncertainty, precariousness, incompleteness of life is actually what life is about: “I’ve been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete”. Blessed be Alanis who can feel rapture at being incomplete. I still feel anguish, lack of energy, hopelessness… I just feel tired. Maybe incompleteness is not meant for perfectionists. Or for people who don’t even know what their actual goals are and who have been running around so sweaty their whole life not even knowing where they are going…

I guess that, overall, I still don’t feel like I fully buy into the song given my incapability to enjoy incompleteness, but at least I now more deeply understand its starting point and see the state of being it describes as a desirable state. Maybe that’s the first step to getting there, to feeling the rapture of being forever incomplete.

Tonight - Lykke Li

Tonight - Lykke Li

I guess we all get one of those days every now and then, those days when you just feel like sh*t for no particular reason, but for a lot of particular reasons. Stress builds up, especially when you are just starting a new chapter of your life or when you are going through a particularly intense period. Even worse when these two things happen together. Add in the fact that you thought were through with your mid-youth crisis but well... you know that answers don't just fall from the sky and solve all of your problems at once. Anyway, I think I conveyed my malaise well enough! Then I go to take a walk and find myself doing yoga exercises in my favourite reading spot in the park nearby (the corner for old people to exercise), past midnight, Lykke Li in my earphones and voilà! Feeling sooo much better. Sometimes it's so easy... not to solve your problems. You never solve your problems (for good). What you need to do is to regain your balance, and I've managed to do that. For today. Thanks Wii Fit, thanks music (once more)!

Everybody but me - Lykke Li

Everybody but me - Lykke Li

I've been intensively listening to Junip in these past few days, but I don't feel like posting two songs of theirs in a row...! So I'm gonna go back to the last song I had among my drafts from two playlists ago (it sounds like ages ago, it's been maybe 2 weeks...), and this is Lykke Li (she's Swedish too in the end). This is a bonus song of her 'Youth novels' session, and that is probably my favourite album of hers. I can really relate to the lyrics of 'Everybody but me', as it doesn't happen seldom that I don't feel like doing things that many people do or think like most people. It's not a... necessity of being different, it's probably just that I don't really like to do things just to "belong" to a group, so I turn out to be the weird one more often than not. And then I do things most people don't, but that's another pair of sleeves (as we say in Italy)! Today for instance I bought tape to stick a couple of cork boards to the walls of my room. I've been having them around for years, one of them with all the most relevant tickets of my 4-month exchange in Montréal (and all the travels I made from there) and the other one, which I started filling out today, with concert tickets and public transport tickets (from cities I've been to) from 2013 onwards. I'm really happy I finally did hang those two girls, I've been meaning to for ages but never found the right moment!

Two steps, twice - Foals (live @ Reading 2010)

Two steps, twice - Foals (live @ Reading 2010)

Ok, getting back to the real world from Foals' concert last night has been relatively easy because my stupid iPod wouldn't work today in the car and we couldn't play their songs again on the drive back home, so we had to listen to other music... yet I realised I still hadn't posted this song and, once again, I feel compelled to do so. I've been watching live performances of it on YouTube as, great as the album version is, I think the energy level is completely different when they perform it live. They've been using it as a show-closer for as long as I can remember, and how can I blame them?! Ending a rock concert with this crazy stuff leaves you both in medias res and also as accomplished as can be. I don't think it's a feeling I can describe with words... just take a look at this, then go listen to Foals, learn the song, go to a concert of theirs if you have the chance and you'll know just what the f I'm writing about!!! Cheers!

Let it fall - Lykke Li

Let it fall - Lykke Li

It is so very late, I know... in my defense I bring forward... well I don't know what I can bring forward! Maybe that it's been my first day at home as an officially unemployed young man? Maybe that I've been planning a trip all day long and that I ended up booking another one? Maybe that I've been busy putting up the xmas tree? I don't know if any of these motivations are valid, anyway it's half past 2 and I'm still here... and it took me more time to craft the timelapse video of me preparing the tree than to actually prepare the tree! I'm a hopeless digital native! Anyway, I had this song on my mind while getting the fake pine ready, so I ended up working on it with Lykke's music as soundtrack and I must confess it worked quite well! I just hope that the title of this song won't be applicable to my dear tree!! Goodnight my people!

Lost? - Coldplay

"Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost...

Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserved 

No better and no worse..."

Lost? - Coldplay

So, I wanted to make a double post tonite, but I don't have the strength to write something decent and post it and share, so I'm just gonna take this note and complete the post tomorrow. Just know that I tried, and I started this with the best intentions! But I love this song and I had a moment with it today, so I prefer to devote a little bit more time to it and share it well tomorrow. And in the meantime I've already kind of written the post, so to hell with that, I'm just gonna post it now.

I've been listening to a playlist I compiled thinking about an "aperitivo on a terrace facing the sea" kind of context, with relaxing and chilling songs, which most often end up being songs I feel the most and that communicate very strongly to me. So I got this one playing in my car while driving back from work tonite and being at a point of my life when I decided to turn the page, the lyrics I quoted up here kind of really spoke to me! And I've always been in love with this song, with how you can pick one version for charging-up moments and the other one for calm and reflexive moments (Lost! vs Lost?), and they both work awesomely.

Well now, after a bad, disturbed and not so long sleep two nights ago and a very much enjoyed but short 5-sleep last night, I reaaally need to see a bed. Be well, y'all!

Miles away - Madonna

Miles away - Madonna

Hello guys, I know I've been silent for the past few days, I have been quite busy with a weekend trip in Florence! Finally when meeting foreigners and telling them I am from Italy and having them tell me how nice Italy is, and that they've been to Rome, Florence, Venice... I won't feel ashamed anymore! It really looks like I'm gonna have to drop my line "You've seen more Italy than I did!", even if this keeps probably being true for many lovers of our country coming from abroad. Music has been present in my weekend of course, but just while travelling and while chilling on Saturday night, and of course this morning while driving to work. And I'm actually taking inspiration from this last moment, posting a song I've just listened to, one that always reminds me of my last year of high school, as I kept getting it play on the radio while I drove to school at that time of my life....

Melodies and desires - Lykke Li

Melodies and desires - Lykke Li

I'm still dead tired, even more after this morning's early wake-up call and long trip to work. I need to use this week to rest up, but it's not gonna be an easy thing to do while going to work every day! More medical tests are on the way, as if I didn't have enough of it already... anyway I'm just going to keep on giving my best, at least until I collapse (or get on the verge of collapsing). Today Lykke Li helped me stay awake and pass my time at work; her debut album is the last one I got to listen to among her current, and is also the one I like the least, but this song is one of the few on it that I did connect with, and today it felt special when I was listening to it, so I guess it was just calling for its own spot here on the blog! Wishing you a life that is interesting and manageable, unlike mine, I'll leave you with some great music!

The end where I begin - The Script

The end where I begin - The Script

Today has been a busy day: I woke up with a bad stomach-ache that worried me somehow and given my swinging health, I went to the hospital together my parents to get myself checked. After an efficient service, they gave me a short therapy and sent me out with a diagnosis of gastritis, a "simple" stomach infection, that should not be linked to the many fevers I've been having in the past months. So, if nothing else happens, I'll be flying to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi tomorrow! But before embarking on this one-week business trip, I want to share with you one of the songs I listened in my car while driving back home yesterday, a long-time favourite of mine (I got to know it as soundtrack of the Fifa 09 video-game and then listened to it many times again before going to The Script's concert in early 2011). I'm sure all the teenagers (and former teenagers) out there will not be indifferent to this song!

"Sometimes tears say all there is to say

Sometime your first scars don't ever fade away"

#sundayrevival Fascination - Alphabeat

Fascination - Alphabeat

I have been listening to a lot of Carmen Consoli today, but I don't want to bore you with a sequence of mono-singer posts, so I'm coming up with a good #sundayrevival-summeredition song from my summer playlist (named 'Eté', the French speakers out there will understand...!) because today (and yesterday too) the temperature has been challenging (and I love, finally HOT!) and also humidity has taken its toll on us! So, this song I'm posting is from the summer of 2008, I hold it particularly dear as, besides being one of the hits of that summer, is the one that was playing in the car just before I took my driving license! It already was a favourite of mine and after that, it got a place in my heart forever! WE LIVE ON FASCINATION!! Happy summer to y'all!!

#sundayrevival Until the day is done - R.E.M.

Until the day is done - R.E.M.

This weekend always holds a special meaning for me: ok, I agree, F1 has lost a lot of its appeal in the last years, but the Montréal GP always holds a special place in my heart (as do Montecarlo and SPA). The best year has been 2011 hands down: it was the 12th of June (thanks WIkipedia for a heads-up about the exact day) and I remember it being the night before a university exam early in the morning. I remember vividly my excitement in watching the GP as I already knew I would be spending a semester in Montréal starting January of the subsequent year. Then there was the whole mess at the beginning of the race, it being postponed for like 2 hours due to a crazy rainstorm. I was almost tempted to say "well, whatever..." and go to bed, but the conditions were all coming together so perfectly that I decided to keep it up. And it was worth it. Oh, if it was worth it! The best (and also longest) F1 race ever!! This year has been ok, but not nearly as great as 2011. Anyway for this sundayrevival I wanna share with you a piece of music that I was listening to at the time, and that was already kind of a revival at the time, being the album it comes from released in 2008. Hope you enjoy it!

#sundayrevival Straitjacket - Alanis Morissette

Straitjacket - Alanis Morissette

It's being too long since I posted a sundayrevival so I have to do it now and do it well!! Last night I was taking a shower and I decided to play Alanis in the meanwhile: it immediately brought back to 2008, when I started listening to her massively and when her album 'Flavors of entanglement' (one of my absolute favourites of all time) came out. After a few songs I really enjoyed, I turned off the speakers just as this song was about to start and I found myself singing it by heart walking through the house, so I then got to listen to it and decided it would be a perfect post for a sundayrevival! Although it is not a particularly Alanis-like song, it was quite in front of the strongly-produced electronic-pop music that has been going strong since the beginning of the new decade. Moreover the lyrics were really powerful, I realised while singing them "acapella". I'm sure you're gonna love it too! Have a happy sunday!

#sundayrevival Spotlight - Jennifer Hudson

Spotlight - Jennifer Hudson

I was about to write that I didn't remember how I got back to this song, but it isn't true, I do remember! A few days ago I was listening to an audio file of my Japanese course that I imported on iTunes and named as Japanese-something in the artist field. Then I went on to listen to the artists that were just below and after 'Empire state of the mind' (Jay-Z) I got to this 2008 hit, which I absolutely love and which always does remind me of my last year of high school, the one year when I was driving my car to school every morning, listening to the radio (RMC - Radio Monte Carlo, usually) and this was one of the songs that were always broadcasted and that has come to be an anthem of that time of my life. Given how recently I got to realise that high school tests and university exams are already blending together in the 'past folder' in my mind, and how I got to recall high school times when meeting with some friends in my hometown last weekend, it seems like a perfect time to post this song! To all the good (and bad) memories related to high school!

Big big love (fig.2) - Foals

Big big love (fig.2) - Foals

Given what I've been listening to this afternoon, I had to post either a Foster the People song or a Foals song. I was quite sure I had already posted this one, so when I found out I didn't (i.e. now) my mind has been made up and here we are! I have been an early (?) Foals fan thanks to the Fifa 09 soccer videogame, as their song 'Olympic airways' was featured on its soundtrack, and has always been one of my favourites. I then went on to listen to their debut album 'Antidotes', which features this beautiful 'Big big love (fig.2)' and their two subsequent releases, to then go to their concert in Milan... well, it seems like it was yesterday, so I'd dare say last year, but it might have been late 2013. Yeah it must, because I was in Exeter last year at the beginning of 2014. In late 2013 with my friend A. (who I've practically not seen since, gosh, time flies so fast, there's so many people I need to get back in contact with)!! Big big night (fig.1)!

White winter hymnal - Fleet Foxes

White winter hymnal - Fleet Foxes

Never had I been drawn to listening to an album because I loved the artwork and have then been so repeatedly disappointed by the music. I don't know what the reason is, but I've tried listening to Fleet Foxes 3 or 4 times since their debut came out and the sparkle never lit, I actually found their music a bit disturbing at times... Recently I decided to give it a real try and I listened to their album some 4-5 times, I finally started appreciating a couple of songs but I still wouldn't go as far as saying I like their music. This White winter hymnal is one the two things I saved for now!

Trains and winter rains - Enya

Trains and winter rains - Enya

I have been having a hard time feeling christmas time this year -  that until today. Notwithstanding the nice markets, trees, lights and stuff in Brussels, I was feeling cold and detached, not at all within that cheerful mood associated with one of the nice things of nice not-really-nice time of year. But it comes, as it does every year. This afternoon I have been working on the xmas tree at home and, even if I'm not fully satisfied with the result, I must say it turned out nice and it really helped me get into the xmas mood. Putting on some on-topic songs while decorating, it felt right to post one, which is actually one of my fav winter songs since it came out and which I've not posted yet, so here it is, enjoy Enya, trains and winter rains!

Little bit - Lykke Li

Little bit - Lykke Li

Winter has come and in turn it's time for wintery songs!! Well, to tell the truth I've been listening to this one for a while now, but Lykke's whole debut album has kind of a northern beat, so I think it fits well with the new season. As I've said many times, I really really don't enjoy the cold, one of the few good things about it is that there are many songs I enjoy best at this time of year, as they remind me of it. The fact that most of them are very deep and soul is not casual, but it's one of the kinds of music I love the most so... here it is!

Dance dance dance - Lykke Li

Dance dance dance - Lykke Li

I have been talking about Lykke Li with A, one of my dearest followers, and since I have recently been listening to her debut album, the last one of hers I still missed, it makes sense to write a post about her, doesn't it?! I must confess this is the album of hers I liked the least, but given how much I liked the other two, that doesn't mean I didn't like it! Well... there are a few tunes I've been having a hard time with and I still haven't figured them out completely, but some others... are good! I think I'll be posting another couple in the next future probably, so stay tuned for more!

#blogbirthday Underneath - Alanis Morissette

Underneath - Alanis Morissette

So here we are, the time has finally come to say HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY to A song (or two) per day! That's right, it's been one year since I started this blog and, I swear it's not made on purpose, this is the post number 365! That meaning that I have written 1 exact year worth of posts, so the target for next year is to improve that, in order to be faithful to the blog title! To celebrate this special event I chose a very special song that also marks my musical evolution: last year I started posting with Dolores O'Riordan, that together with her band (The Cranberries) has marked the beginning of what I defined as the first adult phase of my relationship with music, marked by a return to the music of my childhood, the 1990s, and by the diffusion of technology, that let me be exposed to loads of new and old music. Alanis Morissette has been the second step in 2008: my mother loved her debut album and had the musicassette in the car for years, so I already knew her most famous songs, but it has not been until Underneath that I started falling in love with her, second performer I utterly fell for after the Cranberries. And then, also thanks to they guys on the Italian forum of Alanis, I got more and more inspiration on new music I completely fell in love with too (Tori Amos, PJ Harvey...). Now I am approaching many many "new" artists every year and I lost that kind of one-artist per year approach, so I'm carrying the old guys and girls in a special corner of my musical heart!
Enough with the words, I can just say I am very happy for reaching this goal and thanks again for reading, I won't get tired to tell you that! Enjoy Alanis!

American boy - Estelle

American boy - Estelle

Let's say that lately I have been taking the whole blogging thing a bit lightly because it's summer, we are all (or we will soon be) on holiday, you have better stuff to do than waste time reading my posts and so... well, that's the excuse I'm using to justify the neglecting of my blog in the last days. But I'm here, don't worry! Even if I miss a day here and there, things are going to keep on going on!
Yesterday I had some friends over at my grandma's and we had a great time with the swimming pool, grilled meat and everything! Of course my day has been quite full and I forgot to post... and then we come to today (that is actually yesterday already), when I had to go to the hospital to book a wisdom teeth surgery (and it took me all morning), then going here and there I got distracted again and I'm here just now... but I'm here with a good post methinks!
Driving towards the building of the hospital I have taken the way I used to take to go to (high) school with my car during my last year of it. I had my summer playlist playing in the car and then this song turned up! It really brought back a lot of memories, as I used to listen to it in the summer just before the beginning of the last year of high school... and yesterday I was talking with my friends about past times, how things used to be, how much they have changed and, well... probably it's just being a kind of nostalgic period for me, especially now that I am slowly (but not that much, really) realising that the school chapter(s) of my life has(/ve) ended... good thing is that I'll keep my great memories!