Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have, but I have it - Lana del Rey

Hope is a dangerous thing for
a woman like me to have, but
I have it - Lana del Rey

This song strikes a chord, especially in these days as I seem heavily immersed in nostalgic thoughts being back in Hong Kong after a while (and watching videos of strangers answer questions about their first loves, lost loves, painful life moments, etc.). I have spent a large part of my young adult years feeling a lack of something in my life, mostly in the domain of romantic relationships. As time passed and the situation didn't change, I went on to envision more and more realistically the possibility that I would spend my life without someone on my side, which left me distraught at first, but which I have learned to live with in a way that allowed me to still be serendipitous. My mind and approach to life have been shaped by these feelings to the point that I (still) have an instinctive, baseline tendency to consider myself as single, even when I am not. Be it when I listen to a song or relate to other people's stories and experiences, often I empathise with others' words and feelings and stories with a "I know what you feel, I'm in the same boat too!" attitude, to then realise it is actually not true. As I have been spending more and more time in relationships, this feeling has been slowly fading to the back of my mind, but sometimes still emerges. I used to think that my case was hopeless, but it wasn't. If I made it, you can make it too. Be it because you have had too many experiences and it seems that no one would wanna stick with you, or that you have barely had any experience and it seems that no one even wants to give you a chance, if you want to have someone on your side, don't give up! Someone is out there and you never know what life has planned for you. If you have no desire to have (just) one person next to you and the world seems to push back all the time to the socialised concept of the stable, monogamous relationship, don't give up! There are other people out there who feel in the same way. Either way, life changes and what we want changes. Sometimes we "change what we want" based on what is available to us, and sometimes this can be good, you can fins happiness where you didn't look for it. But be honest with your feelings and desires, and don't settle for something that doesn't really make you feel good about the present and about the future! It will be hard, but if you pick the good card from the deck, it will have been worth the wait 🙂. Don't give up on hope, even when it's painful to keep it. Hope is a dangerous thing to have for people like us, for people with our past. But we have it.

In my feelings - Lana del Rey

Countdown to 2019: -1 (but, well... Happy 2019!)

In my feelings - Lana del Rey

This last song comes in late (but it's still 2018 somewhere), and it's actually from 2017, so it's already 2 years old, but who cares! It took me a while to approach Lana's most recent album, but there were some hidden gems that I really came to appreciate in the past months. This song in particular really resonated with me for some events that happened in this 2018. I have been unapologetic for feeling all my (fu*king) feelings (like Lana), coming out of a relationship with communication problems in which I was the one who expressed all the feelings (maybe even too much), and especially realising I am living in a city surrounded by people who do not show (and claim not even to feel) their emotions, a fact which is starting to make me not feel at home in Hong Kong... Cultural differences are undeniable, and I left Italy as a "not-very-affectionate" person to end up in Hong Kong feeling like an emotional spinning top. I tried to find the middle way, but unsuccessfully so far, and I decided to indeed be feeling all my fuc*king feelings. Good ones, bad ones, I'd rather be alive than feel like a straight line on an ECG, even if being alive means facing problems, absoring negative events and emotions, and being emotionally unstable. I'm feeling all my fu*king feelings, and I'll keep doing so in 2019 too for sure. I wish you all a new year full of feelings (hopefully mostly good ones, but don't underestimate the bad ones, because they offer a much needed reference point for us to feel happy in other times) and of course of great music!

Cheers!

Nobody - Mitski

Countdown to 2019: -5

Nobody - Mitski

2018 is coming to an end, leaving as legacy plenty of great music. Why not share one song per day in these last 5 days of the year? And what better place to do that than A song or two per day? These thoughts were going on in my head and brought me here to resurrect this blog, more than 1 year after the last post. It's been a long time, and I missed it, and I am sure the Facebook friends whose walls I have overloaded with music videos, also miss this blog as an alternative channel of distribution of my music taste! But here I am, back to my longest commitment, at the end of a year that has seen me go through ups and downs, keeping some challenging commitments and letting other go. Life is beautiful has become my mantra, and if you keep repeating something, you will start to believe it. Keep repeating it further and it will become true.
To a 2019 full of beautiful lives! In the meantime, you can just follow MItski's example, open the window to hear sounds of people, even if still nobody wants me, give me one good movie kiss and I'll be alright!

#sundayrevival Pretty good year - Tori Amos

Pretty good year - Tori Amos

I don't know why I found myself with this song in my head this afternoon, but I just did. I suppose I triggered Tori myself by suggesting her music to a friend recently, but I suppose that's not all of it...! Anyway I guess that, notwithstanding my generally bad mood of the last few days/weeks (I need a holiday), a Sunday with Tori can never be a totally bad Sunday. Maybe it's a bliss of another kind...!

4 degrees - Anohni

4 degrees - Anohni

Today has been a pretty cold day in Hong Kong according to the local weather forecast, but for how chilly and annoying a humid temperature of 12°C can be, I dare say that local people here don't know what real winter means. I can understand now why most of them hate the heat and the sunlight... Anyway, even if the day has actually been chilly, we didn't get down to have only 4 degrees (even if what Anohni refers to in her song is a change in world climate due to global warming). For how much I hate cold, global warming is a problem we should all pay attention to, so let's try to make an effort and be a little more respectful towards our planet and the future generations.

Chasing shadows - Santigold

Chasing shadows - Santigold

My semester is finally starting in full force and I already hate it. Or so they say. I love sushi. But how is that related? People keep messing with my private thoughts, but I can't say I complain. I feel (more) bipolar (than usual), but this time it's justified methinks, as the second person is outside of my head and, well... contributed in making my life so full that I started this post on Saturday night and I am ending it one day after, following a tiring but satisfying hiking day! Cheers to a full life!

#sundayrevival A thousand miles - Vanessa Carlton

A thousand miles - Vanessa Carlton

A couple weeks ago I went to karaoke with some friends, a pretty fun night, and one of the songs we sang all together was of course a teenage classic of ours, 'A thousand miles'. The song has been coming up often ever since, with some of us singing it off the top of our heads from time to time; this happened today too during our hike to the Lion Rock peak, a steep walk up a tall hill which rewarded us with a mystical view of nothingness (we were surrounded by the white of clouds), and of course we also got soaked. It's been a nice and enjoyable experience anyway! The celebrations for the Chinese New Year are going on, but they are past the climax now, so I'm getting ready to start next semester!

Rendezvous girl - Santigold

Rendezvous girl - Santigold

Your Hong Kong reporter doesn't have any big news for you, so today I will just be sharing a song that has been among my top favourites of what I've been listening to in this beginning of 2017! I hope you have a good and productive day!

Your best American girl - Mitski

Your best American girl - Mitski

I got to know Mitski about one year ago and, even if it took me a while to like her, I appreciated her 2014 album 'Bury me at makeout creek', in particular a few songs out of it. Her peculiar style doesn't allow (me) for an easy like-at-first-listen (or second, or third), but if you keep your head down and give her a few chances, you will be rewarded! I recently approached her latest work 'Puberty 2' with, of course, a lot of hurdle. What triggered it for me is, once again, a sent-from-heaven KEXP live. Goodness bless KEXP. Go listen to it now and you won't regret it. Ever.

Banshee - Santigold

Banshee - Santigold

It took me a while to like the first Santigold album I listened to, that was 'Master of my make-believe', which I approached last year. But after giving it time, it really stuck with me and has been one of the nicest discoveries of a dry 2016. I then moved on to her most recent work '99ç' lately and it's been even slightly tougher to approach, up to the point that I almost got disappointed. Almost. Because I did start falling for it, and I have a very positive feeling about our future relationship! It didn't start with this song, but it's the one that has been sticking with me the most in the past few days, so here it is! COME ON!

Lolita - Lana del Rey

"Kiss me in the D-A-R-K, dark tonite, D-A-R-K do it my way"

Lolita - Lana del Rey

I have finally been able to spend a few days outside HK just before going back home for the holidays, and the destination has been Singapore, which I should start calling the eternal second-best choice of my life: it was the second choice for my undergraduate exchange, but I ended up in Montréal; it was my second choice for the Master exchange, but I ended up admitted to Sydney (even if I didn't go in the end); it was the second choice after Toronto for my PhD and when I got admitted only there and in Hong Kong, I ended up picking HK anyway! It's really been a long time since I wanted to go there, and I must confess that, notwithstanding some perks (slightly better English and much nicer supermarkets than HK), I am quite satisfied with my choice. I spent quite a nice weekend anyway, and I am sharing with you what maybe has been the most meaningful soundtrack of it!

"Kiss me in the P-A-R-K tonite, P-A-R-K let them all say"

Hey lolita, hey!

Oh my my - OneRepublic

Oh my my - OneRepublic

Yesterday morning I woke up and opened Facebook as usual, and one of the first posts on my wall was a live stream of OneRepublic's gig in Philadelphia, which I of course went on to watch until the end! I must confess I didn't fall in love with the new album, even less than with 'Native', as I think they are selling out to cheap pop more and more... yet after watching some of the new songs performed live, I kind of felt a drive towards 'Oh my my', Ryan's talent in beyond doubt both in singing and in songwriting, and I think you can feel it even when he's selling himself and his band out to cheap pop...! The title track is anyway one of my (current) favourites on the new album, and even if I didn't get to watch them play it, I really want to post it here now! Try to give the album a chance (if you haven't already) and tell me what you think if you want!

Mother - Tori Amos

Mother - Tori Amos

Last night I was reading an interview that Tori made together with Justin Timberlake, Sting, Alicia Keys, Pharrell and John Legend about songwriting and music, and she was talking about her debut album 'Little earthquakes', which is probably in my top 5 of all times! I of course had to go listen to it, and well... even when having it in the background while doing other things, if the moment is right it can convey such a strong energy...! Its magic is unparalleled and it always resonates with me in one way or another. 'Mother' is one of my favourites in an album of favourites, and it is the one that really resonated with me last night. It's her time to shine here on the blog.

"Go, go, go, go now out of nest it's time, go, go, go now, circus girl without a safety net..."

Life me up - OneRepublic

Lift me up - OneRepublic

Life has a weird way of unravelling and, well... you can't do anything but go with it. Sometimes you get bored for months and then a few weeks or days look like a whole season of an addictive TV series, what surrounds you is... hard to describe, almost surreal! Things go wrong, and somewhat right, and then wrong again. You find yourself going out every night for a whole week at 26, probably for the first time in your life. And it somehow makes sense, it's not just a good feeling, but it's a feeling and that's what matters in the end, isn't it? We are all just tryin' to find somebody who lifts us up when we're feelin' down, aren't we?

Northern lad - Tori Amos

Northern lad - Tori Amos

I often say that life is a sea of shit with a few moments of happiness interspersed here and there, and somehow even when it looks like I might be proven wrong, I end up being right. What can one do about it? Learn to swim through the sludge and try to keep your head up.

"Had a northern lad, well not exactly had

He moved like the sunset, god who painted that

First he love my accent, how his knees could bend

I thought we'd be ok, me and my molasses

But I feel something is wrong

But I feel this cake just isn't done

Don't say that you don't

And if you could see me now

Said if you could see me now

Girls you've got to know

When it's time to turn the page

When you're only wet

Because of the rain..."

#sundayrevival Beautiful - Christina Aguilera

Beautiful - Christina Aguilera

I guess that beautiful moments just come from either being with the right people, or doing the right things... if you are able to find the intersection of these two sets, well, you've just scored a goal! It doesn't take much to get there, but somehow life manages to always make it quite complicated, and this makes the cherishing of these special moments even more important. Out of the intersection of sets mentioned above, here is a song for you today. I used to love this when I was a teenager... it was on one of those compilation albums that were quite popular in the 90s and early 00s, one of the first CDs I added to my library. It's always a pleasure to take this off the dusty shelf!

Hope there's someone - Antony + the Johnsons

Hope there's someone - Antony + the Johson

"Hope there's someone who'll set my heart free, nice to hold when I'm tired" sings Antony in her homonymous 2005 EP, and how could we say her request doesn't make sense? We all are looking for that someone special who will set our heart free, who will take care of us when we die (and hopefully while we are alive, even more so!), who will change our life, who can help us through our darkest times and enjoy the good ones with us. Aren't we? The search is hard for most... the ones among you who have found that person(s), cherish your moments with them! And let's hope we will all get the chance to spend some great time with our special people!

#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!

The unknown - Imagine Dragons

The unknown - Imagine Dragons

When I recently purchased the deluxe CD version of 'Smoke + Mirrors' on Amazon, on it I found this song that I didn't know before. I guess that the concept of unknown applies quite fittingly to my present life. I'm ready to take my next leap of faith in less than a year (finally) and I can't wait any longer now! Even if I have greatly enjoyed these past months of me-time, it's time to jump into the unknown once more!

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!