#sundayrevival Up there down there - Patti Smith

Up there down there - Patti Smith

"Up there there's a ball of fire, some call it the spirit, some call it the sun..." These are the first words that I can recall after waking up this morning. No idea where they came from and what it was that I was thinking which brought me there, but something did! A Patti Smith classic and a favourite of mine since I went through her discography, sounds like a great tune for this Sunday! Lunch is done and I'm heading downtown for some shopping and strolling around, hoping that the rays of sun and flashes of blue sky I've seen sooner will stick around a bit longer!! I really wouldn't mind enjoying the ball of fire up there, whatever you may call it!

#sundayrevival Jubilee - Patti Smith

Jubilee - Patti Smith

Not that I care too much about it, but this year is a Jubilee year! They haven't been talking about it that much, not that I heard of anyway, except from when it kicked off. I have actually crossed a "holy door" in the small town that is located on the mountain just above my hometown, as they have recently opened a few historical, restored frescos (they weren't open for visit during the week though). Well, all of that... is nothing I care about. At all. I am actually posting a song by an artist who became famous singing "Jesus dies for somebody's sins, but not mine"!! Anyway this song has been coming to my mind quite often recently, I guess because I heard about the Jubilee year, and so it sounded like a good sundayrevival post!

#sundayrevival Blue - R.E.M. feat. Patti Smith

Blue - R.E.M. feat. Patti Smith

I've made a relatively big change in my appearance (upper body) that is related to blue: I've been thinking of doing this for years and now the time has come, I feel great about it, more myself than I've ever felt methinks. My mother told me that I should've done it before Florence + the Machine's concert (given that their latest album is called 'How big, how blue, how beautiful'), and it occured to me that she's quite right! I still have another chance for the next concert in April, but in the meantime I prepared a playlist called 'Blue' that features some of my favourite songs that are centered around what is one of my favourite colours. This is an absolute masterpiece included in it, probably R.E.M.'s final song (the last one of their last studio album) and legacy, a beautiful collaboration with Patti Smith that fits perfectly this sundayrevival post!

#sundayrevival E-bow the letter - R.E.M. (feat. Patti Smith)

E-bow the letter - R.E.M.
(feat. Patti Smith)

I promised a special post today to celebrate the 700th entry on the blog, and here it is! A sundayrevival that is not a real sundayrevival (as I got to listen to this song for the first time a little over 2 years ago), but it feels like one, as soon after I approached R.E.M.'s 'E-bow the letter' album, I've been feeling like I've known this song forever. As if it was an inheritance from my childhood, even if I don't remember ever listening to it before. I wanted to post it a couple of days ago, as I went on to listen to some of my personal 2013 best after a pure XX moment, but then I decided to post 'Intro' and kept this other gem for today! I don't need to introduce R.E.M. nor Patti Smith to any of you, I just note that I remember reading something about how Michael Stipe was excited about this song, as it's the first collaboration his band made with Patti, who he mentioned as the reason he started making music. I guess that's enough introduction, just get to the music asap!

#sundayrevival Citizen ship - Patti Smith

Citizen ship - Patti Smith

One of the most exciting F1 races of the last few years has filled up a good part of my day, with both qualifying and race in one day, plus my own "race" to get to Milan, getting ready to be utterly frustrated at my Expo visit tomorrow...! I know it's gonna be tough, but I keep feeling it's gonna be tougher than I expect, anyway I will let you know how it goes...! Now I have to finish up with my preparations, as I will wake up at dawn and get very very tired... sometimes I wonder why I do these things!! Maybe because I care about my world citizen ship! Waking up with this song in my head this morning maybe was linked to this, or maybe not! (Sometimes it's so hard to find links between the songs I post and my damn life!!!)

Land - Patti Smith

Land - Patti Smith

These three days of boredom at work have come to an end, we presented our prototypes (my colleagues did, actually) and tomorrow we're gonna have separate sessions divided by business functions, so that we will interact a little bit more hopefully, and then... heading home! The last part of today's meeting was a videoconference with the big boss in Japan on the one side and all the people in Thailand (local consultants, business and global consultants, a.k.a. us) on the other. At one point towards the end I started singing this song in my head, don't know why but I did. And so here I am posting it, right before going to the company party (i.e. a dinner with the local consultants, IT users and key users of other functions, all the people we have been interacting with in these past months). I guess that the project has finally kicked-off, but what about my future? In 40 years will I still be glorious as this album has been during its long history? Time will tell..!!

#sundayrevival Waiting underground - Patti Smith

Waiting underground - Patti Smith

I've had this song in store for you since yesterday, so this post would exist even if I stayed in bed all day today, but what a nice day today has been instead! I woke up and decided to abort my trip to the Sacrario del Monte Grappa, which was my main trip plan for the past week and has instead been postponed (you can enjoy this beautiful picture of it anyway!) because I wanted to take it easy today and not spend 3 hours in the car to go back and forth, especially given that I had other things to do! So I went to the mall/supermarket and bought a few (nice) things to eat, then got back and for the nth have been struggling with my old mac charger, which (I decided) has finally failed me. So here we go, on the road again to give a win to my parents and go buy an original replacement, and in the meanwhile I also bouth a CD (U2's Joshua Tree, which I've been looking for at a decent price for a long time) and a t-shirt I really like! And this second trip, in the car, singing loud and being kissed by the sun, really boosted my mood, plus my purchases added on that and well... even if my driver didn't even start in today's F1 Gran Prix, I'm happy anyway!!

#sundayrevival Ghost dance - Patti Smith

Ghost dance - Patti Smith

Posting 'Easter' (the song) on easter (the day) seemed a bit excessive and redundant to me, especially because I'm not a huge fan of Patti's song itself. The same cannot be said for the homonymous album, which I greatly love. One of the masterpieces on it is in my opinion this 'Ghost dance', a classic Patti Smith song I never get wary of! I hope you all got a chance to spend your easter at best, be it with your families, with your loved ones, alone, travelling, at home or wherever you wanted to be!

"We shall live again"

Wing (live) - Patti Smith

Wing (live) - Patti Smith

I started listening (again) to Patti last night as while getting through Regina Spektor's album I'm listening to now I found a song whose piano incipit sounded a bit like Patti's Gloria. And building on that I kept on listening to her all afternoon today as when I begin I can't get a hold of myself and stop, so it is natural for me to post a song of hers here today. The one I chose is the one that caught my attention the most this time and, well, it's a song I have a special relationship with. It's not one that struck me strong as soon as I listened to it, actually while listening to Gone Again it passed through quite unnoticed. I started feeling strongly for it while listening to a live version of it on Patti's collection Land and well, this is the version I feel like posting, as it's the one I feel the most.

Maria - Patti Smith

Maria - Patti Smith

I am writing something in advance for the blog given my forthcoming leaving for a short trip. What has inspired me for this post is likely the same source of inspiration of my last Patti Smith post, about a week ago. I just realized that on my iPod I was still currently playing Banga, her latest album. My love for this CD has never diminished, rather it keeps increasing and I feel compelled to post another song, probably the one with the strongest power in terms of feeling on the whole album, anyway the one that gives me the strongest chills.
Another reason why I've been thinking about this song is that I have lately updated my playlist 'Women characters', a playlist of songs where female characters play a central role. The not-so-very-English name is a kind of self-quote, as this playlist follow a precedent one called 'Women' that featured my (at-the-time) favourite female singers. I remember burning that one on a CD as a present for my mother a long time ago...!
Well, I leave you with Maria and Patti, make sure you enjoy this pearl!

Seneca - Patti Smith

Run, run, my little one. Run out to see.

Run, run, my little one. What do you seek?

Seneca - Patti Smith

My sea trip is approaching and this (early) morning I woke up with this song in mind. I was convinced that the lyrics said "Run out to sea", which made perfect sense for me. I see now that my lyrics are the ones I quoted here above, but other versions online have the reference to "sea" and not to "see" (which has never made much sense to me anyway). I'll just keep both possibilities open, the poetry of the song isn't diminished with any of the two, rather, the "mystery" increases its beauty and power. This is one of the most beautiful songs contained in Patti Smith's latest album, the 2012 Banga. I hope you will like it!


If you were his eyes, If you were his dreams
The whole of the sky could not contain you...

Break it up - Patti Smith

Break it up - Patti Smith

Hello everybody, sorry for being late, happy (late) easter! My long weekend in London has almost come to an end and I didn't post today/yesterday, so I'll make it up now with one song that I already wanted to post earlier on: enjoy Patti and see you tomorrow/today!

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!

#sundayrevival : Don't say nothing - Patti Smith

I'll leave you with yet another pearl in this gloomy end-of-holidays sunday. I've gone back listening again to one of Patti's latest albums and I realised that there are few songs on this one that I really like but that have never had the chance to get enough of my attention. This is not one of them. Or, at least, to this one I have devoted a good deal of attention and love, I still don't know if it's enough!
And I just realised that this is the first Patti Smith post on the blog. Shame on me for waiting so long!

I actually made up my mind about formalizing the #sundayrevival theme for the blog, so expect more of my own personal classics to come!
Have a good end of holidays and be strong!