lyrics

It's funny how sometimes what you thought were simple, throwaway lyrics when you were writing them become some of the ones that stick with you. My favorite verse/chorus combo of my latest song "Make Up Your Mind." (And I didn't even realize I was writing these for someone really, really specific until I revisited this particular section of the song on Monday night in rehearsal):

You keep me bedside

Guilty midnight reading

Waiting for the landslide

Of unbound feeling

When love speaks deep between your sheets

I’m already far away and fast asleep

(I'm incredibly glad he's back.)

(I'm also glad my songwriting abilities are starting to return. Oh, sweet, cliched love inspiration.)

Xanadu

I hadn't even seen the video for this song, and my first thought when this song (which I hadn't heard in a while) came up on Spotify was that someone needs to tell Goldfrapp that Xanadu wasn't really very cute (at best, it was laughable and drinking-game worthy):



If you have nothing new to say about the '80s, you probably shouldn't say it at all.

creative what-ing?

That describes my day. I couldn't find creativity if it was sitting on my face. I was really hoping to take advantage of a quick work slow down (which is sure to end in the next couple days) and do more than no writing work. At least I managed to change a few words in one of my creative essays yesterday.

Mister Badger goes into the studio again tomorrow. I'm hoping it will be more productive (and sound better vocally) than last time. My voice was not in good shape, and I didn't even realize it.

rare moment

I'm having a rare moment (rare lately anyway) where I feel the need to make a commitment to my need to change my patterns of writing and doing creatively. I've been a little bit focused on money-making writing work lately (aka, semi-soul-sucking, or at least not directly contributing to my soul-feeding, purpose-of-life work). And I am itching for the music life again (and the worded life that is my own words written for the sake of my own thoughts and feelings and not to report on something already in existence).

I blame Spotify for this "compelling" second of expression. And, for some reason, tonight, this itchy feeling was sparked by Natasha Bedingfield's album Strip Me. (I am a closet Bedingfield fan, and "All I Need" got me all worked up, as did "Little Too Much." The second song is sticking for no particular reason, since it's really just a dagger in my sad little heart because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be eternally lovelorn/single ... but maybe that's to give me writing material. If other people knew how much I loved "mainstream" pop people like Bedingfield and also Pink, I would probably be shot ... but what can I say? I love to write a good pop song more than I love tShow allo write just about any other thing.)

Oh, and my website is under construction ("for realsies" this time). I'm going to really get that sucker going. I even have webmail now. If you are reading, and you can guess what it is (julia@ the rest of what I just said), then feel free to quench my loneliness by writing me. There will be a blog again eventually there. It will be slightly more "professional" than this one, but is still part of my never-ending quest to be that rare very genuine person whose private and public lives match. We'll see ...

And, I leave you with this ditty, that is oddly feeling like the current soundtrack to my current decade-long (and counting) movie "New York Career Girl Seemingly Trying Endlessly and Fruitlessly to Find the Balance between Love and Life-Passion Ecstasy:"



p.s. Thank you to all the people and things that have continued to remind me what it feels like to fail. Without you, none of my words (and none of the write-worthy, song-worthy points of my life) would exist.

apocalyptic events

There are definitely things brewing right now in my life, and I'm not even close to disappointed by them. However, it's not time yet to write about most of the positive revolution that is percolating. Maybe it's a fear of jinxing, maybe it's just that I'm growing up and learning the art of enjoying the happiness that can come from just having a lot of good things on the brink of happening. There's a certain degree of faith in that process, and I think my semi-abandonment of more organized spirituality (though I've certainly retained a deep connection to the "supernatural") has made me forget what that's all about. Some events can't be rushed. Oh, how we keep growing, sometimes in spite of our best intentions.

I came across a very fitting quote last week. I was actually just looking for something about patience, because mine was wearing thin. I'm not really one to be reverently inspired by random quotes outside the context of a larger literary work, song or treatise (or force other people to gain inspiration from them), but this one from American theologian, editor extraordinaire Lyman Abbot struck me:

"Patience is passion tamed."

It seems simple enough. And, it made me realize that I've been looking for more passion when my problem was too much passion and not enough respect for the time needed to enjoy the results of having so much of it. And, I've recently come into contact with some things and people (or perhaps one remarkably special person) who is going to teach me a lot about this part of me and a lot about how to stop rushing the life excitement I always think I'm waiting for, but that is actually in the process of happening as I type and breathe. And here I've been waiting for the world to explode, when everything I want is in the process of happening right now.

Here are some things I'm excited about:

1. I have three music reviews coming out in Bitch magazine very shortly. It will be my first time seeing myself in physical print with a byline, and I'm probably a little bit too excited about that. I hope I can get used to a lot of it in the future, or perhaps I should say, "I have faith I will get used to a lot of it in the future."

2. Job things are happening. I'm just waiting for a few things to finalize, and I think this dry spell will finally pass. I'm trying to retain enthusiasm without getting too enthusiastic in a way that will ruin what I need to do to keep working hard.

3. Previously mentioned special person expedite shipped what I'm expecting will be a funny bad movie, and is oddly apocalyptically related. I'm pretty sure it (and perhaps we) are going to blow up the world (or at least my world). I'm irrationally excited to see it and spend time with someone that seems to legitimately appreciate and even adore my flaws and stupidity as much as some of my good traits:



Stay tuned. Change is happening ... right now ...

Rip-Off Distraction

I think I'm starting to understand Lady Gaga's madness, at least when it comes to trying to make as much of a spectacle of herself as possible. She's just trying to distract us from the fact that she's re-writing all of Madonna's old hits and hoping no one will notice. Some of them were created before she was born, I suppose, so it's almost as if it never happened. It was in that creatively dormant time "B.G."

Alejandro = La Isla Bonita
I Was Born This Way = Express Yourself

I have no more deep thoughts on this today, but I'd like to make a request for Cherish or This is Not a Love Song. I always kind of liked those two. And in the case of the latter, be careful. Prince gets a little litigious when it comes to his intellectual property.

Oh Rachmaninoff my Rachmaninoff

Last Wednesday a dear person took me to see the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. On the program was just about my favorite piano piece of all time, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. As I sat in a box, surrounded by what felt like old New York, I realized how lucky I've been to live in this fair city and randomly get to enjoy things like this courtesy of generous people that I would never meet if I didn't continue to take huge risks in my life.

Reviews, reviews, reviews ...

That's my night tonight, after putting together a Hip Hop interview article that led to a song getting stuck in my head and produced the phrase/name "Rapping Bangless Bieber." I would argue he looks a lot like if Casey Affleck and Justin Bieber were physically able to have a baby. But, this song just won't quit, and I think it's likely because of the Annie Lennox sample.

Now I get to review a bunch of music that is almost the polar opposite of this. First I have to clear my head, since it feels achy from Oscar's Manhattans last night and generally way too much work the last few weeks (but who's complaining)?

I can't wait to get back to figuring out how to superhero-ly do it all, from making music and playing shows, recording, working my many "day jobs" (which are becoming closer and closer to my for fun, pay-less night jobs, which is an excellent feeling indeed) and noveling/essaying.

Also, I need to make more sense before I write anything that's going to show up in a magazine, so I better go do something non-computer-related for a while to get my head back in shape.

Where's the Party?

I woke up with this song in my head today, and it's totally frustrating me. When it came out, I was so obsessed with Madonna, and particularly the True Blue album that I didn't even care or notice that a lot of the songs sucked. And, thanks to that moment of blindness, I now know all the words to all the songs, making them even stickier when they come to mind.

E. sent me an e-mail with a hilariously mismatched subject line (as I've noticed she is wont to do) yesterday, and I think that's how the vicious spiral probably started that led to waking up to internal "wished we'd forgotten this happened" True Blue era Madonna. The subject line was "Martika -- Toy Soldiers." The actual contents of the e-mail revolved around a Buffalo wing competition in Brooklyn. Of course, who am I to say that Martika isn't at all related to Buffalo wings? I have no idea what she's doing now.

vocalise in absentia

Because I can't sing right now thanks to the laryngitis, I'm trying to listen to stuff that won't make me want to sing along, but failing miserably, since I want to sing along to everything. I've been revisiting the latest Magnetic Fields album a lot lately and realizing why Stephin Merritt is my musical and lyrical hero. I really couldn't love a band any more than this, and I'm sorry that a few years ago I went with someone that was obnoxious times ten (and doesn't really appreciate the music, but just likes to be seen at things she perceives other people think are awesome) to see them at the lovely and magical old movie theatre in Jersey City. Next time, I'm going solo (or perhaps with someone I love, if that person exists).



I can't wait until my voice and drive return from illness. I'm ready to write more music, already ...

I Keep Forgettin'

Because I felt rather uninspired today (or more accurately, because I was rather busy today), I am just now realizing I didn't post an update. Thus, it seems fitting I should inflict the slightly painful yet also guiltily pleasurable joy that is Michael McDonald. Thus, let my contribution for the day be represented by someone else's contribution (thanks, Michael):


Michael Mc Donald - I Keep Forgettin'
Uploaded by papafonk. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

songily

I must write a new Mister Badger song. I feel pretty resolute about that. I've had too much complexity in relationships lately and have been having a difficult time making emotions fit into easy, breezy-sounding country/folk/pop songs. Of course, there was nothing more complex than the romantic situation that sparked all the songwriting for the project initially, but I had a couple years of thinking and the natural evolution of a band idea in its beginning stages to help me pour material out of me.

My current "situation" is fairly new, and it feels much more "alternative and modern" than "country and traditional."

That last sentence could not be more illustrative of the truth, even if it was initially (as it was forming in my head) meant to be just musical style metaphors and not reality.

The Island of Almost Boyfriends

Just for fun the lyrics to one of my favorite one of my songs ever. Someone that heard it a while back said that it really resonated and was very illustrative of the experience of dating in Manhattan (which is, of course an island). Funny, because I totally never meant it to be about the urban experience and was much more caught up in the metaphor of failing multiple times (aka, over and over and over and over again) in love as being in a lovely tropical paradise that eventually implodes on itself. But, I guess that second metaphorical layer works pretty accurately too:

The Island of Almost Boyfriends

V1

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You never have to wonder

How it all will end.

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You never have to guess

That you almost have it made.

Have a drink in the shade

You almost have it made.

V2

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You know right away

It’s going to end in heartache.

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

They always tell you up front

It’s never going to last.

Soak up love so fast

It’s never going to last.

CHORUS

“I was only looking for right away

I didn’t know forever would come so soon …”

It always ends in tragedy

Don’t be fooled

By the sun, the surf, the sand between your toes

The sky is oh so blue.

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

They are never expecting you.

V3

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

Don’t count any chickens

Because they just won’t hatch.

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You think the roads lead to anywhere but

Right back from where you came.

Enjoy the walk, hand-in-hand

Right back from where you came.

CHORUS

“I was only looking for right away

I didn’t know forever would come so soon …”

The road will end in tragedy

Don’t be a fool

When the sun, the surf, the sand gets between your toes

Or the sky so blue

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

They are never expecting you.

BRIDGE

Go easy on your broken heart

It will break more in the end

If you let the sun, the surf, the sand,

The drinks go to your head

Enjoy the view across the bed, the stars

Every time that could be your last,

Will feel like your first.

Go easy on your broken heart

Or the boyfriends will get you in the end.

V4

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You never have to wonder

How it all will end.

On the Island of Almost Boyfriends

You never have to guess

That you almost have it made.

Have a drink in the shade

You almost have it made.

CHORUS

“I was only looking for right away

I didn’t know forever would come so soon …”

The road that ends in tragedy

Will fool you

When the sun, the surf, the sand gets between your toes

And the sky so blue

Calls you on the Island of Almost Boyfriends

They are never expecting you.

Have a drink in the shade

You almost had it made.

band on the run ...

Here's my quick update:

I'm finding myself suddenly in potentially four bands, almost all of which have shows coming up before October 30th.

Oh boy ... stay tuned ...

earworms and innuendo

Warning: The title of this post will be the most well-written part.

I have decided in the past year, much to my musical chagrin, that I think Katy Perry is hysterical.

I think this video pretty much explains why.

Heart of the Matter

I hate Don Henley with the passionate, burning heat of 10,000 suns.

However, this cover is fantastic. India.Arie is one of my guilty pleasures. Though, maybe not so guilty. She's kind of lovely.

I'll give it to Don Henley. This is a great song. It was just the execution that was previously problematic.

Thank God for new life breathed into old things sometimes.

Heart of the Matter.

and the band(s) played on ... and words and stuff

I decided today that I need to start another musical project that is a strict rock band. I haven't done it in a while, and I think I need to in order to get some things out and do some different kind of songwriting. Sappy country is near and dear to my heart, and the words flow freely there, but I need something simple to balance it out. One band capturing complex emotions is enough. Plus, I need to play some piano again, so, keyboards it is. Blame it on last week's introspection.

I'm trying to do things outside my comfort zone and have some more patience with and enjoy the things that may not currently fit there but are potentially transformational and transformable (both ends are a little selfish, I imagine). I haven't been so good at that, and I tend to push to force things to fit into my idea of what is good for me instead of letting them happen to me in the way they are supposed to. I think it turns me into a bit of a saboteur, because you just never know what something can be if you immediately put it in a neat (or messy) little box. Obviously I don't necessarily know what is good for me, so I need to shut up more and be more passive. So, here's to trying to do that from now on, at least for a little while.

And, that ends the "Dear Diary, Why so blue?" portion of the evening. Sometimes I lapse without knowing it. But at least it's better written than most ramblings about puppies and rainbows coming from other horrible nether regions of the Internet ... at least I consider them to be nether regions.

And, here is another piece from a novel I was working on this weekend. It's totally out of context, but I'm certainly not going to give away the store online, even if I die in artistic obscurity without anything published beyond some small business articles:


I'll tell you something specific and involving you. I try not to do that because of who you aren’t, but I will because I want to. I had a moment one Saturday in Chicago. We were sitting listening to Prince: "Starfish and Coffee." I was staring at the clearest blue sky, the skyline, lying on my stomach. I was in a world, thinking of other things, daydreaming about possibly nothing, but I was definitely not there. And you put your arm around me, clasped my hand in your hand. Ridiculous moment, but it meant something because I pulled you into me when I thought we were through. And nothing else mattered but the fact that we were two people making some sort of a connection, however brief. They just keep happening, changing, transforming, becoming more and less and more beautiful again. And it’s how the heart hungers for something that makes it beautiful.

I Love You ... no, really ...

Tonight is all about guilty pleasures. So, congratulations Climax Blues Band, you win. I just paid to download an entire album simply to get this one song (because I refuse to illegally download music anymore, since it seems a little hypocritical given that I wouldn't want someone to steal my own music).

It's very Paul McCartney meets Rod Stewart meets Hall and Oates. This means it tastes absolutely ridiculous, but also delicious.

This video is actually pretty spectacular.

I Love You

in the style of the moodiest Beethoven ...

Tonight began with a self-imposed lock-down so that I could finish writing a chapter of one of my simultaneously-going novels. Once I finished, I found myself feeling pretty Kierkegaardian about the point of writing, the life road I've chosen creatively, spiritually and otherwise and all that has happened in the last decade. And somehow, I traveled into a world of re-watching Five Easy Pieces.

Of the many long-shot, risky career and life options I had given my musical and artistic DNA, why did I not choose music? Nothing I am good at has much potential to make me enough money to survive. (I've taught myself that quite well in the last decade.) Music has been around me since my fetal womb life. Both my parents are accomplished musicians. My father still composes, arranges and conducts, and while he is not as much of a performer as he is a quietly strong musical archivist, composer, teacher and general leader his skill at all these things is daunting. My late mother was a pianist/accompanist/opera coach/flutist extraordinaire who I remember practicing constantly as my sister and I were falling asleep at night. The grand piano in our living room would vibrate and waft up the stairs into my room as she crafted circusy Rimski-Korsakov phrases or struggled through passages from some modern, dissonant composition, turning passages over and over again until they were technically and expressively flawless (these were the times I'd lie awake waiting for it to stop or drift off into repetitive nightmares). Other times, Debussy and Chopin would lull me into a familiar sleep of peaceful dreams. To this day, I've never heard a pianist as able to convey emotion and intensity so fitting to each individual piece of music and so true to what I imagined was every composer's vision. She took us to operas, recitals and concerts almost every weekend (many of which she was performing in or helping pull off), had us cavorting with well-known, highly-skilled, probably often famous musicians (I still don't think I know fully the scope of those I met throughout my formative years), composers and artists starting when we were babies, with no fear of how we might behave in places where we needed to be quiet. In fact, I think we just simply behaved because we just knew that music required reverence and we respected the work it took to craft and perform it. I know I personally saw it as something sacred that could stop time and space (and I still do). There was no end to the new dimensions I could hear, even when listening to the same pieces over and over again. I probably innately knew (without even knowing) more about the different styles and periods of what people consider "classical music" at age 4 than a lot of adults (even musicians) ever know about it.

So, why did I ultimately rebel against an official career in music? I really didn't know what I had. I think for a long time I assumed everyone was surrounded by music, got to attend operas and meet hugely talented musicians (and hear them play) every weekend. I assumed everyone could play the cello or piano whenever they wanted to or just pick up any instrument at the drop of the hat and know how it worked (and even be able to play it) in a few hours ... or a few minutes.

I always studied with the very best teachers in the area and played on the very best instruments, even though we definitely didn't have much money. My parents made sure of that. We had a Steinway Grand in our living room (with an insane story about my grandfather finding it being used as a chopping block in a restaurant kitchen and buying it from them for my mother as a gift attached). When I was not even six, my mother came home with a cello (which had belonged to Sir Georg Solti's daughter) and simply said, "I want a cellist in this family, so someone is going to play this." Since my sister was already playing the violin (and we were both playing the piano), the task fell on me. There was no question.

Starting at about eight-years old, I played piano guild competitions. I had to memorize a handful (I believe eight-ten) of piano pieces and accompanying scales and arpeggios. It was a lot of pressure, and it was eventually what brought about the beginning of the end of my "professional child prodigy" career (at least on piano). When I was about ten, I did a competition and got one point off because my judge felt that my artistic expression was a little off in a Mozart Sonata. My score was the equivalent of 99/100, I was ten (maybe not even -- it was a few months shy of that birthday), and I was playing pieces that a lot of pianists don't even play until high school or college. But a kindly-put note from an old man (that I STILL have in a scrap book) named Fran Shuler-Ellis crushed my world. I cried so much that I couldn't go back to school that day after the competition (even though my mom made fun of the judge mercilessly, as he was someone in the artistic community she felt was a hack and we had a roller skating party that night). Mercifully, my mom ended the guild competitions then and there and loosened the rigorousness of piano lessons.

I wonder if she should've pushed me, and if I would still love music now or would've found my own way to my current musical experiments if she had. Am I even as good a person as I could've been, or did I ruin everything because of these decisions? Did I actually quit because I caved under the pressure or because I am actually by nature lazy? I wonder, I wonder, I wonder. Either way, oftenI feel like a failure that continues to regularly fall short of family's and others' expectations, and I think it's because I labeled myself a quitter, possibly as early as that last piano competition.

As a party trick in the car or at social functions (starting at about five or six and then all the way through high school), my mother would often get me to name the composer of the piece playing on the radio/record player/etc., which I could always do in a few notes, without even knowing how. If I didn't get it exactly right (which happened rarely), it was always someone that had lived and composed in the same era or was a derivative of the composer I had guessed. As time wore on, I could name the piece and even the movement in some cases, in fewer and fewer notes. I feel like most of my musical abilities come from complete instinct, but then I look at my understanding of things like music theory and technique and history and realize that it is likely a combination of instinct and an accumulation of a lifetime of study of and complete immersion in music. I've just never felt like it counted because I don't have a sheet of paper from a university/college telling me that I am officially allowed to be a "musician."

After college, where I did play in orchestra and take cello and voice lessons despite the English B.A. I took with me at the end, I decided I was going to continue on and get as many music degrees as possible in cello performance so I could be an official orchestral performer. Unfortunately, I found myself procrastinating practicing for auditions (even though I did practice 4-5 hours per day, 6 days per week for about 9 months) with writing, and ended up deciding that meant I should probably be pursuing a writing MFA instead of forcing myself to do the other thing that I'd worked my whole life to do.

If I looked at my writing and reading life, starting with the first even remotely lengthy book I ever devoured, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, I would probably find a lot of the same trends as in my musical life. I am a creative house divided against itself, and that truth might never end. I may have to continue to be bi-creative and maybe will never know what I want to be when I grow up ... forever. It makes me long for some title to grab onto, like "stockbroker" or "lawyer" or "doctor." Even "cellist" or "pianist" would be a neat little compartment that might make me wonder less about what my past means and why I turned out this way and how unintentionally ungrateful I may have been at times for how lucky I was to be surrounded by such artistic richness during my formative years and beyond.

I can't stop listening to Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 again lately, most particularly the Adagio movement, which is my favorite musical creation on the planet. (My sister HATES it, because of Eric Carmen's "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," which blatantly ripped off Rachmaninoff's Adagio melody and is indeed fairly awful.) I never managed to play it in any orchestra, though I've played so many of my other favorites, like the Beethoven Cello Sonatas (I played the first one, accompanied by my mother on Mother's Day as part of my senior recital in college -- again, why did I not appreciate this?), Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" and so many Mozart quartets and quintets that they were spilling out my ears at one point. I even played some movements of piano concertos with my junior high orchestra, as well as an entire cello concerto during the same time. Before my mom died, she bought me some Rachmaninoff cello music to learn in hopes we would one day play it together, but that is not the same. I will play the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony before I die. I'm a writer and a do-er, so mark my words.

When You're a Grown Up ...

... You get to sing your own love songs into the void and watch them become about something new that has not yet begun.

Today was a great day at the 2010 Ukulele Festival. I am in awe of this woman, who called me "amazing" today (I feel so unworthy, because, wow, what a force). I have admired her (and her uncle Bill Tapia) since hearing them for the first time at last year's uke fest. Anything I can do to get closer to Elvis can't be bad:

http://www.myspace.com/mihanahawaii

Many kisses and alohas were exchanged, and it makes me know I have to do some Hawaiian writing soon. The music is wrought with expressive possibility.

I'm also glad she and others that are geekily musical got to hear my odd love songs today, which I think have stopped being about what they were about (a very singular person that so may people struggled through with me) and have moved into other sheepy pastures.

Also, I'd like to extend a personal note (too personal? Maybe there's no such thing) to someone that is making some bad decisions with my heart lately:

I hope you'll do right, as you suggest you will. I am also "fond," and I definitely deserve way more credit than you've given me, and at least half a say. It was just the very, very beginning, and you quit. But it's not too late, I assure you. There are way more powerful things in me than that. I stand behind calling you a coward, and I hope you can prove I was right about you before instead of giving up on yourself and assuming you're, metaphorically speaking, "obese with a cane" in my and others' eyes. I could be more eloquent about it if you would actually talk to me, but that's what it is for right now.

I don't need more material for yet another bittersweet "Could've been" novel, I assure you.

I don't think even you think it's 100% done.