"just the bare necessities of life"
1. EIGHT. DAYS. TO. GO. How can this flail be contained! And I've discovered that the prospect of this trip is doing wonders for my ability to just be all Teflon-like and allow shitty working hours and other random annoying things to slide off my back more easily than they otherwise would. I CAN'T WAIT.
2. Had a rather sobering experience today, however. My godmother - I'm not religious in the least, but my mom had recruited godparents for all the kids in the family to take care of us in case something happened to our parents - has been suffering from cancer for the better part of the last few years. She's been an amazing trooper: every time she's licked it in one part of her body, it returns somewhere else, and now she's back in ICU for another bout of chemo. Visited her with my (extremely tardy) younger brother tonight, and it was... terrible. She'd lost so much weight since I last saw her, which can't have been more than three or four weeks ago. And really, I can't imagine doing what she does - getting up after being knocked down so many times, and still she's fighting with every breath she's got. Gah. Amazing.
3. It's at times like this that I wonder - why am I doing, well, anything that I don't really want to do? Life's too short. Even if I crash and burn doing something stupid but which makes me happy... better to have crashed and burnt than stayed safe indoors, no? Sigh.
4. Onward to happier things: I have a Friday 5 for you guys today! And be proud, I've managed to whittle it down to two Julia songs out of five, as opposed to four last time. :p And hey, if you're wondering, isn't it still Thursday? NO. It's 1.06am here and I've been itching to spam everyone with these songs for a week now, at least. ;) Plus, you guys get ready-to-play samples AND downloads! :D
*vaguely in order of when I got hooked on each song*
1. the bare necessities (live), kerry butler (download)
From a master and fanmix by irnbruise - I don't think I've heard a lovelier, more mellow version of this song from The Jungle Book. Kerry's rendition of this song - with a slightly jazzy, laidback feel so different from what you're used to - is beautiful. I've been wanting to pimp this out for the longest time, lol!
2. beautiful boy (7 Jul 05), julia murney (download)
Okay, old song, I know. But there's a (loooong) story to this! I have one audio from the short-lived Broadway show Lennon, uploaded for me by the wonderful lfae, that I've never listened to because it's untracked - untracked audios ALWAYS make me balk, something about the time commitment, IDK. So I scanned through the second act 'til I found Beautiful Boy - Julia's solo from the show - and extracted it. Listened to it, of course, and was struck by how comparatively bland it was: Julia didn't even hit the gorgeous high note she hits in her album version of the song, WTF! So I promptly wrote Lennon off - until the other day, when I whined to irnbruise about not having a tracked version of the show. So she uploaded me her tracked master of the first Broadway preview of Lennon. I loaded it into iTunes, and when random shuffle picked a Lennon song one day, I decided to switch over to Beautiful Boy to give it a shot. So I did, and wasn't expecting anything special, really. Imagine my brain falling out of my head when, at 2:04, Julia hits a high note I've never heard her hit before in this song. And then, subsequently, she hits that high note from her album at 3:11. SQUEE AND A HALF, obviously. weazel_luv confirmed that Julia hits both these notes in another preview performance she has - which has me wondering: (a) is it just coincidence that the one audio I have of Lennon is on a day Julia was sick and stayed away from the high notes? or (b) were Julia's high notes SO AWESOME in previews that they told her to stop being so kickass and distracting the audience with her awesome? Hmmm. Something to ponder. I think I'll go with (b). ;) So... um... yeah, I've been a little obsessed with this track ever since.
3. tell me on a sunday, alice ripley (download)
So I've never actually known which musical this Andrew Lloyd-Webber song is from, but I've always loved it - it's such a gorgeous, wraparound ballad of a song. Well, now I know. It's from a one-woman show by the same title, which had originally starred Bernadette Peters. Alice did a short run of the show in DC a few years ago, and it's a fantastic performance all round. I had a tough time picking one song from this, especially since she displays the true stunningness of her vocal range in other songs like Unexpected Song, but this one... *sigh* I just LOVE it. And Alice's voice is beautiful on this track.
4. saturday night... / i'll be seeing you, idina menzel (download | video)
Oh Idina Idina Idina. She's apparently been on a one-woman mission this last couple of weeks to remind me of just how much I adore her. She's succeeding too! I have to admit that her performance as Florence in Chess left me a little cold - though she does do a wonderful riff in place of Julia's G-sharp in Nobody's Side - mainly because I found it strange how she was resolutely not belting the score the way I figured she could. Idina is, after all, one of the best high belters in the business, even if she doesn't, you know, write to that quality in her own songs. Colour me puzzled... until I saw this Memorial Day performance combining the jaunty Saturday Night Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week with the heartbreaking emotion of I'll Be Seeing You. It left me in no doubt about the awesomeness that is Ms Menzel. It helped, of course, that I LOVE it when my favourite singers sing old jazz/swing standards. But Idina also trotted out that high belt - boy did she ever - and produces the flailworthy low note on 'through' at 3:14, and then the even more flailworthy high note on the same phrase at 3:55. FLAIL AND A HALF. Not to mention the high note on which she ends the song. AMAZING. (I added a video link because I loved Idina's look at the concert - so old-school Hollywood!)
5. more than i can bear (birdland 2005), julia murney (download)
So the song that should have been in this spot was the Jason Robert Brown-penned duet I'll Give It All For You - but then I started listening to Julia's 2005 Birdland concert at work and discovered this gem that I've never really noticed before. Anyone who has a passing understanding of my Julia flail will know I'm a huge fan of her head voice, so I have no idea why I've missed out on flailing over this track for such ages. But I LOVE it. It's such a painfully heartbreaking song (Now she's lying in my place / With the right to kiss my favourite face / Now she's curled up in my chair / Your fingers in her hair / It's more than I can bear), and just so wonderfully sung.
5. MAN. IT TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG TO FIGURE OUT THOSE WIDGETS FOR THE READY-TO-PLAY SAMPLES. TWO HOURS, ASLKJDALDJLAS.
6. Edited to add: Rent OBC to attend this year's Tonys - with performance from current cast! EEK. And Idina has been confirmed to attend. So. If she performs: IDINA AND EDEN? FLAIL MUCH!?
2. Had a rather sobering experience today, however. My godmother - I'm not religious in the least, but my mom had recruited godparents for all the kids in the family to take care of us in case something happened to our parents - has been suffering from cancer for the better part of the last few years. She's been an amazing trooper: every time she's licked it in one part of her body, it returns somewhere else, and now she's back in ICU for another bout of chemo. Visited her with my (extremely tardy) younger brother tonight, and it was... terrible. She'd lost so much weight since I last saw her, which can't have been more than three or four weeks ago. And really, I can't imagine doing what she does - getting up after being knocked down so many times, and still she's fighting with every breath she's got. Gah. Amazing.
3. It's at times like this that I wonder - why am I doing, well, anything that I don't really want to do? Life's too short. Even if I crash and burn doing something stupid but which makes me happy... better to have crashed and burnt than stayed safe indoors, no? Sigh.
4. Onward to happier things: I have a Friday 5 for you guys today! And be proud, I've managed to whittle it down to two Julia songs out of five, as opposed to four last time. :p And hey, if you're wondering, isn't it still Thursday? NO. It's 1.06am here and I've been itching to spam everyone with these songs for a week now, at least. ;) Plus, you guys get ready-to-play samples AND downloads! :D
*vaguely in order of when I got hooked on each song*
1. the bare necessities (live), kerry butler (download)
From a master and fanmix by irnbruise - I don't think I've heard a lovelier, more mellow version of this song from The Jungle Book. Kerry's rendition of this song - with a slightly jazzy, laidback feel so different from what you're used to - is beautiful. I've been wanting to pimp this out for the longest time, lol!
2. beautiful boy (7 Jul 05), julia murney (download)
Okay, old song, I know. But there's a (loooong) story to this! I have one audio from the short-lived Broadway show Lennon, uploaded for me by the wonderful lfae, that I've never listened to because it's untracked - untracked audios ALWAYS make me balk, something about the time commitment, IDK. So I scanned through the second act 'til I found Beautiful Boy - Julia's solo from the show - and extracted it. Listened to it, of course, and was struck by how comparatively bland it was: Julia didn't even hit the gorgeous high note she hits in her album version of the song, WTF! So I promptly wrote Lennon off - until the other day, when I whined to irnbruise about not having a tracked version of the show. So she uploaded me her tracked master of the first Broadway preview of Lennon. I loaded it into iTunes, and when random shuffle picked a Lennon song one day, I decided to switch over to Beautiful Boy to give it a shot. So I did, and wasn't expecting anything special, really. Imagine my brain falling out of my head when, at 2:04, Julia hits a high note I've never heard her hit before in this song. And then, subsequently, she hits that high note from her album at 3:11. SQUEE AND A HALF, obviously. weazel_luv confirmed that Julia hits both these notes in another preview performance she has - which has me wondering: (a) is it just coincidence that the one audio I have of Lennon is on a day Julia was sick and stayed away from the high notes? or (b) were Julia's high notes SO AWESOME in previews that they told her to stop being so kickass and distracting the audience with her awesome? Hmmm. Something to ponder. I think I'll go with (b). ;) So... um... yeah, I've been a little obsessed with this track ever since.
3. tell me on a sunday, alice ripley (download)
So I've never actually known which musical this Andrew Lloyd-Webber song is from, but I've always loved it - it's such a gorgeous, wraparound ballad of a song. Well, now I know. It's from a one-woman show by the same title, which had originally starred Bernadette Peters. Alice did a short run of the show in DC a few years ago, and it's a fantastic performance all round. I had a tough time picking one song from this, especially since she displays the true stunningness of her vocal range in other songs like Unexpected Song, but this one... *sigh* I just LOVE it. And Alice's voice is beautiful on this track.
4. saturday night... / i'll be seeing you, idina menzel (download | video)
Oh Idina Idina Idina. She's apparently been on a one-woman mission this last couple of weeks to remind me of just how much I adore her. She's succeeding too! I have to admit that her performance as Florence in Chess left me a little cold - though she does do a wonderful riff in place of Julia's G-sharp in Nobody's Side - mainly because I found it strange how she was resolutely not belting the score the way I figured she could. Idina is, after all, one of the best high belters in the business, even if she doesn't, you know, write to that quality in her own songs. Colour me puzzled... until I saw this Memorial Day performance combining the jaunty Saturday Night Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week with the heartbreaking emotion of I'll Be Seeing You. It left me in no doubt about the awesomeness that is Ms Menzel. It helped, of course, that I LOVE it when my favourite singers sing old jazz/swing standards. But Idina also trotted out that high belt - boy did she ever - and produces the flailworthy low note on 'through' at 3:14, and then the even more flailworthy high note on the same phrase at 3:55. FLAIL AND A HALF. Not to mention the high note on which she ends the song. AMAZING. (I added a video link because I loved Idina's look at the concert - so old-school Hollywood!)
5. more than i can bear (birdland 2005), julia murney (download)
So the song that should have been in this spot was the Jason Robert Brown-penned duet I'll Give It All For You - but then I started listening to Julia's 2005 Birdland concert at work and discovered this gem that I've never really noticed before. Anyone who has a passing understanding of my Julia flail will know I'm a huge fan of her head voice, so I have no idea why I've missed out on flailing over this track for such ages. But I LOVE it. It's such a painfully heartbreaking song (Now she's lying in my place / With the right to kiss my favourite face / Now she's curled up in my chair / Your fingers in her hair / It's more than I can bear), and just so wonderfully sung.
5. MAN. IT TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG TO FIGURE OUT THOSE WIDGETS FOR THE READY-TO-PLAY SAMPLES. TWO HOURS, ASLKJDALDJLAS.
6. Edited to add: Rent OBC to attend this year's Tonys - with performance from current cast! EEK. And Idina has been confirmed to attend. So. If she performs: IDINA AND EDEN? FLAIL MUCH!?