Strangechord

Lauren has challenged me to take on this music meme, and I need a good excuse to get back to blogging here, so:

Top Five Lyrics that Move Your Heart:

• “My Childhood (Mon enfance)” - from the musical “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris”. This makes me think of my mom’s childhood:

  So my childhood goes on the wings of the silence
  Of memory’s treason, the true make believe
  Winter snow made of diamonds on the window sill
  Where i press my chin,
  Where i dreamed summer in

  So I could play half nude, like an Indian brave
  On a pony of gold, never taking a rest
  I ride but to save, my warriors, my west

  So my childhood goes, in the steam of the car games
  I dream of charlotte rousse, and other truths
  My mother plays mahjong, my father plays cards,
  So distant, so wise,
  They look right through my eyes.

  So I block off my head, I pretend I’m a bird
  That’s unseen and unheard, I have not said a word
  I might ride a train, it’s bedtime again

  So my childhood goes, with white gloves and bonnets
  Dissolved by my tears until its all gone
  How my anger grows how i hold my breath
  Against this family
  Always ready for death

  Always ready for grief, always ready for war
  I want so much to dance on the graves that they grow
  I would avenge like god, but how would they know

  My childhood explodes, scattering all toys
  And it smashes through walls, oh, with a beautiful noise
  There was the first boy the first boy that I knew
  And the first touch of flesh,
  It was life, it was love

  I wanted to fly, i swear that i flew!
  My heart glowed like the sun, the dark days became bright

  And then the war began, and here we are tonight

• “The King of Carrot Flowers, Part I” - Neutral Milk Hotel
  
• “The Same Deep Water as You” - The Cure (*earth-shattering sigh*):

  Kiss me goodbye
  pushing out before I sleep
  Can’t you see I try
  swimming the same deep water as you is hard

  The shallow drowned lose
  Less than we, you breathe
  the strangest twist
  Upon your lips ‘and we shall be together…’
  …

• “Well I Wonder” - The Smiths
  
• “Severance” - Dead Can Dance:

  Severance,
  The birds of leaving call to us,
  yet here we stand
  endowed with the fear of flight.
  Overland
  the winds of change consume the land,
  while we remain
  in the shadow of summers now past.
  When all the leaves
  have fallen and turned to dust,
  will we remain
  entrenched within our ways.
  Indifference,
  the plague that moves throughout this land
  Omen signs
  in the shapes of things to come.

Top 5 8 Instrumentals:
This is really tough, as some of my favorite genres are classical, IDM/electronic, ambient, and film score. Eep, ok, here’s just a random eight out of many:

• “Flying Celestial Nymphs” - Kitaro
  
• “Amo Bishop Roden” - Boards of Canada
  
• “A Blues in Drag” - The Glove
  
• “A Strangely Isolated Place” - Ulrich Schnauss
  
• “Wide Open Spaces” - Lycia
  
• “4:02″ - Global Communication
  
• “Closing” - Philip Glass
  
• “Where To?/What For?” - Casino Versus Japan

… and the soundtracks from The Mission, The Piano, American Beauty, The Lord of the Rings, and E.T.
… and Mozart’s Requiem, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and
Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
… and a number of tracks by a musical boy genius I will not name here whom I loved as a teenager

Top 5 Live Musical Experiences:

• The Cure for 3+ hours last August outside Seattle, hands-down. It was my first time seeing them after 13 years of fanhood and I was four people rows from the stage. Amazing. Of course, if you remember, I missed meeting Robert Smith by a freakin’ hair.
  
• The B-52’s show at the Oregon State Fair a few summers ago was a blast… a silly, booty-shakin’ blast.
  
• Ulrich Schnauss a few weeks ago put us all into a good trance.
  
• Tori Amos in Ames, Iowa in 1998. I had a nosebleed seat, but was on the edge of it the whole show.
  
• Siouxsie Sioux in Seattle last year - great fan-community feel.
  

Top Five Artists You Think More People Should Listen To:

• I don’t understand why more people aren’t into Siouxsie and the Banshees. The worst are those who say, “I liked that one ‘Kiss Them for Me’ song”. The band came out with 12 albums, for crying out loud, and each one is really unique. There’s something for everyone - cold punk (1977-1979), dark post-punk (1980-1982), slinky glam (1982), rock (1984-1986), goth (1988), and dance-y pop (1992-1995). Siouxsie has an amazing voice and uses it in unusual and surprising ways - so fun to sing along with. Ooh, and Budgie’s drumming. I love it all.
  
• Lycia - contemplative, moody, romantic, and apocalyptic. Music for the end of the world.
  
• I think cranes’ music is just gorgeous
  
• Suzanne Vega - consistently good songwriter
  
• Yoko Ono - her 70’s avant-garde stuff is brilliant
  

Top Five Albums You Must Hear From Start to Finish:

• The Cure - Faith
  
• Philip Glass - Glassworks
  
• Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
  
• Global Communication - 76:14
  
• Boys for Pele - Tori Amos

Top Five Musical Heroes:
John Lennon, Robert Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, Yoko Ono, Diamanda Galas

Passing it on to… Cedric, Pamela, Matt, and Joselle.