“You keep saying the past is not even past”
From hanging out in bookstores so much I don’t even have to look at the books anymore, I hear them calling out to me. Hey Jessica you love this author, remember, you couldn’t get off the train because you didn’t want to stop reading.
So I was buying Rugby for Dummies because one can only do so much bluffing, and when I joined Ricky at the music section I distinctly heard two voices say “Hey Jessica.” I’m sure it wasn’t schizophrenia because the schizo voice in my head has a Russian accent and the message usually involves death. These voices had different accents, one American from the south, and one British. I turned my head and the album cover socked me in the eye: Lonely Avenue, 11 songs by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby.
Ben Folds I have loved since I saw his former trio the Ben Folds Five on Conan playing Battle of Who Could Care Less. I heard the line, “See I’ve got your old ID and you were dressed up like The Cure” and instantly I was a fan. My favorite Ben Folds Five song is Selfless, Cold and Composed because at one time there really was someone to whom I wanted to say, “You just smile like a bank teller blankly telling me, Have a nice life.” Trust me, if you are kind of intense, never fall for a calm person who will not throw the toaster back at you, it makes you feel psychotic.
| Ben Folds – Selfless Cold and Composed .mp3 | ||
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 | Found at bee mp3 search engine |  |
As for Nick Hornby–hmm, I like the movie adaptations, especially the one where Bruce Springsteen turns up. I know how Hornby got this gig: in his book 31 Songs he included Smoke, the most gorgeous song I’ve ever heard about breaking up and books.
| Ben Folds Five – Smoke .mp3 | ||
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| Found at bee mp3 search engine | |
(Oddly the Ben Folds Five song that got the most airplay locally was Brick. About a guy who drives his girlfriend to the abortion clinic on the day after Xmas.)
So the next step was a Folds-Hornby collaboration, which I think is unnecessary because Ben Folds doesn’t need help with writing lyrics. But my friends and I were just talking about how downloading music has killed the concept album and what do you know, here’s a concept album. With a 152-page hardcover book containing four new stories by Hornby and photos by Joel Meyerowitz. Which I will review later because I have the overwhelming urge to revisit the Ben Folds discography.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
December 21st, 2010 at 10:27
Ack, Ben Folds Five!!!
The song that made me a fan was The Luckiest. It’s the most nonchalant, non-cheesiest, declaration-of-love song I know :)
December 21st, 2010 at 10:27
What I would give to watch a drunk Jessica singing along to some morose music. Lol!
December 21st, 2010 at 12:35
Dr. Feelgood: I don’t do morose. Livid on occasion. Just as well I hang out with blasé baklas and rugby players.
December 21st, 2010 at 13:50
i love brick. remember high school. but i’m still more of a guitar kid, listening to e.c.
December 21st, 2010 at 14:55
Thanks for the reference, Miss JayZ. Now I got a new cool to add to my playlist. By the way, it’s schizo voices for me, I got me a legion. Haha.
December 21st, 2010 at 18:04
i mean, i can hear danse macabre in the song selfless, cold, and composed. weird.
December 21st, 2010 at 18:43
Haha. But Jessica, you don’t listen to Antony and the Johnsons?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCbqvJWGI5k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loNU4fVpO8E&feature=related
(Studio version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luirzce0UF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R3CYVLcYZw&feature=related
Theirs is a deeply profound kind of morose, though. Every human being who has a soul should be struck in the heart by Antony’s expression of fears we universally share. Haunting.
BTW, Antony reminds me of Nina Simone.
December 21st, 2010 at 23:59
@Dr. Feelgood: I’m amazed at the fact that he/she(?) is transgender.
I love their interpretation of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”. I haven’t listened to their other stuff yet.
December 22nd, 2010 at 00:20
Now, I’m bawling. :'((
December 22nd, 2010 at 02:15
lol i hear voices too…but the most audible one is my conscience…he speaks in this creapy vincent price-y monotone…
December 22nd, 2010 at 05:02
ifrico, I’m glad to have provided the soundtrack to your sorrowful moment. =p
Seriously, I did find myself confronting prejudices I became aware of when I discovered them and their music. Antony is indeed transgender.
Here is another great collaboration with Bjork I just discovered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpgDG9pLGaQ&feature=related
I think she’s singing partly in Icelandic (is that what you call her language?)
What song made you bawl BTW? Lol
December 22nd, 2010 at 12:04
@Dr. Feelgood: The video you posted, “Hope There’s Someone”. I downloaded their whole discography right away. Antony’s singing sounds more haunting live.
If only Karen Carpenter were still alive, I’d love to hear her cover Antony’s songs.
December 23rd, 2010 at 02:41
ifrico, that song is devastating. He takes us to the scariest places; nobody wants to die alone and in agony. The song makes you imagine and feel how that would be but manages to comfort at the same time.
I also just found out that “Fletta”, the title of the Bjork collaboration, is Faroese for “to slaughter”. The achingly beautiful music along with the images of the whales getting killed towards the end makes me somehow understand what they were trying to convey without knowing what the lyrics mean. Somehow, the silences and spaces in the song “sound” just as musical as the tones, if not even more so.
December 27th, 2010 at 11:32
Whatever and Ever Amen ang unang album na nagustuhan ko mula first song hanggang last. Alam ko pa rin lyrics sa songs, kahit ‘yong hidden track.