The Art of Leisure

I just came across a post in my Facebook feed called The Lost Art of Leisure, which I didn't have time to read but which I have bookmarked for later. I think I know what it says though, and the title struck a chord with me.

When men piss me off with their art

This is a ranty post. It's also not entirely serious, but it is a little bit serious, because the things I mention really did/do annoy me, though probably not all to the degree I'm presenting them here. I'm exaggerating a little to make my point.  It's just for fun :)

When men piss me off with their art

You won't get any argument from me that most great artists are men. You will get an argument from me if you try and say that's because men are better than women at art, but that's another story.

(The pram in the hall - I'm just saying).

Anyway, as there is so much great art, high and low, produced by so many talented men, I have been a big fan of a number of talented men all my life. And when you're a huge fan of someone with huge talent, it is easy to assume that that person is also a wonderful human being who you would personally like and admire in the flesh, and that they generally see the world the same way you do, because after all, don't you both agree on what makes awesome art??

So it is a shock when these artists disappoint you. You might find out they might not be nice people (Terence Howard - you disappointed me greatly, sir). Or, as is equally jarring, an artist you love suddenly produces something that pisses you off!

Gordon Lightfoot

I LOVE Gordon Lightfoot. If there is a better slow sultry country song than Sundown then I haven't heard it. I love Early Morning Rain, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway....

Carefree Highway. I do love it, but it also never fails to piss me off a little. Take a listen:

Carefree highway, got to see you my old friend
Carefree highway, you've seen better days
Got the morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway, let me slip away, slip away on you

What's it about? A guy who is down on his luck, lost (possibly because his girlfriend left him, or perhaps that was some time ago), not knowing what to do. And what does he do? Takes off. Hits the highway, as he's done before. Sure, run away from your problems! It's not like anyone else ever has the same impulse, is it? Nice to be able to just throw everything away, pack your bag and take off when things get hard!

In my even less charitable moments, I think, what a GUY thing to do!  A bit like:

Bruce Springsteen

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never came back...

Paul Theroux

For years, Paul Theroux was my favourite writer. I read most of his books in my teens and early twenties, and I didn't mind that he was arrogant and grumpy. At least not until The Happy Isles of Oceania, when he was finally too grumpy even for me. Plus I was a bit offended when he referred to a bloody sanitary pad on a beach as "that disgusting thing" - I mean sure, it was disgusting that it was there on a beach, I get it - but there was something about the way he phrased it that was a bit... anti-women? It seemed?

It may well be wrong or unfair, but sometimes it feels like you read something that shows a true glimpse of the writer's feelings or character.

Here's the main thing I remember, from all my hours and hours of reading Paul Theroux. Hours and hours, and books and books, and this is what has stuck with me:

This is from My Other Life, which was a weird experiment that annoyed me a bit in itself, even while it was a great read. There is a chapter where Paul Theroux (or possibly a fictional character! He won't say which!) has invited people for dinner and is forced to cook and organise everything himself because his wife, tired from her day at work and under some kind of unnamed stress, is angry with him and refuses to help with any of it, saying repeatedly "It's your dinner."

The thing is, even young as I was when I read this, and even being a massive Paul Theroux fan, I totally got his wife's point of view in this, without any more context from Paul Theroux. In this one incident, in which he imagines he portrays himself as the injured party, he instead unwittingly outs himself as a probable bastard who routinely expected a lot from his wife with little reciprocation or notice. She was busy from work, tired and stressed out, and was angry at him for a lifetime of precisely this kind of shit. A lifetime of watching him swan off to travel and write memoirs which included boastful hints of affairs or at least flirtations, and her at home to raise the kids plus keep her own career going, and then also have to entertain his last-minute mid-week dinner guests when he was back home?

Fuck off Paul, it's your dinner!

AND WHAT'S MORE: After enduring the unreasonable and unfathomable reaction from his wife, Paul Theroux (or, okay, the fictional character), happily and competently makes the dinner. He prepares a pot of curry on the stove - taking care to describe the deft and relaxed way in which he prepares it, as counterpoint to his wife's unreasonable stress - then ducks out to the shops to buy whiskey for his guests while it cooks, because his wife wouldn't go and get it.  As he walks, he passes the local pub and "wished that I could be sitting there irresponsibly reading the evening paper over a pint of draft Guinness."

Oh. My. God. I do believe this is the part that actually irritated me the most. This whole section is meant to convey how relaxed and competent he is in the kitchen and at life, but in that one sentence he conveys his sudden pique at having to do all this himself when he really, obviously, didn't think he should have to.  What an asshole.

Cat Stevens

As a teenager I discovered my parents' Cat Stevens albums, and fell for them hard. I LOVED Cat Stevens. I taped Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman and listened to them for years. I loved the beautiful melody in the song Wild World but it also has always pissed me off.  As a kid I had been confused by the way men seemed to sing romantic songs to girl-children ("little girl"). It took me ages to understand that the "little girls" in songs were actually grown-up girlfriends. As I got older it just started to really annoy me. I didn't know the word "infantilising" but I knew that's what it was. It was always either really patronising or really creepy and sometimes, as in Wild World, it managed to be both.

In Wild World, the singer's character is upset that his girlfriend is leaving him, and he is begging her to reconsider. We all have contradictory feelings in anger and the song is well written: the character veers between grief, despair, concern for his girlfriend and flashes of anger ("I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear"). But it is super patronising, and gives the girlfriend no credit for having any intelligence at all. It refuses to believe she has any good reason for leaving him. I mean I know it's just a "story", in character, and it's about feelings, but it just always really irked me. It is absolute proof that the girlfriend was making the right decision. You run far, girl, and don't look back!


You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you sad, girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware

Yeah.... see ya!



And finally...

Jim Carrey

While I was looking for an image I could use for this post using search terms "angry woman" I came across this Jim Carrey quote/meme, and it pissed me off!

StatusMind

How things have changed

I tell you it's uncanny. A couple of months ago I was thinking about music over the years and about how songs have changed since the 80s. I mused on two things: one is how no one does the "fade out" anymore. Until quite recently all pop songs always ended in a fade out, to the point where it was just the standard way to end a song. That no longer is the case. The second thing was how singers used to do their own "special effects" such as repeats and echos - e.g, Rod Stewart in Young Turks towards the end going "ti-ti-time is on your side, side side side" (etc). It's pretty funny when you hear it in an old song now, but back then it was, again, just standard.

Then a few weeks ago I noticed Slate did a whole article on the demise of the fade-out in pop music, and BAM, I can't talk about this now.

Slate has a way of capturing what we used to call the zeitgeist: things you were thinking or almost thinking yourself which means probably everyone was thinking them. Right there now are articles about how the internet has made us constantly "obsessed" with things ("cultural manias"), how popular Taylor Swift is, and how we should not attempt to bring back extinct species (in case you missed it, some guy wants to bring back dinosaurs, as if Jurassic Park never happened).

Anyhoo, then in the last few days I've been playing with a post in my head about listing all the ways that life is different now compared to when I was a child... Well, I know that's not hugely original. But still, now I see Neil deGrasse Tyson has just done the same thing. What's more, the first thing in his list is about toothpaste tubes, which was one of mine.  So therefore, before I have to delete all my draft posts and come up with something new (of which I have nothing), I'm just going to NOT read any more of Neil's list and I'm going to go ahead with my list as it is.

Things that have changed since I was a child

H is for Home/Flickr CC

Toothpaste tubes were made of metal, and would develop very sharp points where you squeezed them, which could give you a nasty scratch. They were also messy, because they had screw-cap lids which also tended to roll lazily off the benchtop and onto the floor while you cleaned your teeth.

Telephones had three sounds that don't exist anymore. The lovely soft brrrrr made by the rotary dial, which I loved, the lovely soft brrrr-brrrr made by the telephone ringing at the other end while you waited for the other side to pick up, and the horrible, jangly, nerve-wrackingly loud ring at your end when someone called. From the time I was little until the fairly recent advent of soft-tone phones, I HATED the sound of the telephone ringing. Remember that tiny little sound it made right before it started ringing, almost as if it was taking a breath before screeching? Like nails on a blackboard.

Blackboards.

Classroom work-sheets from mimeograph machines (mmm, that lovely purple smell...) *

Teachers thought schoolyard bullying was an inevitable part of childhood and didn't do much about it.

Corporal punishment in schools - remember that? We didn't have "the strap" from my parents' days, but boys got a slap with a wooden ruler on the back of the legs, and girls on their open palm. Or girls were told to "touch your toes" and then a slap was delivered to the bottom. Creepy.  I still remember a teacher on the first day of class showing us a wooden ruler with black marks on the back which she said were made by "boys' legs".

More things were made of wood. Rulers, strawberry crates, even some kids' pencil cases (thanks Mum for reminding me of that one). Strawberries were only available once a year.

Our parents and teachers sharpened our pencils with a knife.

We ate less. I'm pretty sure I passed most of my childhood in a state of mild hunger, being fed only with three square meals and two small snacks daily; my poor deprived childhood....

Takeout every Saturday. Fish and chips, occasionally hamburgers, Chinese dim sims with rice and soy sauce, or my favourite, Kentucky Fried Chicken (that's KFC to you, kids).  We rarely ate McDonald's, but when we did, I always had the box of fried chicken. No nuggets in those days.

In school I learned that brontosauruses were real, dinosaurs were covered in scales, and there was this ridiculous new theory that a meteor might have wiped them out. As if!  We also learned that the global temperature was cooling and we were headed for another ice age.

Expensive, special-treat colouring books made of white paper instead of the normal scratchy brown paper. Expensive, special-treat comic books made of white paper with the occasional coloured page in them, when Dad shelled out for the 75c one.

Two-colour printing. Common in children's books, flyers, and posters. This was still a thing, just, into the early nineties, when in my early twenties I worked briefly for a university printing and publishing office.  People would bring in their floppy discs, let us know if the work was formatted or not, and we would book in some desktop publishing followed by some thrifty two-colour printing.

Book pages that had visible wood shavings in them.

I remember when toast-slice bread became available. It was so decadent! A sensible friend eschewed toast-slice bread on the basis that you will always eat two slices of bread so with toast-slice bread you are eating too much bread - thus giving me a lesson in moderation which I remembered but alas, have rarely practiced.

No one I knew got up before 7.00 am. That left ample time for breakfast and the work commute.

If you were lucky enough to have a trampoline or a friend with a trampoline, then you were unlucky enough to pinch the skin of your palm in between the springs around the edge. OUCH!

There was hardly any air-conditioning. Summers were spent sweltering in unbearable heat and bathed in a constant film of sweat. Car rides were torture. School days spent in boiling hot portable class rooms, where the only air came from louvered windows right up near the ceiling that the teacher had to open with a two-metre pole.

We drank less water I suppose, because we didn't carry water bottles around. Or we drank hot water out of drinking taps. Make no mistake, I don't miss this. When I was a kid I used to wish you could buy water in a can (soft drinks were my only reference for purchased drinks).

Homemade clothes. My mother made many of our clothes, even doing a Knitwit course and making us t-shirts and sweatshirts.  So when I grew up I made myself skirts, dresses and once even a pair of cuffed trousers. Then suddenly, at some point in the 1990s, it became more expensive to make clothes than buy them.

What else has changed in your lifetime?

* As Andrew points out in the comments, I might be thinking of a roneo/spirit duplicator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator) which I have for years thought of as a mimeograph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph) - similar, but different.

Young, Female, Talented, Hated

People don't like show-offs, or arrogance. I get that. I agree with them. Justin Bieber is understandably lambasted for his antics. Kanye West attracts (gentle) mockery for his attitude and lifestyle.

But other than Justin Bieber, I don't really see young famous guys attracting the level of hatred and mockery landed on young women. Young female stars are not lauded much for their talent, even when they are very talented.

Miley Cyrus is almost universally reviled now. For some bad taste dancing and probably a touch of arrogance. But listen to her songs: she has some great arrangements, and her voice is incredible. She may be young, and she may be annoying - but better get used to her, she's going to be around for a long, long time. I fact, I think she will be a HUGE star, and will last. She reminds me a bit of Madonna in her early years, but with the difference that unlike Madonna back then, Miley Cyrus can really sing.

Taylor Swift is someone everyone loves to make fun of, for her supposedly too-many boyfriends, her bad dancing, and her heart-on-her-sleeve lyrics. But how brave, to write and put your teenage poetry out there, and to develop and mature along the way. Apart from the early 'Love Story' which is pretty 'young' in its outlook, I have liked almost all Taylor Swift's songs. Shake It Off, her latest, tells how she intends to deal with "haters". It's probably all bravado but kudos to her. She's young and she's dealing with a lot for someone so young. It's not nothing to create stuff and put it out there and have every aspect of your persona so publicly mocked.

Lana Del Rey has been mocked for her "fake" image, and her past as a wannabe vanilla pop star. But she's a performer, and performers mostly want to be famous. Why wouldn't they try different ways to get there? Most of them have changed their image and their style at some point along the way. (Granted, perhaps not as much as Lana Del Rey). And whatever - it seems she has managed to find the style that really, really suits her. Rock on, Lana.

Katy Perry is mocked for, as far as I can make out, being a sex symbol but not a good enough one. I like some of her songs and don't like others, but I'm pretty fond of Katy Perry for embracing her pre-teen girl audience and treating them with respect and responsibility.

Lady Gaga, with her avante garde persona, gets a bit more respect, or at least is gently mocked rather than vilified. Maybe people are scared of looking as if they don't "get it", or maybe people think they can't figure her out enough to truly dislike her, whereas they think they have the others figured out.

In contrast to all the above, Lorde is universally admired. She is also very talented. But I guess it's much easier to love an "indie" star than the pop stars whose efforts to reach fame are probably much more visible and easier to mock.

Disclosure:
I don't have any Miley Cyrus songs, but my iPod contains a few Taylor Swifts, Katy Perrys and Lana Del Reys, and a whole Lorde album. I have Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster on CD as the kids used to love it. Oh, and I've got one Justin Bieber song too (it was requested by my daughter but I don't hate it).

On the car radio

What do you listen to in the car?  I listen to ABC 774 on my daily commutes, and music when I'm driving with the kids.  Their stations of choice are (in this order): Fox FM, Nova, and Mix.

Today I drove the kids to a playdate, then had the car radio to myself. I switched to 774.  But on the way back to pick up the kids 774 was playing repeats of stuff I'd already heard during the week (I already know about panda sperm being delivered to the zoo, thanks!).  I listened to a bit of News Radio then switched back to FM when sport came on. It defaulted to Fox but Fox was playing a song I hate, so I tried a few other stations, until I came to this:




Ah, nothing wrong with that. NOICE. Amirite?

Cue the kids getting back in the car, and then a short silence while we drove and I sang along to the chorus (making full use of the required high quavering Bee Gees voice: "In the words of a broken heart it's just eee-MO-shun that's takin me ovah, tied up in SO-row, LO-O-OST in mah so-o-oul...").

"Mum," said M. "Is this Fox?"

"No..."

"Is it Nova?"

"No..."

Short silence.

"Is it Mix?"

"No...."

"What is it?"

"Um...."  How could I put this?  "It's Smooth FM!"

Both kids in chorus:   "Nooooooooooooo!!!"

So we went back to Fox, and then to Nova.  

And we all agreed on this, really loud:




LET'S GET RIDICULOUS!

What's on your car radio?

Girl Songs

The songs my girls make up and sing in earnest voices are full of the vocabulary our culture gives them. It's all dancing and wishing on stars and learning to fly and things 'in my heart'.

My daughter A had a bit of an epiphany last night, while we were driving and listening to pop on FM radio. She sighed in sudden exasperation and said, "Mum, why do all the singers have the same kind of voice and the same accent? They all go like - " she raised her voice an octave, sang a couple of words with a nasal tone and soft r's and then made a sound like a sexy exhalation.

We talked a bit about that and how it was a bit annoying after awhile when everybody sang the same. Then an old Missy Higgins song came on, followed by Taylor Swift and Pink - none of whom sing "like that".

But still, her favourite female singer at the moment is Rhianna.

A loves (in this order): One Direction, Rhianna, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry.

M loves (in this order): Katy Perry, Delta Goodrem, Sia, Rhianna, One Direction.


I've become fond of some of their songs myself, partly because the kids love them so much. Others make me grind my teeth.

And it's always fun answering questions about lyrics like "stupid girls", "last Friday night", "I kissed a girl", and "I crashed my car and I don't care."

But to be honest I prefer those lyrics to the kind of "I'm learning to fly" schmaltz that inspires my girls' own songwriting.

BarbieFantasies/Flickr

Listography: Top 5 Songs I Grew Up To

I've missed the last couple, but it's Listography time again - yay!

Listography is run by Kate Takes 5. This time the theme is songs we grew up with.

Here are mine - but man, it's impossible to stop at five...

Abba, Hasta Manana

It wasn't their best, but it was very popular in Australia in the 70s, and was often heard in the background during musical chairs games at kids' parties, or on TV sung by an earnest child in a dinner jacket on Young Talent Time. It was also the first words of a foreign language I learned. My dad had travelled South America on business and told me Hasta Manana meant 'Until tomorrow' - he was so learned and sophisticated...
MEMORY BONUS: the video has the cat dresses!!

Rod Stewart, Do You Think I'm Sexy?

Massively popular song in the mid-to-late 70s, and I still like it.
Was not keen on mullet-headed Rod dancing around the stage in tights during this period, but my older cousin was in love with him.
MEMORY BONUS: like most videos of the time, contains a soft-focus image of a blonde lady with very glossy red lips

Michael Jackson, Thriller

The mini-movie video; the scary special effects; the dancing; Vincent Price and the way he pronounced "eeeeviiilll".... It was revolutionary! It is also entwined forever in my memory with my cousin's jealousy-inducing new "ghetto blaster" which had TWO tape decks and the impressive new "soft eject" feature. Technology overload!
MEMORY BONUS: the girl in the video is wearing stretch chambray pedal pushers!

The Knack, My Sharona

This has very specific memories for me. When I was 10 and 11 we lived in Los Angeles and I went to Jean Thorman elementary school in Tustin. The school was connected to a junior high school campus, and on some mornings before school my best friend Teresa and I would go and sit there and listen to the songs the high school kids played on the jukebox. (Yes, they had a jukebox). As it was 1980, the songs were always either Devo, Whip It, or The Knack, My Sharona. Still love them both.

 

Olivia Newton John, Physical

Olivia Newton John had been trying for some time to shake off her "good girl" image, but it was this that finally did it. 1981 - we were all in shock. SHOCK I tell you! The suggestive body language (for then, and for her, it was), and those SHOCKING lyrics: "you know what I mean", and even worse, "horizontally" - oh my gosh.
Watching it now it is funny how completely UNsexy the video is.
MEMORY BONUS: sweatbands!

Honorable mentions - another 5, ok 6:

Johnnie Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band, Black Superman (Muhammad Ali). MOHAMMAD ALI. He was huge. He had a song about him!

Jim Croce, You Don't Mess Around With Jim. Family drives in the Ford sedan. Silver seat belt buckles burning hot from the sun. 8-track. Whole family singing.

Phil Collins, In The Air Tonight. 1985: Live Aid!

Sting, Russians . Cold War memories.

Men At Work, Downunder. 1983. Australia winning the America's Cup. Vegemite earrings. Australian flag tote bags. And this song everywhere.

Split Enz, Six Months In A Leaky Boat - I was 12, living in New Zealand, and this was banned on the radio during the Falkland Wars. Oh, such different times...

And the rest:

Abba, When I Kissed the Teacher, Voulez Vous, Money Money Money...
Joe Dolci, Shaddap You Face
Leo Sayer, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
Adam Ant, Goody Two Shoes
Shakin Stevens, Behind the Green Door
David Bowie, Putting Out Fire With Gasoline
Tears for Fears, Shout
Real Life, Send Me An Angel
Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights
Tim Finn, There's a Fraction Too Much Friction (shut up, I liked it)
Stevie Wonder, I Just Called To Say I Love You
John Denver, Country Roads
Neil Diamond, Holly Holy, I Am I Said
Air Supply, Making Love Out of Nothing At All
Carly Simon, You're So Vain
Helen Reddy, I Am Woman
Johnny Mathis, Chances Are
Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Simon and Garfunkel,The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Cecilia, El Condor Pasa
Fleetwood Mac, Dreams, Second Hand News, Rhiannon
Peaches and Herb, Shake Your Groove Thing
Chic, Le Freak
Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive
Dave Dobbyn, Slice of Heaven
Billy Idol, Rebel Yell
Billy Joel, Piano Man, Allentown
James Taylor, Witchita Lineman
Elvis Presley, In the Ghetto
Suzie Quattro, Devilgate Drive
Queen, Another One Bites The Dust
Blondie, Call Me
Madonna, Into The Groove
Sheena Easton, Morning Train
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Islands In the Stream
Prince, When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy, Sign O' The Times
Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown
America, Horse With No Name
Little River Band, Lonesome Loser
Juice Newton, Queen of Hearts
Kim Carnes, Bette Davis Eyes
Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse of the Heart
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, I Love Rock and Roll
The Go-Gos, Our Lips Are Sealed
Aha, Take On Me
Wham, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (shut up, you know you did too)
Duran Duran, Hungry Like the Wolf
Coconut Rough, Sierra Leone
The Police, Every Breath You Take
Toto, Africa
Laura Branigan, Gloria
Dire Straits, I Want My MTV

... I think I now need to load up my iTunes with some of these.

Your turn! What are your top 5?

Join the linky here:

iPod Shuffle

This comes courtesy of So Now What - with thanks.
Instructions: put your fruit-flavoured or other brand MP3 player on Shuffle, and write down the first 15 songs that come on, and what they mean to you (if anything).

Now the temptation here is obviously to scroll through your songs and pick the 15 most interesting, and chuck in one embarassing one to make it look honest - or you can do it properly.

I considered the first then went with the second. But you'll just have to take my word on that won't you?


1.Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Yes, I admit it - I got this from Twilight. I actually really liked the first Twilight movie - very moody and evocative, and great soundtrack. Well I've gone off the soundtrack a bit since, but still love this and one other song on it, Full Moon by The Black Ghosts.

2. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna
I honestly have no idea what this one is or how it got here. Do not recognise it at all. It's quite good though.

3. Slade - Everyday
This is a song from my childhood. It was big on the radio when I was a little kid and my dad went away quite often on business. I loved the song and/or he used to sing it to me - I'm not sure which came first. Anyway at some point my parents realised I loved this song and my dad bought the single. I still remember how happy he was when he started to play it for me and then I cried, his face fell and both my parents were surprised (disappointed?) at my reaction. I'm not sure but think it had something to do with feeling a bit overwhelmed with both their attention focussed on me for a reaction and confusion hearing a song on our stereophonic record player that I associated with the tinny sound of the radio - but anyway I burst into tears. I still remember it and I now have a pretty good understanding with my own kids of what can set that kind of reaction off, just generally too much attention and build up of excitement.... Kids, eh!
But I still love the song.

4. Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - Opa (Eurovision 2010 - Greece)
Well, what can I say. I liked it.
My husband is from Greece and they take Eurovision VERY seriously there, there is not the irony-ladden aspect to it that we use to watch it in the English-speaking world.
In our house we watch Eurovision as a family for the two nights it's on, all four if us sitting on the couch or the girls dancing in front of the TV, and we all judge the songs and pick our favourites and laugh at and pan the shockers, and naturally the outcomes rarely agree with any of our opinions.
I also have ANOTHER Greece Eurovision entry on my iPod, My Secret Combination by Kalomoira.
I know it's not that good, but I like it - and who can't like Kalomoira, she's so cute!

5. Will.I.Am - I Like to Move It
I actually prefer the The Travelling Song, which I also have. Both from the Madagascar soundtracks. I love the Madagascar movies, possibly even more than my kids do.

6. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart
Are you kidding me?! The epitome of iPod embarassment and it actually came on in my 15??
I was tempted to skip past this and not count it, but then this is the point of the whole exercise, right? To create an even playing field of lameness among all iPod users. We all have our shame.
Everyone loved this song (without irony) when it came out in the 80s, and I remembered it a few years ago when it appeared in the movie Urban Legend, where the first girl to get killed sings badly to it listening to her car radio to cheer herself up, before getting decapitated by the person hiding in the back of her car. Not sure how the killer managed to stabilise and stop the car after doing this but no matter...

7. Prince - Cream
I loved Prince throughout the nineties. Only this song has stood the test of time in my music library. LOVE IT.

8. INXS - Need You Tonight
80s, 80s, 80s!!! Loved this whole album, and saw INXS three times in concert  - once in Portugal while backpacking, sort of a weird interlude. In 2003 I was backpacking around Europe with my cousin and her friend, and after weeks of fairly good penny pinching we fell in with an American physiotherapist on a two week holiday from New York, who clearly made very good money and who was also a lot of fun and very persuasive. We ended up living things up in Portugal and spending as if we were also high-paid New York professionals instead of the penniless 23-year olds we were. What with beers and dancing till late most nights and going to see INXS at their Lisbon concert, we cleaned out our budget for the next four weeks, in four days. Those were great days though!

Another memory: I bought this album through my sister's record club membership, and still remember how she got my order wrong and ticked the box for the album instead of the casette. I was initially annoyed but was happy when the album came, because then I taped it and then, CHOICE, I had both!

9. Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina
C'mon - who doesn't like this? 80's again. I fear I am betraying my age (as if this blog wasn't doing that for me). Also somewhere on my playlist, Wild Thing, from the same album. All that's missing to round off the era is Young MC's Busta Move!

10. Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before
I have the entire Grace Jones Island Life album on my iPhone, and indeed still have the casette rattling round somewhere. Love the whole thing but this song and La Vie en Rose especially.
I think I may have discovered this song and the album Island Life from the Harrison Ford movie Frantic, which I thought was a great movie at the time but which I otherwise don't remember.
So weird about Grace Jones - not sure exactly what she was or what she represented, but this album was pretty cool.

11. Jill Barber - Old Flame
Not one of my faves but I do like this whole album. My favourite song on it is Oh My My.


12. Giannis Kotsiras - Anathema Se
This is one of a few albums in here where my and my husband's playlists got entangled when I tried to move libraries from our old desktop to my laptop; I have left them there because I like to listen to them sometimes. This is a beautiful song - a decent translation courtesy of http://lyricstranslate.com is included at the end of this post.


13. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
I was never a Peter Gabriel fan in the 80s - probably a bit too mature and intelligent for my tastes back then - but a casual comment from my sister about how Solisbury Hill is one of her favourite songs, lead me to think "Oh yeah, I quite like that song", then to seek out and download about 10 Peter Gabriel songs that I suddenly found I really really liked.
I remember about this one how technologically amazing the video clip was at the time - we were in awe! It's not much now but a glimpse does bring back the memory of how unbelievable it was back then.


14. Dolly Parton - Joelene
When I was a kid for some reason I loved the Olivia Newton John version of this song. Not sure why the lyrics should speak to an eight-year-old girl, but somehow they did, something about a girl knowing she was out of her depth and unable to hold her own against others - perhaps that is a common childhood feeling. Or perhaps, as a girl you internalise the various lessons that come your way in pop culture and life, about what it means to be a woman, how a woman should look and act and what and what not to do (unfortunately the lessons are not all equally useful, valid or effective).
Even now the image of a woman tormented by knowlege that her husband is falling for someone else and she is powerless to stop it, is incredibly sad to me.

15. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover
I'm not sure how I came across this song, possibly one of my parents' several 45's I used to listen to as a kid. But I have always loved this song.
That was a good thing about having young parents (sorry kids!) - my parents were really into their music and had heaps of LPs and singles, and used to play them often. (They also used to go out quite a bit and were sometimes short on patience with us - another mark of young parents). Anyway, along with Neil Diamond's Shilo album, this song was one of the first I loaded to my iPod when my mind turned to golden oldies.


Here are the tunes if you don't know them -

1.Muse - Supermassive Black Hole

The Black Ghosts - Full Moon
 

2. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna

3. Slade - Everyday

4. Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - Opa (Eurovision 2010 - Greece)

Kalomoira - My Secret Combination

5. Will.I.Am - I Like to Move It

The Travelling Song

6. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart

7. Prince - Cream

8. INXS - Need You Tonight

9. Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina

Wild Thing

10. Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before

La Vie en Rose

11. Jill Barber - Old Flame

Oh My My

12. Giannis Kotsiras - Anathema Se

13. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

14. Dolly Parton - Joelene

15. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover

Anathema Se lyrics and translation:

Damn you


Artist: Pantelis Thalassinos

Song: Anathema se

Translation: Greek → English

Submitted by veronika_pooh on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 20:26 - http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Anathema-se-Damn-you.html


Greek

Anathema se

Σ' έχω ώρες ώρες μα το Θεό

τόσο πολλή ανάγκη

που τρέχουν απ' τα μάτια μου

θάλασσες και πελάγη



Στείλε ένα γράμμα μια συλλαβή

αν έχεις το Θεό σου

που κρέμομαι απ' τα χείλη σου

κι είμαι στο έλεός σου



Ανάθεμά σε δε με λυπάσαι

που καίγομαι και λιώνω

που μ' έκανες και σ' αγαπώ

και τώρα μαραζώνω



Κλειδώθηκαν οι σκέψεις μου

μες στου μυαλού τα υπόγεια

αχ πόσα θέλω να σου πω

και δεν υπάρχουν λόγια



Ανάθεμά σε δε με λυπάσαι

που καίγομαι και λιώνω

που μ' έκανες και σ' αγαπώ

και τώρα μαραζώνω

English

Damn you

Hour by hour, by God,

I need you so

that from my eyes there run

seas and oceans.



Send one letter, one syllable,

if you still have a God,

to me who am hanging from your lips

and who am at your mercy.



Damn you, you have no pity for me,

who am burning up and melting,

you caused me to love you

and now I am withering away.



My thoughts are locked away

in the dungeons of my mind

Oh so many things I want to say to you,

and no words exist.



Damn you, you have no pity for me,

who am burning up and melting,

you caused me to love you

and now I am withering away.

From: http://lyricstranslate.com