Tuesdays are much more exciting now that I've found the Contrast Podcast. This week's episode considers all the days of the week- download or listen here.
I wasn't able to make a picture for this one as I've been completely wrapped up in a project for my little boy. Back on schedule next week!
I am so very, very, very excited. Only 48 more sleeps!
On to Book Two then- Wordsworth and his boyhood pursuits and how important nature was to him growing up. He describes an adventure with some friends, after which they dropped off 'the minstrel of our troop' on a small island (let's hope he lived there)...
And rowed off gently while he blew his flute
Alone upon the rock, oh then the calm
And dead still water lay upon my mind
Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,
Never before so beautiful, sank down
Into my heart and held me like a dream.
Gorgeous. And I absolutely have to stop and talk about a song here because of that phrase, weight of pleasure. I'd heard it before:
If I care enough I will break your heart
Under the weight of pleasure
Different kinds of pleasure, I guess. Any Chris Whitley song is going to have an erotic element that I just don't see so far in Wordsworth. Wordsworth found inspiration and transcendence in nature. Whitley found it... elsewhere. But the need to transcend- I see it everywhere. That's what it's all about.
mp3: Chris Whitley - Vertical Desert
On the album Rocket House, buy here or on iTunes.
Promise me you'll listen to this week's episode of the Contrast Podcast. Or else.
This week the Contrast Podcast goes ape. I cannot wait to hear what everyone came up with for this one. Listen or download here.
I am new to the podcast and positively astonished at the amount of music my compadres have on their computers. Eiron mentioned that he has over three hours of music about cherries and over two hundred versions of House of the Rising Sun. My hero The Vinyl Villain has over 12,000 songs on his iPod alone.
These kinds of remarks make me wonder if we aren't a bit behind the times here at A Sweet Unrest World Headquarters, where every CP submission involves drifting from room to room to peek into all the little nooks where the CDs live, plus at least two trips to the garage to look through the archives. Perhaps a more aggressive digitization policy is in order.
So if you have time to comment and don't mind getting technical, I'd love to know how you have your music stored- what size hard drive, how you get the vinyl and bootleg concert cassettes into the shiny machine- that kind of thing.
This post was inspired by equal parts MJRC, who reminded me how much I love cherries, and Nat, who reminded me how much I love the John Mellencamp song Cherry Bomb.
I haven't taken many pictures this week but I had to snap these. We've had a lot of fires around here and the air is smoky so the light is strange. I haven't written much about The Prelude because Wordsworth and I are still slogging it out in the Alps. I was happy to get to this part because I've actually been hiking and camping around Mont Blanc and Chamonix, so now I feel like Wordsworth and I have a little something in common. In fact, it was while coming down from Mont Blanc that I discovered I have a touch of le vertige. I had to have my hand held all the way down but that wasn't so bad. I made it. The night sky there was incredibly beautiful- I'd never seen stars like that, and I haven't since. I would go outside my tent in the middle of the night and stare up at them even though it was cold. Wordsworth seems to have been less impressed but I'll write about that a bit later as I'm still puzzling it out. In the meantime, I will try to entertain. Once a showgirl, always a showgirl.
So, cherry songs! I started thinking about cherry songs and other than Cherry Bomb I thought of Warrant's Cherry Pie, which requires no elaboration, and also Cherry Tulips by Headlights, which I was on the fence about at first. But I like it, though not as much as I like Market Girl. Both are on their MySpace.
Any other cherry songs? What am I missing?
Even though it was not a warm a day today, I lay out on a blanket in the garden for a bit, eating the cherries and remembering so clearly what it felt like to be seventeen. I do still, truly, believe that holding hands means something, and that dancing means everything. Maybe more now than ever.
I wanted to highlight some of my favorite performances for Black Music Month but we can all see how far that's gotten (and if you haven't checked in for a bit, that would be nowhere). But I can make it all right with one song. This is originally a Chaka and Rufus tune, and that version is fantastic. It's the one I grew up with and would have been perfectly happy with all my life- if I hadn't ever heard this one by Mary J. Blige. The reason I like this one more is the intensity, the raw and ragged desperation in her voice that never lets up. I mean, that opening lyric puts everything on the line, right up front- 'I will love you anyway, even if you cannot stay... ' The vibe in the Chaka & Rufus version goes back and forth from desperation to laid-back funk. In Mary's version, the tension builds and builds, and I think it takes over in the second half of the song, from the 'you are my heat, you are my fire...' When Mary belts out that 'love me now or I'll go crazy' right there, you fear it may already be too late. I love the Chaka and Rufus, but Mary makes me break out in a cold sweat. Every time.
Some of her stuff can be too over the top for me but on this one, I think she gets it just right. It's from her first album, What's The 411, which I can't really recommend like I can her second, My Life, but I do have a soft spot for it. It's a little rough around the edges, not nearly as slick as her others. It's available everywhere.
Sweet Thing
This week's Contrast Podcast is all about babies. Finally, some good parenting tips! Download or listen right here.
Just a quick note to wish my blogging hero, The Vinyl Villain, a very happy birthday. I can't recommend his 45 at 45 series highly enough. To me it represents what is best about music blogging. Not only does he have fantastic taste in music and lots of rare goodies, but he tells a great, heartfelt story about each track and it is really a joy to read. And the song he has at number one will not disappoint anyone either!!
This week's Contrast Podcast is made up entirely of songs whose titles are questions. You can download the episode or listen to it from the website by clicking right here. Why wait?
