dynamic elf

You should go watch this youtube video and be in love with Movits just like I suddenly am. (Swedish big beat/rap with lots of adorableness and dancing, courtesy of fennel)

Natalie loves music, and talking about how it sounds and feels and what it reminds her of. Talking about different kinds of voices and words and instruments and tempos is pretty easy, so that's usually how it goes. But I'd also like to start teaching her about different time signatures.

I'm sure I can come up with some easy examples of songs in simple time signatures (2/4. 3/4. 4/4. 6/8, whatever), though I wouldn't turn down interesting suggestions. However, I would also like some good songs that play with time signatures or have unusual ones (like 5/4)? Fake Empire by The National comes to mind, but I'd like to make a playlist of a bunch of things. That way I can put it on in the background when we're driving and she wants to listen to music.

She's always been hooked by unusual rhythms, but it wasn't until today that I thought to put this all together and make a list, and of course I'm drawing a blank. Help!

OK, Lady Gaga is actually kind of adorable. Here she is on French TV last December: she sings Eh Eh, plays a little ragtime, and screws around with Poker Face on the piano, throwing in some random made-up French lyrics and playing while standing up on the bench for no obvious reason.

OK, so, WHEN do you listen to music?

I've finally arranged my life to make it SO annoying to drive to work that biking is Obviously The Laziest Choice. This is wonderful for my health and well-being, but I feel a bit adrift, because the car has been my main music-playing device for several years. It turns out that while I love being intensely involved with the music I'm listening to, I am extremely bad at having that kind of music playing while, say, other people are in the room trying to talk to me, or while I have to think. Driving was perfect, but now that I'm not driving -- now what?

Sometimes I will set my phone to play at max volume and stick it, speakers up, into my bra, when I ride. This gives me music on my bike while still letting me listen to the traffic at full fidelity. But I can't always hear the music on busy roads, and... and it never quite works the way I want it to. I don't listen to music while I'm falling asleep. I rarely listen to music when hanging out with people, unless our activity is Listening To Music. I will sometimes put on music while cooking or puttering in the kitchen, but this leads me to put on different types of music, and so I get a lot less focused listening time than I used to.

It's confusing! How can I suddenly like different things just because I don't use the car as much? It's easy(ish) to find time to listen to old standards and things I love to sing along to. Wordless things I can listen to at work while working -- they help me focus, but, well, I don't exactly have a huge store of music that I've accumulated for the purpose of helping me focus.

So, hey you! When do you listen to music? At work? While socializing? When do you listen to NEW music, and how much attention do you give to it?


BTW: My list of things I feel a little adrift if I don't have: Graceland, some Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Nashville Skyline, whatever), and Gorecki's symphony no 3. This is by no means a comprehensive list of stuff I want to have with me, or even the stuff I listen to most often, but if I don't have those three things I get confused somewhere deep in my heart.

Here is the Carolina Chocolate Drops covering Hit 'Em Up Style:



In love. Some others: Cornbread and Butter Beans(cute duet), Memphis Shakedown (instrumental with the sexiest kazoo ever). In short: <3

In case you have not yet seen the nine and a half minute long Lady Gaga/Beyoncé prison flick extravaganza "Telephone", it is here. I'm amused that MTV tried to make a cheat sheet for all of the pop culture references and missed enough that they had to issue a supplement. It's kinda NSFW but magnetic and epic and weird - I was reminded of Thriller.

California English
Alabama Chicken
Tennessee Waltz
Nashville Skyline
London Calling

What comes next? I don't think it's Tokyo Police Club, but I might be wrong.

Bonus #1: the song ceelove played me last night, which is my new anthem: Unworthy, by Cheryl Wheeler.

Bonus #2: Nashville Skyline is still my favorite Dylan album, so here's another track.

So, I have a thing for Bob Dylan. A deep and abiding serious soft spot for his music, which actually includes his voice. I also have a thing about people making fun of his voice: I hate it. A lot. I think it's cheap and easy and lazy to play the "Bob Dylan has a funny voice ha ha" card. Don't like his music? Fine! I sincerely do not care. But don't go on about how awful he is, or how you only like covers of his music because he sounds like a dying cat. Just don't. It's the moral equivalent of "I like all kinds of music except country and rap". You get one warning, and this is it.

Anyway, so, yesterday Natalie and I were in the car, coming home from her school. I had my phone on shuffle over the stereo, and "Mama, You Been On My Mind" came on:

N: Ha ha!
Me: What?
N: Who is singing this?
Me: Bob Dylan.
N: Dylan! Is that a boy or a girl?
Me: He's a boy.
N: Ha! But he has a funny voice and he sings like this: *plugs her nose* HELLO! HELLO! Right?
Me: *laughing* Yes, he has a funny voice.

Okay, so, SHE can get away with it because I am quite certain there is no cultural in-joke there. She just thinks he has a silly voice. And she's three. :)

"United Breaks Guitars". This is awesome. Also, I like his voice.

I had an extremely difficult weekend -- blah blah hard hard, everyone's fine, not interested in talking about it, I'm fine too -- but the coffeeshop has been playing Paul Simon all morning and it helps a lot. They played Hearts and Bones, then Graceland, and now Rhythm of the Saints and I think, you know, I am just about always in the mood for this music even if I don't think I am.

What album are you always in the mood for?