Let's Fold Scarves » Lyrics

London has really great Indian food.

Hazel — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 16:40:47 +0000

Dar Williams was on World Café and was asked by the interviewer about her (wonderful) cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. Bizarrely, he asks her why she wanted two women (the other being Ani DiFranco) to sing the song. Umm, why not? Her fab cover of another manly song, You Won’t See Me, is here.

Gibbous Moon

Hazel — Sat, 06 May 2006 23:49:23 +0000

Since there is a gibbous moon, here are the lyrics to Ghost World by the marvellous Aimee Mann:

Finals blew, I barely knew
My graduation speech
And with college out of reach
If I don’t find a job
It’s down to Dad and Myrtle Beach

So I’m bailing this town
Or tearing it down
Or probably more like hanging around
Hanging around

Everyone I know is acting weird
Or way too cool
They hang out by the pool
So I just read a lot and rode my bike
Around the school

‘Cause I’m bailing this town
Or tearing it down
Or probably more like hanging around
Hanging around

And all that I need now is someone
with the brains and the know-how
to tell me what I want…anyhow

12th of June, a gibbous Moon
Was this the longest day?
I’ll walk down to the bay
and jump off of the dock and watch
the summer waste away

Then I’m bailing this town
Or tearing it down
Or probably more like hanging around
Then I’m bailing this town
Or tearing it down
Or probably more like hanging around

Hanging around
Hanging around
Hanging around
So tell me what I want

Almost poetry

Hazel — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:23:29 +0000

I love these lyrics and coupled with Kathryn Williams’s delicate vocals, the effect is gorgeous.

Old Low Light #2

In a room banging on about the world in words
There’s an old low light it flicks on and off
Like our opinions
Three hours without a word
Then you stroke my arm
There’s an old low light in me
And it switches on

It’s not visible to anyone but our love lives there
I can feel it shimmer
It’s old and quiet and it stares out like years

In a different city bed in my sister’s house
There’s an old low light it keeps me awake
Without the shape of you
Track four on a CD you made for me
There’s a note like light and it changes the air
And it makes me love you more
It makes me love you more
More, more, more, more

It’s not visible to anyone but our love lives there
I can feel it glimmer
It’s old and quiet and stares out like you
And it makes me love you more
More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more

You’re my old low light
And I love you more
repeat

Margaret Vs Pauline

Hazel — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:07:28 +0000

I don’t know why but I keep buying The Word magazine. Honestly, there is some good stuff in it sometimes (like the interview with the Pet Shop Boys in which I was astonished to read that Neil Tennant had come out in 1993 and here was me (who hadn’t spotted those Freddie Mercury clues) thinking he had been gay all along based on such evidence as It’s a Sin:

Heart:

and working with Liza Minnelli.

And another interesting fact, David Tennant

named himself after Neil, I think that’s cool).

Anyway, David Hepworth’s digs at female singer-songwriters are bothering me. He had a pop at Laura Veirs last month (or so) but this month’s whinge about Neko Case is just bizarre. If you don’t get a song first time, the songwriter is apparently deficient and the proof of this seems to rest with his lack of understanding of these lines in Margaret Vs Pauline: “One left her sweater sitting on the train, the other lost three fingers at the cannery”. My interpretation of this is that one is so privileged the worst thing that could happen to her is that she loses her jumper while the other’s problems are a bit more serious which I don’t think is too hard to grasp.

Ramble

Hazel — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:04:57 +0000

I wish I was better at writing about music. I don’t think I can adequately express myself mainly because as much as love music I essentially have cloth ears. Although, recently I did do a University of Newcastle survey which showed that 21 times out of 25 (actually it was 25 times out of 30) I could tell the difference between similar tunes: this surprised me.

My first reaction is always to the overall sound that I hear then I pay attention to the instrumentation and the lyrics last. So unless the lyrics are spectacularly crass or dull then good lyrics are the icing on the cake.

Save Me by Aimee Mann is such a song. Aimee’s vocals are strong, the tune melodic and catchy and to cap it all the lyrics are “At Seventeen” (“to those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came”) revisited: “save me…from the ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone”.

Ghost World is another fine song which captures the essence of the comic (graphic novel) and the film (but, why bother with them? the song is so good):”I’m bailing this town – or tearing it down – or probably more like hanging around”.

With Paula Frazer and Tarnation, the lyrics are definitely secondary (tertiary actually). Her voice and the arrangements are awesome and often moving.

Sarah Harmer

Hazel — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 19:07:47 +0000

I am looking forward to the new Sarah Harmer album. My appreciation of her has crept on me very subtly. I had downloaded a handful of random tracks by her (I do that a lot; download tracks and subsequently haven’t a clue why I downloaded them and by what tortuous route I got there) including Uniform Grey and Capsized which I absently put on my mp3 player. They would turn up and I would wonder who it was I was listening to (my player doesn’t necessarily stretch to showing you the artists’ names). Eventually it dawned on me that they were great songs sung in a beautiful rich voice and the lyrics started to seep in too. I downloaded more and realised (ahem) that parting with money was in order. Two particular favourites lyrically (and musically) are Silver Road and Almost (and I am sure that I am not in a minority with my second choice).

Here’s a snippet of each:

Silver Road

I’ll be way down a silver road, I’ll go
where the moon has it lit up
turn off your headlights and go slowly
I don’t want it to let up.

(in Britain, turning your lights off wouldn’t have the same effect as in Canada, what with all the light pollution but it’s lovely imagery)

Almost

And if I am a sailor,
then you are the warm gulf wind,
and you’ve blown into this little port
and roused my dreams again.

(hmm, warm Gulf wind, I feel toasty and loved)