Is there room for one more

"Is there room for one more at the singles bar?
Have been working up the courage all year
I pull off my ring as I push my way in
Won't be needing it here
Can you guess my age in this life?
Who'll be taking me home tonight?"
Tracey Thorn: Singles bar

Currently grooving to ...
Record: Tracey Thorn: Love an it's opposite
Song: Tracey Thorn: Oh, the divorces!

And what a surprise: Gwyneth Paltrow: Country strong (CMA Awards)
She looks pretty nervous but she's doing fine. Look at the smile on Vince Gill's face :-)

You can fall like the rain

"You can fall like the rain
And I will be a river
Winding forever
Strong and true
I’ll carry you away
To the peaceful water
And lanterns on the levee
Will shine for you"
Kate Campbell: Lanterns on the Levee

Currently grooving to ...
Record: Kate Campbell: Songs from the Levee
Song: Kate Campbell: Lanterns on the Levee

Blue jean baby

Talking earlier on records and books I tend to go back to, here's a movie as well.

One of the best scenes in one of the best movies ever. Almost famous directed by Cameron Crowe. Although the film is not purely autobiographical, Crowe was writing for Rolling Magazine when he was 15, it's based on his experiences during that time.

And Kate Hudson is absolutely phenomenal as the "band-aid" Penny Lane.

I've never been a fan of Sir Elton John. I heard a lot of the hit songs in the early 70's, but at that time I didn't buy any records at all. When I started to buy records in the end of the 70's, I guess you could say his "prime time" was already over.

Almost famous has two wonderful compositions from him and since I saw the movie for the first time, I've bought some of his early stuff. And it's absolutely great.

"Blue jean baby, L.A. lady,
seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile,
you'll marry a music man

Ballerina, you must have seen her
dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me,
Tiny dancer in my hand"
Elton John: Tiny dancer

Currently grooving to ...
Record: Elton John: Honky Chateau
Song: Mona Lisas and mad hatters

Fountain of sorrow

Another year has gone by but things will never be the same ...

I have, in another blogpost, reflected over records that you always get back to. For me "Late for the sky" by Jackson Browne is one of those records. The combination of exquisite lyrics and beautiful songs is absolutely wonderful. In every one of the eight songs I find words that speak to me in different ways.

And tonight, a year after my father died, I travel through the years listening to the songs again.

"Looking through some photographs i found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two i know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true
You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And i took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Now the things that i remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn't really been that long a time
What i was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
But when you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You've known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You've had to hide sometimes, but now you're all right
And it's good to see your smiling face tonight"
Jackson Browne: Fountain of sorrow

At the moment grooving to ...
Record: Jackson Browne: Late for the sky
Song: Jackson Browne: Fountain of sorrow

"I felt the taste of mortality in my mouth, and at that moment I understood that I was not going to live forever. It takes a long time to learn that, but when you finally do, everything changes inside you, you can never be the same again. I was seventeen years old, and all of a sudden, without the slightest flicker of a doubt, I understood that my life was my own, that it belonged to me and no one else."
Paul Auster (Moon Palace)

If I needed you

"If I needed you
Would you come to me
Would you come to me
For to ease my pain
If you needed me
I would come to you
I would swim the seas
For to ease your pain"
Townes Van Zandt: If I needed you

At the moment grooving to ...
Record: Townes van Zandt: The Late Great Townes Van Zandt
Song: Townes van Zandt: If I needed you

Days up and down they come

If trying to explain "things" in some peculiar way, I guess you could say that most of the lyrics I really like, in books or in songs, are lyrics that capture either thoughts I once thought or maybe wish I would have thought. And put down in a way I never could have done.
There are records by for instance Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen and books by Klas Östergren or Paul Auster.
Talking about Paul Auster, he has the ability to get me hooked by the first chapter, the first paragraph, or sometimes, like in "Book of illusions", "Man in the dark" or "The music of chance", by the first sentence.

"It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but I did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened to me when I got there. As it turned out, I nearly did not make it"
Paul Auster: Moon Palace (1989)

"Days up and down they come
Like rain on a conga drum
Forget most, remember some
But don't turn none away

Everything is not enough
Nothin' is too much to bear
Where you been is good and gone
All you keep is the gettin' there

To live is to fly
Low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes"
Townes van Zandt: To live is to fly

At the moment grooving to ...

Record: Townes van Zandt: High low and inbetweens
Song: Townes van Zandt: To live is to fly

And so it is

Another new year out in this wilderness called life.

"And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time"

At the moment grooving to ...
Record: Damien Rice: O
Song: Damien Rice: The blower´s daughter