Heaven - liv

 

Heaven - liv

Just the perfect song for when you're awake at 4 AM for the 10th  consecutive day.

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.

What's it gonna be? - Shura

What's it gonna be? - Shura

A bell just rang in my head to remind me of this album and I threw myself into it immediately. Of course, I got immediately transported back to late 2016. Now pondering about how my life is in an opposite stage as it was back then, but at the same time it's the same. Back then I was starting my path in Hong Kong, and now (goodness willing) I am entering the final stage of it, ready to step into something new soon (the first step into vs the last step before getting out of). I was (not that) innocent back then, I already felt like an adult but I the experiences I've gone through in the past 4 years make me look back to that older me as "still a kid" (I am still innocent, as much as Britney). I was at the "beginning" of something then as I am now, with similar dreams and plans, but there is a world of difference in me and in the situations (young adult vs hair-losing adult). I wanted to find something stable back then as I do now, but I knew well that the stability I'd find back then would be temporary, while the one I look for now could be "forever" (unstable stability vs stable stability). The people I had in my life back then are still here as before, even if dynamics change; many others have come in the life rollercoaster, even if dynamics are often similar (same difference vs different sameness). Life happenings are similar now and then, but I feel like I was doing everything with much more passion back then, stronger feelings, more excitement, whereas now I appreciate routine more than ever (not that I didn't before) and I sometimes wonder where did most of the passion go. Maybe this stay-at-home 2020 has taken more life out of life than I realised. Hopefully it will teach me/us to appreciate the little things more, to get excited about nothing, to find passion in the routine (routine passion vs passionate routine). It feels like I was becoming an adult back then, and now I am in the process of becoming an adult again, just a next stage adult (again, young vs hair-losing). Weird feelings. Weird thoughts. Maturity is such a relative concept, when looking at the present vs the past. But songs that make me feel nostalgic always send me back to younger days. And I realise that in the end, even if everything is different, some things haven't changed much: I was not 2 shy to say it back then, I guess I am not now either.

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!

Bad woman - Lykke Li

Countdown to 2019: -2

Bad woman - Lykke Li

In what might well (have) be(en) my favourite album of 2018 (if it weren't for Florence, that is), Lykke Li changed gears again, towards a genre that's not really my cup of tea, but that I ended up greatly enjoying. This end-of-summer I had the "pleasure" of going through a tough breakup at a tough time of year, while busy with an exam I spent the whole summer preparing, getting cut off by the person I needed the most... it hasn't been easy, but surprisingly I breezed through things much more lightly that I throught I would. As I told many people, I was ok in a moment when I should've been running naked and screaming in the streets pulling my hair. I've had my fair share of "bad womanhood", as my special one did, and as we all do at times, I guess. No one's perfect and relationships are hard work, and it takes two to tango. And tango takes a lot of effort, energy and dedication. It happens that the dance stops working, but when the dancers stop respecting each other, things are really not ok, even when they need each other more than they know, as Lykke suggests. And then, to close the year beautifully, she gifted us with this beautiful acoustic version. Sounds like an appropriate end of an intense and heartfelt 2018.

Uptight - Hooverphonic

Countdown to 2019: -3

Uptight - Hooverphonic

Unlike 2017, which has pretty much been a constant flow of awesomeness in terms of music, at least in the first half / three quarters of the year, 2018 has been unfolding more in sparks, something great coming out and then laying low for a while till the next great thing. The last such spark has been the release of Hooverphonic's latest album. They changed singer again, and after not following them closely in the previous era, I immediately found myself immersed in their new music, and I am enjoying their new album quite a lot! It's funny, because the lyrics of most of the songs are describing situations, throughts and characteristics that are pretty much the opposite of mine, but I still found myself entrenched in the listening. 'Uptight' is a perfect example of this: I can't think of any recent situation in which I've been more uptight than I should've (rather, the opposite), but I still can't help loving this song, and I'm quite confident it's gonna stick in my head well into next year!

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!

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!