I'm not gonna match you cause I'll lose my voice completely

Ampersand (video) ~ Amanda Palmer

"And I may be romantic,
and I may risk my life for it,
but I ain't gonna die for you,
you know I ain't no Juliet.
And I'm not gonna watch you wanna burn yourself out baby,
no I'm not gonna stop you,
cause I'm not the one that's crazy."

There is so much I want to write about my three days at the Coachella festival, but I need to sift through the memories, and the short notes I jotted down along the way. I need to re-visit some of the music, and the emotions that still cling on my skin, and on my insides. And some of the feelings I want to keep to myself because I feel so changed right now, and so healed, yet some of that feels so deeply personal that I fear bleeding all of it out in words - as I'm known to do - may take too much from it, and I really need the healing, I do.

This song, though, is playing over and over again in my memory. It is as if there is a loop unspooling, recoiling, rewinding itself up, and then playing again. I know that I stood there in that tent, close to the stage, watching her play this on the piano, and sing in what seemed like was her heart out. She seemed to be bleeding in the way that I do in words that I type, or scratch out in composition books, and I was following along with ever turn of phrase, with every lyric, and I stood there with tears running down my face, feeling so much.

I am tired of the hurting that comes from my own issues, my own pain, and my own broken hearted pieces. But, even more, I am tired of being hurt from other people's pain and broken hearted pieces. My instincts push me to try to heal the other, to understand, to rip myself open if it means they will find something soothing in anything I have to give, even when what they need, or what they have to say, slays me and slashes at me in ways that are near impossible to recover from. So, why do I do it? Why do I let my voice and wants and needs be lost to someone else's voice and wants and needs? Why do I chalk it all up to love, as if that makes all the pain okay?

I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to lose myself completely. I don't want it anymore, not like this. I want to keep healing, and for my heart and words to matter.

fill yourself with quarters

mistaken for strangers ~ the national

"you get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights
arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under
oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over
surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
so you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves
so you swear you just saw a feathery woman
carry a blindfolded man through the trees
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters."

this song is amazing, cathartic, and somewhat relatable; though i think part of me realizes that for months and months and possibly years it is me who has mistaken myself for a stranger.

i am taking a much needed break from much of everything internets-related. it is nothing personal, nor is it anything i want to explain. i just need the time to sort myself out, finish this year, and do some work on my life.

so, i suppose i would say this space is currently under construction, or at least the narrator of this reality.

i did my best to keep my head

gold mine gutted ~ bright eyes

"it was grass stain jeans and incompletes and a girl from class to touch
but you think about yourself too much and you ruin who you love
well all these claims at consciousness my stray dog freedom

let's have a nice clean cut
like a bag we buy and divy up."

ex-lovers can never truly be friends. there will invariably be the conversations that repeat and replay, each time leaving a fresh mark, a new scar. we all have the past one we let down, who we never were good enough for, who we never felt ourselves with. but honestly, i'm tired of being reminded how badly i failed.

just consider me a stupid girl who tries to still care about people she once loved, and maybe just from now on leave me alone.

everyday we wake up

you, me and the bourgeoisie ~ the submarines

"everyday i wake up,
i choose love.
i choose light.
and i try,
it's too easy just to fall apart."

a close friend of mine is visiting. he arrived late last night and we stayed up well into the early hours of morning talking about life and love and all the in-betweens. he is like family to me, my adopted brother, and these are the kinds of conversations that make me realize how much i miss him when years pass by of us seeing each other, and also how much i value the people in my life who are friends, family, and chosen family.

it is hard in this life to be understood. and it is even harder to wake up everyday and decide to see the good things around us. to choose love instead of anger and hate, to choose light instead of the dark clouds of negativity. and really, it is sometimes far too easy to fall apart (i know, i've spent most of this year falling apart and feeling defeated that no one was there to catch me - c'mon lucy, don't you know you have to catch yourself???)

anyhow...another friend sent me a link to a review of an aimee mann show and the submarines were the opening act. this video was linked in the review, and listening to it, it just felt like friday to me, it felt like how my heart is feeling today, and how i would like to believe i try to wake up and live my life like.

at least i like to think i try to.

i can be my own best friend

lua ~ conor oberst & the mystic valley band

lua ~ bright eyes

"and i know you have a heavy heart, i can feel it when we kiss
so many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
but me i'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split
the love i sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist

you're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back
well, it takes one to know one, kid, i think you've got it bad
but what's so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag"

the first time i heard lua it was around valentine's day. a good friend of mine sent out these mix cd's for the holiday and it was filled with songs and bands that at the time i had never heard, and would end up completely falling in love with. the libertines were on that cd, and anyone who knows me knows what that band means to me. ted leo and the delays were on that cd. arcade fire, too. i'm telling you it was an amazing cd.

this song - lua - was among the tracks, too.

lua took me apart on the first listen. it seriously dismantled me in ways that certain songs, pieces of art, moments in film, and pages of books sometimes do. i remember having to pull the car over to the side of the road and remind myself to breathe. years before i was so much like this song, so much that tears were streaming down my face while conor's fragile voice trilled out over the strum of his acoustic guitar.

there was so much beauty in the song, and so much desperation. a certain kind of loneliness that you know when you spend nights out far too late in smoke-filled clubs, pressing up against strangers in stairwells and dance floors, making excuses to disappear into the bathroom with chemicals tucked in your purse.

it was years that had past since i was that girl, but i still recognized her. still recognize it tonight. finding the live version, with conor and his new band, was a highlight - and it is well worth the time to download it. i did not think i could love this song anymore then i did, but i do.

"it was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated
it was so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight
so simple in the moonlight..."

its gonna be alright

one thing never changed ~ the pretenders

"that old train keeps blowing
through the center of this town
restores my faith
when the chips are down

it don't take no passenger
since the streets got re-arranged
but that whistle still blows
because one thing never changed

the boy i was loving
had to say so long
back to a world
where i don't belong

it affected me so
you could say i was deranged
but that whistles gonna blow
because one thing never changed

speak to me
speak to me again
speak to me
speak to me again

that old train keeps blowing
i can hear it in the night
i hold onto myself
its gonna be alright

people come and go
like cars changing lanes
but that whistles gonna blow
because one thing never changed."

i am blown away by the beauty, and sadness, in this song. chrissie hynde is a personal favorite of mine. her voice, it is that one voice, that one vocal range, that i've always found my own voice in. and something about some of her songs, the way she sings them, that just gets under my skin, and stays put.

i've played this over and over since a friend sent it to me this morning. tears come and go, and i play it again. beautiful, it is just tragic, and beautiful.

something about it reminds me of the final scene in the film ghost world. the part where enid goes to the bus stop that no longer is active. the stop where she sees the old man waiting, even though she's told him herself that no bus will come here anymore. and then the bus comes. she gets on and leaves. she is on to something else. is is death? is it meant to represent change? letting go?

you're like a rain cloud

magick ~ ryan adams & the cardinals

"what goes around,
comes around."

west of the south dream side

grey carpet and burgundy pillows,
strewn around without concern,
all of it inviting, invisible permission,
to crash into each other,
feet to head, head to feet.

will you teach me to make a lemon meringue pie?
to make magic with an old 50's sewing machine?
how to forget the way his sweater felt,
the tiny balled up threads still clinging to my hair?

my face burrowed into him,
wind blur stung tears,
bottle of red wine,
half buried in the sand,
hand in hand, hand in hand,
make the picture frame crack, stop, dismount.

pull back the nylon shower curtain shame and
mismatched shapes, sighs,
you can't see me if i keep turning, leaping, jumping.

another five pills and my eyes begin to dilate,
the blackness take me over the west faerie bridge,
to the southside, girl, to the southside wind.

and you were there,
and you, and you,
all in this alice in oz and her seven horned dwarves,
weave it all in my veins, in the blood, in my soul,
these are dreams that wake the dead.

and i lie back on pillows,
let my thoughts fall careless in a slip and slide
pattern,
the water spurting out between my legs,
across a green summer grass stain.

you help me forget where the lines are drawn.

tie yourself to me

rid of me ~ pj harvey

"yeah, you're not rid of me
yeah, you're not rid of me
i'll make you lick my injuries
i'm gonna twist your head off, see

till you say don't you wish you never never met her."

this has always been one of those songs that cause me to let my eyes flutter shut, and my imagination travel into unknown realms of storytelling. the song plays at being muse to my writing, and i see a plot unfold within the steady bassline, the sensual, albeit slightly disturbing lyrics, and the building rhythm and melody that just takes you over. it feels like seduction, like desperation, like raw wanting.

kate schatz felt the same way, and i cannot recommend the result enough, in 33 1/3: pj harvey: ride of me. here is her description:

There’s a thing that happens:

You love an album. You get into it—listening over and over, taking in every sound, beat, shift, and phrase. You sing along, memorize the silence between each song. You absorb it, you feel it.

And it gets into you.

A great album tells a story, whether explicit and linear or subtle and discrete. And when you love that album, when it’s gotten inside and you know the characters, landscapes, lyrics, and rhythms, there’s another thing that happens: it becomes yours. You own it, you have a relationship with it. You know each other. It’s your music, they’re your stories—you become free to put meaning here, add interpretation there, decide exactly what it’s all about, then change your mind with each listen. It’s mutual and consensual and very, very private.

And then sometimes you make it public. The album’s narrative begets new narratives and you want to share that somehow, let these expanded possibilities be known. A declaration of adoration, a kind of self-serving homage. Maybe it takes the form of a cover song, freely or closely interpreted. Or the written word: a critical essay, a trenchant article, a dissertation.
But you’re not a musician or a critic—you’re a fiction writer who loves music, who loves stories. The potential within each song, each lyric. And there’s one album that stands out, that you can’t shake, that you find as fascinating now as you did when it came out, in 1993, and you were a swoony day-dreamy teenager mesmerized by the music’s anger, its beauty, its dark and twisted humor. Raw guitars, crashing drums, love-wrecked lyrics telling stories of betrayal, revenge, isolation, sex. The seduction, the violence, those moans and howls. That voice. It was a whole other world.

You love what PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me did then, what it still does, what it can do. So you embark on an experiment. You reenter it, once again listening over and over, sometimes just one song on repeat for hours. You get into it and it gets right back into you. Characters, lyrics, and landscapes. Moods and tones and those feelings. You begin writing. With each song, to each song, from each song. Around and near and under and then, at some point, it takes a shape. Characters emerge. These two women. These woods. Chapters like songs, book like an album. It becomes a new story, years of listening spiraled out into new words and meanings.

This is the book. It’s not about Rid of Me—it’s because of it.

thank you, jenn, for sending it to me.

look like its happened again

i see you, you see me (video) ~ the magic numbers

"i never wanted to love you, but that's ok
i always knew that you'd leave me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me

i asked the boys if they'd let me go out and play
they always said that you'd hurt me anyway
but darling when i see you, i see me

its alright i never thought i'd fall in love again
its alright i look to you as my only friend
its alright i never thought that i could feel this something
rising, rising in my veins."

fires are burning outside, and the santa ana's are making my throat dry. part of me wants to just crawl back under the duvet and sleep the day away; perhaps dream of you.

the other part of me can smell the coffee brewing, and the music is seeping through my headphones as i stretch and wipe my eyes. suppose morning is here, and this is the last day before my vacation. there are things to do, and lists to cross-off, and traffic to sit in (while hopefully singing along loudly to a turned up stereo, albeit the blown out speaker on the left).

and we can always daydream, can't we?

part of me wants to escape into this video though. grab a camera and capture a different day. anyone care to come along?

i want to find a better place

"the words you never cared to say,
'i want to start a family',
i'm tired of all the people i'm seeing through.
the same idea;
it makes me wonder why i'm here.

watch me now,
try."

when you have found the things you want, and the place you want to be, how long do you wait for it to happen? can you just sit back and wish, when it may take forever? what do you do if what you want is near impossible? or if the timing is just not now?

how do you quell the desire to say, watch me now...try...

what about me

accidental babies (live, video) ~ damien rice
accidental babies ~ damien rice

"and i know i make you cry,
and i know sometimes you want to die
but do you really feel alive
without me?"

today the music is speaking to me
carrying me off to an embrace of melody
the trigger-gun reaction of emotive lyrical flash-floods
with every song that shuffles towards me
i am gifted something impossible to turn from
or ignore

today i feel the music sweeping through me
lilting, luscious, lush
as i try to wash clean a grey day
a grey mood
a grey me

this one right here plays in the shape of my memory case
causing me to realize that music is so fluid
so full of pieces and words and feelings
often the turn of phrases laden with things i wish i could speak aloud
to you
or to anyone
really
all things left unsaid seem to melt right into the next track

everyone i meet becomes part of the pages of my life
every song i take the time to memorize
and sing along with
becomes the soundtrack behind the images that pass as a day

and some of these i keep for good
so that i can go back
re-read
put on repeat
turn back open the liner notes and have that moment
when a line i heard in my head
is different
and redirects the way i see things now

this afternoon could become
the side of the tape i will rewind
and play
again and again
until the neighbors bang on the wall in pleas and agony
begging to never play that fucking song again

and i wonder now through stinging eyes
how the stories will hold up in the end

will i sit with my grandchildren tugging at my sleeve
holding the hand of the love i take there with me
and will i read to them from the lines on my hands
show them the flickering images of a life
that will still play behind my half closed eyes
will i still remember the refrain before the last verse
of all those remembered melodies

maybe you will be there next to me
laughing
mock at what a sentimental thing i've become
while inside you smile
because we all cherish the stories shared
of our own existence

perhaps you will correct my additions
and enhancements
add in the erased letters that i choose to forget
whisper that the truth does not need painting over
with glitter
or exaggerated pause

but they all know that sometimes
that is just how i am
and anyway
colour changes everything
just like the contents of a song

you and i, we're two of a kind

just another (video) ~ pete yorn

"i love to wear my work inside of my head,
i can’t complain,
but you should never react the way you did,
i feel your time.

you were lying wide awake in the garden,
trying to get over your stardom,
and i could never see you depart us
and you’re my baby…"

one of my all-time favorite songwriters is leonard cohen, if not my very most favorite ever. those who know me well know what his songs mean to me, and how particular songs of his have become interwoven into the very fabric of who i am. i know for certain that his music and lyrics, especially his lyrics, have fastened themselves so deeply into my soul that they filter and flutter out into the way i write, the stories i craft, and even in the way i express things such as love, loss, and wishes.

yorn wrote this song after hearing jeff buckley's cover of leonard cohen's song 'hallelujah', and was inspired to craft one of my favorite songs of his, just another. you can hear it in the first guitar chord strums, but you can also feel it in the meanings between the words, and in the way the melody and verse weave in and out of each other. the stories behind the songs, the muses and landscapes that move an artist, and the way the song becomes its own to the listener (my own stories to this song, they evolve, they flow, and definitely exist) are some of the reasons music means so much to me.

all of it fits back into my long-held belief that art begets art, and that music is the oxygen to nearly everything we create. i know, for me, everything i write has music infused and intertwined in every word and phrase. music is forever my muse, my solace, and my inspiration. i know it seeps into the way i feel, the way i love, the way i let go, and the way i express everything.

and this morning, for many reasons, this song...well it feels like everything to me.

even those in the optimist club have a hard time staying in love

american blues, volume one ~ pete yorn

"this year we are not so sure,
battered and bruised,
young and old,
stable or stoned, stable or stoned...

it's happening everywhere we look in,
everythings rehearsed,
should be better,
lifes getting better,
why do people feel worse?"

everyone needs someone to blame,
but things don't go their way."

new song and video from pete yorn. i think it is incredible.

and i think its gonna be a long long time

rocket man ~ elton john
rocket man (live) ~ ryan adams & leona naess
rocket man ~ my morning jacket
rocket man ~ david fonseca
rocket man (video) ~ kate bush

"mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids,
in fact it's cold as hell.
and there's no one there to raise them if you did."

elton john, well let me clarify that, early 70's elton john, always soothes me when i'm feeling blue. perhaps it is the remnants of childhood memories. the recall of family parties that continued late into the night. all of us kids would be holed up in one of the bedrooms watching old b&w late night television, or episodes of benny hill and love american style. i could hear the music steal in through the floorboards, and the space at the bottom of the door...streaming in with the flicker lights of candles...the sound of clinking glass and laughter.

it reminds me of friends, both real and imagined, who would be around me as a child. running through fields of flowers, swimming in my grandparents enormous to me at the time pool, running on the sand by the pacific ocean. i lived in book pages and vinyl albums, lying on my back with the sleeves in front of me, reading the liner notes and pretending i knew all the names like characters in a story. my turntable spinning, on and on again.

i suppose that i'll just have to wait and see

daisy ~ ben lee

daisy (lyrics)

i didn't see it coming
i just thought that you were friendly
but here we are passionately embraced

i suppose it's kind of funny
but it's also kind of scary
that your kiss brought back a feeling i'd erased

when you said that you were lonely
and i said i thought you would be
then you took me to a darker holy place

then i said i liked to kiss you
and you said you loved to kiss me
then kissed the sweetest kiss i'll ever taste

'cos i've known you for an hour
but you're growing like a flower in me

i've known you for a lifetime
or we're soul mates from a past life
daisy

it's all mixed with indecision
and a painful soulful spilling
of everything i've ever felt or known

and you know that they're all looking
so you kiss me even harder
then hold me and i just feel right at home

your touch is soft and tender
so i raise my flag surrender
then say "i feel you staring at my soul"

and it makes them all feel awkward
but our time here's more important
so we sink into our closed eyed painful hole

i'm scared of what will happen
so i kiss you, say i'll call you
then i tell you so much i don't understand

then you kiss me with an answer
and my question seems invalid
and i go to bed with daisies in my hand

i call you there's no answer
but i know i have to see you
so i call and call and call and call again

but you never get my message
or you choose not to return it
because you shouldn't, needn't, wouldn't or just can't

i'm lonely and i love you
for the moment that is what's true in me
i've known you now forever
joined at the soul together
daisy

there'll be no way to avoid you
when i see you in the movies
and i realize right now you're not here with me

if i'll see you in my lifetime
if again I'll feel you kiss me
i suppose that i'll just have to wait and see

but for now i'll just be grateful
to be touched by such an angel
and put it down as life experience

that my muse is just a daisy
with the most beautiful nature
will one day fall back in my flower bed

and i know you said you love me
and that's the only memory left for me
'cos i need you more than ever
joined at the soul together
daisy

my very favorite love song, and not just because daisy has been a nickname of mine since i was a little girl, or because i have a daisy tattoo, or even because i relate to the love story in the song. well, i'm sure that is all part of it, but even if all that wasn't the case, it just is quite possibly my favorite love song.

and i'm so tired

good dancers (video) ~ the sleepy jackson
good dancers ~ the sleepy jackson

"don't always dream for what you want,
but i love to watch good dancers talk."

sometimes it is easier to twirl around in a dream, to wander around the world half-awake, with your heart still anchored to the bottom of a fantastical sea. there are no expectations in our own dreamworld, and not much of a chance at getting your heart broken. very few of us fantasize about disappointment and loss, so why not clone our souls so they can play among the other dreamers, letting the shell of ourselves do all those mundane tasks of a day?

everyone has to wake up though, every night ends when sunrise arrives. and sometimes, if you are determined and true to your self, you can grasp hands with something or someone from those dreams and bring them with you. a pot of coffee is brewing in the kitchen and we dance around each other with sleepy-eyed clumsiness - you know how that looks; messy hair, sore muscles, pajamas still on. if it is what you want then it is more than a dream, and if you hold on to each other tightly it is more than a life.

ah the night here it comes again

la cienega just smiled ~ ryan adams
la cienega just smiled (live) ~ ryan adams

"and i hold you close in the back of my mind,
feels so good,
but damn it makes me hurt.
and i'm too scared to know how i feel about you now,
how i feel about you now.
la cienega just smiles and says,
'i'll see you around'"

(those lines, right there, they mean so much to me)

last night my phone rang and on the other end i heard this song. this is my favorite ryan adams song for many reasons both deeply personal, and also because i love the feel to it, the story that is being told, and the familiarity with the subject matter. i've had many experiences in my own life, on or around la cienega, in los angeles.

so when the call came from two of my dearest friends, calling from a live show in wisconsin, it meant the so much to me. it is an incredible feeling to feel known by people you love.

i fell out of heaven to be in hell with you

lust ~ the raveonettes

"when the fireball goes down,
out by LA waste,
i come into town,
but only for a day."

another day

my shadow is a monday ~ lavender diamond

"my shadow is a monday,
my shadow is a monday,
my shadow is a monday,
my shadow is a monday.
my heart is in a shadow,
my heart is in a shadow,
my heart is in a shadow,
without you."

i've always had a thing for songs with days of the week in them. i'm not sure why this is, though it is probably part to do with my affection for themes in music, especially in crafting together a mix. i re-discovered this song late last night while i was going through a stack of music mixes i've made in the past. this was the opening track of a mix i made for someone which mixed together the theme of new york and monday mornings. it was meant to be a in-transit starting your week off with coffee and song type of mix, though i'm realizing now i never sent it (well, i've never sent it - yet).

most monday songs have that tinge of sadness to them. they carry the weight of sleepy-eyes and the dreaded steps one takes to give up the taste of freedom celebrated during the weekend. something about the day, though i always took it as a begin agan and start over, that seems to inspire missing people we've lost, dwelling on heartache, and longing for the comfort and familiarity of a warm duvet, well-worn pillows, and our own bed. monday holds over itself a shadow of wistfulness, of longing and regret, and a kind of postcard sentimentality - wish i was still there.

but, for me, music is the ticket to fly out of any routine, any state of restlessness, and out of any dreadful monday. it is the way we connect, and the wings we all tuck within our 9am suits, business faces, and happy pants. we do not need masks when we close our eyes and sing. and anyway, i've always kind of liked the shadows.

i'm keeping you

keeping you ~ tanya donelly

"my heart's not new
i'm not like you
i've loved, and been loved well and badly too
my body's been through everything
i've used and been used
i got over it
there's something that you learn on a tightrope
just outside the spotlight there's a big net waiting for...
my return to wildlife."

(this song will always remind me of you)

*

& a little something else, seems to lend itself to the song, and the visual...or something like it.

momentary magic

he sat idly on the right side,
smoking section,
the back booth.
the exhaustion of a lost adolescence,
baking into his dark skin.
weary blue eyes,
the borrowed light reflecting from them,
oh, those eyes.

she was draped in crinkled up lace,
too much skin trying to hide
her volunteer insecure shake of a soul
hands shaking from the adrenaline,
or the drugs,
dark circled rings,
giving her a masked superhero guise,
straight from the shadows.

and they were not supposed to meet,
it wasn't what the fates provide,
that kind of magic.

he caught her wavering conversation,
took out a needle and thread,
weaving their words into one.
a giant quilt of blue and black,
their eyes casting the gossamer net,
into the ocean disguised as a hotel pool,
and they dove right in,
interlocking the dangling parts of who they once were.

but this kind of thing is not stable,
and there isn't room in the show for it,
that kind of wonder.

he left her in a bright spark of blue waves,
she followed soon after in a blackened sleep,
bottle of cures cast aside the bed.
both of their demises failed,
and they walked onto shaky ground.
spilling the dust of lost love and splinters,
wondering where they used to belong,
settling for less than that dream.

for the soul is only initially entwined,
when there is that kind of unexpected