Biweekly Music Links
Matt Wertz
Red Meets Blue. Not, as I thought at first, a love song concerning a Republic and a Democrat, but catchy and pretty nevertheless. (The lyrics about red and blue are fairly nonsensical, though.)
Everything's Right. Catchy. Catchy, catchy, catchy. It makes me want to choreograph a dance that includes a lot of leaps and acrobatics. Again, the lyrics lack much of any meaning, but did I mention that it's catchy?
Patty Griffin
When It Don't Come Easy. I liked to play this one in the car last semester when I was driving home from campus after my evening class. Something about it is just perfect for that situation.
Burgundy Shoes. I already linked this some time ago, but if anyone missed it, go take a listen. Stay at least until the bridge, which is incredibly beautiful.
Beegie Adair
Pick Yourself Up. A jazz piano version of the jaunty little song from Swing Time. I find the lyrics a bit insipid, so I like that this is an instrumental.
Constance Amiot
Clashes in the Air and Clash dans le Tempo. Okay, I can't find a full-length stream of either song, but I did find samples of the whole album . It's also on iTunes. It's the same song, but one is in English and one in French. I think I prefer the French version, but the English one is very nice as well. I'd still categorize both as singer/songwriter, but with a bit more energy than one usually finds in that field.
Leigh Nash
Need to Be Next to You. (I make no recommendation for or against the associated fanvid, as I didn't actually watch it except to see that it used the whole song.) More pop-ish than I usually go for, but I've liked her voice since she sang for Sixpence None the Richer.
Holly Brook
Heavy. She reminds me a tiny bit of Sarah McLachlan, but less...something, and more something else. I'm not sure. It's a good song, though.
Vitamin(?) String Quartet
Cover of Coldplay's Yellow. I'm not actually sure what the group is called, but the cover is fabulous. (Apparently it was used on a TV show recently? I dunno. I've had an mp3 of it for years and years, probably thanks to Kenster.)
*
And for no particular reason but the fact that I read it today and thought it was beautiful, here's a poem.
"Horses and Men in Rain"
by Carl Sandburg, from Cornhuskers (1918)
Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.
Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.
A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.
Red Meets Blue. Not, as I thought at first, a love song concerning a Republic and a Democrat, but catchy and pretty nevertheless. (The lyrics about red and blue are fairly nonsensical, though.)
Everything's Right. Catchy. Catchy, catchy, catchy. It makes me want to choreograph a dance that includes a lot of leaps and acrobatics. Again, the lyrics lack much of any meaning, but did I mention that it's catchy?
Patty Griffin
When It Don't Come Easy. I liked to play this one in the car last semester when I was driving home from campus after my evening class. Something about it is just perfect for that situation.
Burgundy Shoes. I already linked this some time ago, but if anyone missed it, go take a listen. Stay at least until the bridge, which is incredibly beautiful.
Beegie Adair
Pick Yourself Up. A jazz piano version of the jaunty little song from Swing Time. I find the lyrics a bit insipid, so I like that this is an instrumental.
Constance Amiot
Clashes in the Air and Clash dans le Tempo. Okay, I can't find a full-length stream of either song, but I did find samples of the whole album . It's also on iTunes. It's the same song, but one is in English and one in French. I think I prefer the French version, but the English one is very nice as well. I'd still categorize both as singer/songwriter, but with a bit more energy than one usually finds in that field.
Leigh Nash
Need to Be Next to You. (I make no recommendation for or against the associated fanvid, as I didn't actually watch it except to see that it used the whole song.) More pop-ish than I usually go for, but I've liked her voice since she sang for Sixpence None the Richer.
Holly Brook
Heavy. She reminds me a tiny bit of Sarah McLachlan, but less...something, and more something else. I'm not sure. It's a good song, though.
Vitamin(?) String Quartet
Cover of Coldplay's Yellow. I'm not actually sure what the group is called, but the cover is fabulous. (Apparently it was used on a TV show recently? I dunno. I've had an mp3 of it for years and years, probably thanks to Kenster.)
*
And for no particular reason but the fact that I read it today and thought it was beautiful, here's a poem.
"Horses and Men in Rain"
by Carl Sandburg, from Cornhuskers (1918)
Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.
Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.
A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.