The end of love - Florence + the Machine

Countdown to 2019: -4

The end of love - Florence + the Machine

When I started these last (and first) five posts of end-of-2018, I already had in mind the five songs I planned to post. And here I am, on the second day, already posting something I hadn't planned to. Well, this seems like a good example of how life seldom goes the way we plan, and how it's important to be able to adapt to the flow sometimes. It's been a few years since Florence released a new album until 'High as hope' came out this summer. It took me a while to appreciate the new music, but I ended up being sold on it. As it often happens with F+tM's music, it ended up growing on me and I listened to some of the songs more and more in the later months of this year. This is one of them, one that I held particularly dear around the end of summer, when I was going through my own end of love, my problematic New York summer (indirectly), my ghosting and my (figurative) jump off the balcony (please don't jump from the balcony for real!). As usual, Florence speaks my life better than I can, even before events unfold. Can't wait to see her again live next March, hoping that after the end of love that came with 2018, new love will sparkle in 2019!

#blogbirthday All we are - OneRepublic

All we are - OneRepublic

I don't know why I fixed in my mind the 20th of October as the blog's birthday, when I actually posted the first entry on the 19th of October, but well... does it really matter?
So, I'm here to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the blog!!! It turned 3... well, yesterday actually! It's incredible that I've managed to stick to it for so long given everything that's happened in these past three years and especially given that I didn't expect to stick with it for so long in the first place! This third year has been the hardest one so far, I'd say. I've been having plentiful of free time in my hands and that brought me to waste it on TV series and travelling (well, that time wasn't wasted at all!) and other things, so that I haven't paid enough attention to 'A song or two per day', which has actually become 'A couple songs per week', or something like that! Lately, since I started my PhD and moved to Hong Kong, things have been hectic once again and it's been even harder to find the time and energy to come and post here, but still, I'm trying my best!
So, as I keep saying, this blog has been the longest commitment of my life (it has been actually), so let's make somethings special for its third birthday, hoping that I will be able to finding my balance and carrying on with all parts of my life, this included! To celebrate the blog's birthday I want, as usual, to share something special with you. This year I've chosen my favourite OneRepublic song, given that they have just released their new album and after this and 'Native', I really got the feeling they're not gonna go and make anymore great music as they did on their first two album, as they have started a more commercial path (understandably, but I must say that doesn't make me happy at all). Moreover, just a couple of months ago I left everything I had at home to embark on a new adventure and, knowing that most of it will be there again when I come back, of course being far away doesn't allow me to enjoy my past relationships as much as I could when I was back home. That doesn't diminish them, rather... they just evolve. So "Time could tear you apart, but it won't break anything that we are... We won't say our goodbyes, you know its better that way, we won't break, we won't die, it's just a moment of change! All we are, all we are, is everything that's right..."

#sundayrevival Strong enough - Cher

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A beautiful dinner and pleasant evening started with us singing Cher songs in a (supposedly) Cher-voice getting back from grocery shopping...! When you are with the right people, it's really true that it doesn't matter much what you're doing. It's days like these that make me feel good, even if nothing special really happens! "I'm strong enough to live without you" sings Cher, and this is probably the reason letting people spend time together because they actually enjoy it!

#sundayrevival Men in love - Gossip

Men in love - Gossip

In a period when I'm listening to soo much new music (one of the perks of the current life path I'm in, a thing that I just realised today and I am very grateful for), it gets harder and harder to pick good tunes for the sundayrevival! But here we are! I got to know Gossip in the period when the album featuring this song was released (hello 'Heavy cross'!), and then I went on listening to their older stuff and (then) their newer, none of which really appealed to me. I then went on to appreciate 'Standing in the way of control' last year, so I decided to give it a go again to their 2012 album, which I have in my 'Pick and catch' playlist right now. Even if I'm starting to appreciate the rest of their discography a little more, 'Music for men' still remains a few steps above all the rest, and this is one of the reasons why. Paraphrasing one of my old Facebook posts, who wouldn't want to get on a high school bus driven by Beth Ditto?!

Lotta love - Neil Young

Lotta love - Neil Young

Hi guys, sorry for the long absence but this past couple of weeks have been among the most intense of my life! Settling in here in Hong Kong has been tougher than I expected and I think 3 (long) blog posts wouldn't be enough to tell you all about it, so I'll just sum it up for you and try to get back to a more regular posting in the near future (Internet connection availability permitting). First of all, it's been great that my aunt came here with me during my first few days, it's been good to have some help and support, as things haven't been as smooth as the other times I've been abroad. Loads of things to do, documents to process and vicious circles of documents needed to do this and that, but I am slowly getting it ok. The house I had found before coming here is not the best, the living conditions are not something I can put up with for more than a temporary amount of time, so we had to look for an alternative (and more expensive) solution, which I - thanks goodness - found. We then had to go and buy the furniture for it and I will have to look for a flatmate, but first of all I still have to settle in, so for the next few days I'm still staying in the room I had previously found. Hong Kong itself hasn't been nice with us in the first few days: a lot of gray, a lot of rain, a lot of oppressive environments... then little by little we have found sweeter spots and the weather has also improved, showing us a nicer side of the city! The university seems nice: the campus is super cool, people give me the impression of being nice and helpful, even if it's not gonna be a piece of cake to get everything done, starting with the logistical point of view and going on with the academic one. Simply put, it's gonna take a lotta love (or we won't get too far)! I'll be back with more updates soon, I hope you have enjoyed your summer holidays and are ready to get back on track! I think I am!

Who loves - Lemolo

Who loves - Lemolo

Hey mina-san*, I am almost ready for my take-off (guess I haven't talked to you about it yet, I will soon), so I have already started saying goodbyes left and right, which has made me realise that the time to leave is really coming closer and closer. It's just one week that I have left to spend in Italy, and then I'm gonna fly far away to begin a new adventure! I am not severing the ties I have here, but distance will loose them for sure and it's not gonna be easy, even if some of the people I care about really can get on my nerves! Sometimes I get to wonder who loves, but well... for better or worse I do, and that's one big side of the story!

*This means you all in Japanese, don't ask why it came out like that here now!

#sundayrevival No need to argue - The Cranberries

No need to argue - The Cranberries

What a horrible moment... I am sure you guys have known about the mass shooting happening in a gay club in Orlando, awful news that we keep hearing more and more often lately. Yes, the chances of any one of us dying in a terrorist attack are trivial and I think that the more we amplify this kind of news, the more power we give to those who commit these vicious crimes. Nonetheless it is worth noting that the most important thing to do, in my opinion, is NOT to respond to this kind of violence with more violence and hate and intolerance. I can just imagine how delighted Donald Trump and the such are at such news, which will surely be yet another consent boost. Let's not make that, otherwise the politics of terror will just get stronger and stronger. Be brave, be strong and spread the love. To everyone.

Love like this - Kodaline

Love like this - Kodaline

I have just come home from a dinner organised by my dearest wife to say goodbye, as she is moving to another city for work. It was just her, some of her colleagues from work and me, no one else of our original high-school friends group and this is a bit sad to realise, as we are all spread around by now. I am very happy for her, it's a good opportunity both professionally and personally and she really needs that, so I hope she'll be able to get the best out of it! I don't know why, but then this song instantly came to my mind as soon as I placed my sushi-filled butt on the chair, so I guess that's why I'm posting it, and not because I relate to the lyrics: even if we somehow lost touch with each other, I do think that a love like this (the one between me and my hometown friends) will indeed last forever, notwithstanding the distance!

Not enough love in the world - Cher

Not enough love in the world - Cher

Linking back to last weekend's posts, here is another song I can totally relate to in these days. I'm really sick of people preventing other people from spreading their love, loving each other and making the world a better place. How can they do so? Especially when they mostly follow christian teachings, which, for what I know, were all about love and tolerance and respect. Anyways, what we can do is to stop being afraid of what is different, what we might not understand and try to understand it instead of taking it out of our lives, or even sticking our noses into other people lives and telling them how they should behave and that their rights cannot be safeguarded by the state. This whole really makes me sick and I really think that there's not enough love in the world!

It's good to be in love - Frou Frou

It's good to be in love - Frou Frou

Today is another shameful day for my country: another edition of the "Family day" took place, this being an event where people manifest their unwillingness for other people to love each other and have their love recognized by the law. They also want to prevent other people from raising children just because they didn't procreate them. I don't want to explain here all my thoughts and my reasons why these ideas make me feel sick, I'll just tell you they do.
Today is also a very bright day for me! I have received news from one of the universities I have applied to that they selected me for a PhD program starting in September! I've been really really hoping for this to go right and it seems like it did! I'll keep you updated and give you more news about this in the future...!
Anyways all I want to do is to leave you with the following message:

It's good to be in love. With whoever and whatever you want. Love is never wrong when it makes people and things happy, and it usually does. Preventing other people from loving each other and caring for each other doesn't protect nor defend anyone, it's just a selfish excuse that people use to not try and understand how other people feel. Spread the love. Whatever kind of love. Because it's good to be in love.

Outlaws of love - Adam Lambert

Outlaws of love - Adam Lambert

What better song to share after a journey like this?! Let me tell you the story of my drive back home tonite after work, I haven't been laughing so hard for ages! I was travelling back home, one day in advance with respect to the usual schedule because I have some medical exams here tomorrow (of course), and as usual I uploaded my travel on Blablacar, the platform that allows you to share your car trips with other people. Today I had 2 girls contacting me, a single one and another one travelling with a friend; this latter one had kind of a "bitchy" picture, with a duck face and everything, but so many girls have it nowadays..! Well, when I get to the station, out meeting point, here I see those two girls, dressed up like hookers, belly out, piercings, platinum hair, cigarette, hard make-up... I say to myself "ooook!" and get them on, together with the other girl. When I asked them what they do for a living, they asked "hostess at events, modelling..." and then start talking on the phone with people, saying one of them tomorrow is at dinner with the surgeon and the other with someone else, and then one says that man are all the same, they are bad people but oh, how she loves c*ck! And then they wanted me to leave them at the highway barrier, even asked if they could walk through it on feet! I took them to the parking lot right after, and I'm still not sure about the guy that was supposed to come pick them up, if he was the "Moroccan", the "one who made their hair" or who else!
So much fun guys, so much fun! After we let them off, me and the other girl were laughing so hard! Guess they really are outlaws of love, and I am too, but in a totally different sense I'd say! Outlaws of love, outlaws of life!

My lover's gone - Dido

My lover's gone - Dido

I know I know, it's late, I'm late and it's sunday already, and the ironic thing is that I planned to post Dido for this week's sundayrevival, but tonite I changed my mind as I stumbled on another pearl to share with you! So here we are, saturday is gone by and maybe the fate of this post wanted it to actually be posted on sunday! Anyway, I fell victim to the alphabetical order once again... while driving here I decided to play a Tori Amos playlist in the car and when it ended, the radio moved to the next playlist, i.e. 'TuttoDido' (that would be AllDido in English). That's why and how I ended up listening to Dido these past few days, and when a singer is your favourite in your teenage years, you're never gonna forget her, nor the lyrics of her songs, nor the feelings they create in you each and every time...! My relationship with this song has been moving like a pendulum: at first it was the one I liked the least on Dido's debut album (which I adore), then I fell in love with it and it moved almost to my favs of the album, then it fell out of grace again and now... it is here, taking its rightful place on the blog! These swings took years to complete, but all in all the affection I feel for the song didn't change much over this period of time, especially as the images created by the song are pretty powerful! Try it yourselves!

Love will set you free - Kodaline

Love will set you free - Kodaline

Summer has come and I'm so happy about it that it makes me forget all the other things that are not really working so well in my life! Let's just enjoy it and hope for the best to come. Because you can't not believe that when you're busy getting on with your life, lonely but not alone, still one day love will set you free!

If you wait - London Grammar

If you wait - London Grammar

And to find just one other seems to be the goal of everyone

From the search to the hurt I believed I could take you on

We would drink, we would dance and you would watch me whenever you want

And can you give me everything everything everything

Cos I can’t give you anything

And if you wait, if you wait

I will trust in time that we will meet again

Today one of my dearest friends graduated and I'm so happy for her!

Unrelated to that, I have started a random play of London Grammar's debut album, and while this song was playing I was casually paying attention to the lyrics I quote up here, which struck me quite a lot, I feel them very close to my personal experience. I never paid them enough attention, nonetheless I have been utterly in love with the song and, being it the title-track of the album, I think it's a good post representing what has for sure been one of my top 3 albums in this 2014!

Old money - Lana del Rey

Old money - Lana del Rey

Hello there, my readers! Today I'm posting another song I got on my mind yesterday, and also another one whose lyrics made me think (and laugh a bit, especially thinking about a Facebook group...). The theme is quite the same as yesterday's, with Lana singing of a person ready to leave everything and run to the beloved one in every moment, a beloved one that doesn't seem to correspond the sentiment though... sad story.
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So, the time has finally come for this song! The introduction here above, I had already written it a few days ago, when I ended up posting Video games. Of course today I'm late with posting again, I promise I'll do my best to improve under this point of view (but being in summer and having no restraints nor timetables, I tend to live my life at night...). This song has been growing in me on the sly until I started finding myself pleased and happy when it started and singing it as it went on, almost even without remembering its title and the lyrics. As mentioned already, the 'loving someone with no ifs and no buts' theme makes its appearance here once again, and maybe this is one good reason why I can relate to it and I ended up liking it... I think it actually went on to become one of my Ultraviolence favs, so I'm sure you're all gonna enjoy it!
PS: Another goal reached yesterday that I forgot to notice! We reached 300 posts with yesterday's and, well, thinking about it, the next hundred target is gonna happen after the first birthday of the blog! Sounds exciting, ain't it?

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!

Have yourself a merry little christmas - Tori Amos

Have yourself a merry little christmas! Be you a christian, an atheist, a believer in another religion or whatever else, never let go a chance to be with the people who care about you and who you care about. Even if you don't care about the reason for celebrating, take the chance and spread some love, it never hurts! And if you have no one close to you, know that I am thinking of you too and that soon enough you will be reunited with the ones you love and/or find somebody new who cares about you!
Kisses.