Music Week (Day 7)

Whew, my last day of Music Week is finally here!!

I tried to mix it up and put some of the songs I like from different genres. I’ll refrain from calling them my favourites because I’m in love with tooooooo many songs to give that title to these seven. I’m definitely in-like with them though. And I didn’t go down the Tupac road, because I might have just ended up with Music Year 🙂

I like being exposed to new music so feel free to post/email me suggestions or links or whatever, yeah?

Today’s song represents what hip hop means to me. Maybe not literally because I can’t honestly say that I ‘grew up’ with hip hop, or it was my saving grace or whatever BUT, and this is a big but (he he), the lyrics, the story, the creativity, the double entendres, the emotions, THAT’s what hip hop is to me. Not the meaningless shit you hear from every tom, dick and harry who thinks he’s cool because he incessantly repeats the word nigga and talks about money and bitches and pussy (though we all know quite a number of them aren’t exactly what we’d call straight). And being ‘gangsta’. Shudder. To me, hip hop has to have actual meaning to qualify as hip hop. It’s basically poetry set to a beat. And I don’t think hip hop lovers are restricted any one group. True music should move you regardless of your usual preferences and what you like to get down to on the dance floor or whatev, because real music speaks to your soul and isn’t dependent on language, or style, or upbringing, or class, or anything as superficial as that. Yeah, okay, semi-rant? Done.

I’m posting 2 videos to the song. The first is the ordinary (but still lovely) video that is generally played, and the second is the one with Erykah Badu’s rap and is the version I prefer, although it refuses to play on wordpress. So yeah.

Oh, and in case you’re not reading the lyrics while listening to the song – the yellow is Erykah, the red is Common. And the orange, of course, is Ms. Badu’s rap. And for some reason WP won’t let me double space my writing, so that’s why the verses are like all over the place – at least the different alignments allows there to be some sort of demarcation.

Music Week? CHECK! 🙂

LOVE OF MY LIFE (ODE TO HIP HOP)

Erykah Badu featuring Common

I met him when I was a little girl

He gave me poetry and he was my first

But in my heart I knew, I wasn’t the only one

‘Cause when the tables turned he had to break up

Whenever I got lonely, needed some advice

He gave me his shoulder, his words were very nice

That is all behind me,

‘Cause now there is no other

My love is his, and his is mine

My friend became my…

Love of my life, you are my friend

Love of my life, I can depend

Love of my life, without you baby

Feels like I sampled true love

Well my name is Apples and I rock your world

I’m also known as the Gucci girl

Well, I’m super-cute and plenty bad

30-26-36 and a half

I hope that you will realize

I got the hazel eyes that’ll hypnotize

And knock you to your knees

Make you eat cheese

You’ll be so helpless you’ll be beggin’ me please

A freak, freak y’all and you don’t stop

To the beat y’all and you don’t stop

A freak, freak

Oh, could it be that it was all just so simple then?

A teenage love but you said, “He’s just a friend.”

He moved around and we kept in touch through his friend Mike

The world was young and we knew we couldn’t rush

But whenever I got lonely, or needed some advice

He gave me his shoulder, his words were very nice

That is all behind me

‘Cause now there is no other

My love is his, and his is mine

My friend became my…

Love of my life, you are my friend

Love of my life, on you I can depend

Love of my life, without you baby

Feels like I sampled true love, yeah

Mission and clear

Y’all know how I met her –

We broke up and got back together

To get her back, I had to sweat her

Thought she rolled with bad boys forever

In many ways them boys made it better

To grow, I had to let her

She needed cheddar, and I understood that

Looking for cheese, that don’t make her a hood rat

In fact she’s a queen to me, her light beams on me

I love it when she sings to me

It’s like that and uh

You know you rock my world

You be boy, and I be girl

It don’t stop until the break of dawn

And it don’t stop, cuz it can’t quit, cuz it can’t wait

and the one with the short rap

Music Week (Day 5)

I don’t have much to say about the song today. Discussing anything political always takes too much out of me emotionally, so I don’t do it much any more. I still get goosebumps each time I listen to this song. Sometimes, it makes me cry.

HANDS HELD HIGH

Linkin Park

Cover via Amazon

Turn my mic up louder, I got to say something

Light weights step it aside when we come in

Feel it in your chest, the syllables get pumping

People on the street, they panic and start running

Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming

I jump in my mind, I summon the rhyme, I’m dumping

Healing the blind, I promise to let the sun in

Sick of the dark ways we marched to the drum and

Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping

Fuck that, I wanna see some fists pumping

Miss something, take back what’s yours

Say something that you know they might attack you for

Cause I’m sick of being treated like I have before

Like it’s stupid standing for what I’m standing for

Like this war’s really just a different brand of war

Like it doesn’t cater the rich and abandon the poor

Like they understand you in the back of the jet

When you can’t put gas in your tank

These fuckers are laughing their way to the bank

And cashing their cheque

Asking you to have compassion and have some respect

For a leader so nervous in an obvious way

Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day

In their living rooms laughing like, “What did he say?!”

Amen amen

Amen amen

Amen

In my living room watching but I am not laughing

Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen

The world is cold, the bold men take action

Have to react or get blown into fractions

Ten years old is something to see

Another kid my age dragged under the jeep

Taken and bound and found later under a tree

I wonder if he had thought, “The next one could be me…”

Do you see the soldiers that’re out today?

They brush the dust from bullet-proof vests away

It’s ironic – at times like this you pray

But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday

There’s bombs in the buses, bikes, roads

Inside your market, your shops, your clothes

My dad, he’s got a lot of fear I know

But enough pride inside not to let that show

My brother had a book he would hold with pride

A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back, he hand-wrote a quote inside:

‘When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.’

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away

Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day

Both scared and angry like, “What did he say?!”

Amen amen

Amen amen

Amen

With hands held high unto a sky so blue

As the ocean opens up to swallow you…

Because I’ve not found any two sites that write the lyrics to this song in 100% the same way, there may be a few mistakes. But those are irrelevant to the message so I’ll let them stand.

LISTEN TO IT HERE –> Hands Held High by Linkin Park

Music Week (Day 4)

I love angels. There’s just something about them… I tend to refrain from discussing my religious beliefs because it always seems like there’s SO much and SO little at the same time, you know? Like I frequently feel like bursting out and discussing all my various religious/spiritual ‘revelations’ with anyone close enough to listen (and at every stage of my ‘awakening’, I’m always absolutely sure of what I believe); but I’m also a complete devotee to the ‘meh, we’re all probably right’ school of thought. And so, I also just want to shut up and let everyone be.

Back to the point. I love angels. The whole ‘fearfully, wonderfully made’ thing, plus the battle of whether they’re beasts/sweet lil’ things will always fascinate me. I have 2 guardian angels – Maurice and Nathaniel. That’s not a question or a maybe, it’s a fact. I have 2 guardian angels. And I love them.

Anywaaaaay, the whole aim of this –> I heart this song:

 

ANGELS

Robbie Williams

I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate?
Do they know the places where we go
When we’re gray and old?
‘Cause I’ve been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold

So when I’m lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel that love is dead
I’m loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I’m right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When I come to call, she won’t forsake me
I’m loving angels instead

When I’m feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I’ll always be blessed with love

And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
And when love is dead
I’m loving angels instead

Angels by Robbie Williams

Image via Wikipedia

Music Week (Day 3)

So I’m going to cheat a little today. Obviously, it’s no longer the same week that I originally started Music Week in. But for once I want to finish something I’ve started, so I’m not going to post anything else until I’m done with all seven days regardless of however long it takes me in reality.

I’m also cheating today because I am not writing the lyrics to a song, but the words to a spoken word piece. But in reality, there’s no real difference, it’s all poetry. I think I have the words right (feel completely free to correct me) but obviously I’m not really sure of the most appropriate method to punctuate it when it’s written down. Sorry about that 🙂

SMOKE

Imani Woomera

Its beauty is announced as I…

Exhale

Reminding me of the movements of an exotic dancer

Gracefully curving and circulating the space and objects

I…

Imagine it representing myself

Therapeutic and ancient

It rests in the live cells of a tree

Waiting patiently to be released by the kiss of a flame

That existed long before it had been given a name

And after all that time it remains not the same –

Sadly it had to go through some catastrophic change

Now it circulates the air everywhere

Smoke polluted by cars in squares

I can smell it being burned over there

By those folks in those chairs

And we can’t seem to get a breath of fresh air anywhere

Smoke is symbolic

Its marking is evident

It’s ability to represent is simply magnificent

Burning as incense and using sacraments

But…

I see these beautiful people’s lips

Puffing upon white cancer sticks

And our precious breathing lungs absorb the tar-filled smoke like a sponge

And it spreads out out attack children and everyone

Rotten lungs…

Rotten lungs

Air is essential

Its cleanliness is fundamental

Its importance is undeniable

Its abuse is unjustifiable

And all this smoke is making breathing unbearable

And all that it affects is unexplainable

But I ask if you could take a look inside

And see exactly what it’s doing to your anatomy

Would you continue to pay $3.50 for a box of captivity?

‘Cuz they keep you addicted faithfully

Only for them to gain financially

Don’t you see?

Or are you unconsciously contributing to a destructive reality?

Saying,

“It’s okay, it’s only me

This is how I choose to be

It helps me deal with my reality

I’m going through changes

Just let me be

Leave me…

Alone.”

Listen, I know you’re not proud

Your head is in a smoky cloud

But I gotta say it out loud

Get. It. Together.

Cigarette smoking is far from clever

It’s nasty for your health, your breath and for your long-time pleasure

Imagine being 50 years old

And having emphysema or lung cancer

And still smoking those sticks

Through the hole that they cut in your neck

Can’t even catch your breath

Can’t even have sex

So outta shape, no muscles to flex

Put that butt out and give it a rest

Plus why you so concerned about how you look on the outside

When you’re deteriorating your insides?

Inhaling that poison through your mouth

But toning up your hips and thighs?

What’s wrong with your eyes?

You’re not blind but you can’t see

Inhaling that shit obliviously?

Obviously you need to

Get

It

Together

Smoke by Imani

If you’ve never heard of her, or had the opportunity to listen to one of her pieces, there are links throughout this post to her various sites, etc. It’s all really good stuff – I highly recommend that you check it out.

Music Week (Day 2)

I’m sure I’d heard it before, and I’ve definitely heard it many many times afterwards during all sorts of emotional situations, but the first time the song had real meaning to me was about 10 years ago. I’d gone for a concert, Beats of the Season I think it was called, and the international performing artiste was Awilo Longomba. And this guy had an entourage of like 40 people (probably an exaggeration, but it WAS a decade ago so sue me) who all seemed to be related to him in some strange remote way. Anyway, so there we are, in the dark (my memory insists it was midnight, my brain says it must have just been about 7pm) in the middle of an enormous scary crowd (i was 9, and these concerts attracted a crowd of older, drinking, potentially-stoned people, okay?) and this song starts playing. And we’re walking along just listening to it and generally feeling frightened when I saw this couple. It was one of Awilo’s nephews/uncles/cousins and I’d seen him on stage at some point. He was scruffy-looking, dreads all the way down his back to his ass. He was with his wife/girlfriend/baby mama/one-night-stand and she was standing with her back to him, but they weren’t getting all down and durrty grinding, they were just, I dunno…moving together as one. And singing to each other. I’ve never quite been able to describe it properly, but you know when people are so in love it’s like the very air around them becomes charged and static? When nothing they do can be a lewd act, everything is pure and beautiful and right?

“Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they’re not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or – such is the pleasure they experience – they may never finish it.” Paulo Coelho wrote that in Eleven Minutes. And that’s exactly what I mean. As they were standing there in the dark, dirty and tired, just enjoying each other and the moment, it was like they were making love continually. Hell, even when I remember that night, I see the two of them with a spotlight shining on them, and everything around them just a hazy, fuzzy, unimportant reality. And I felt so privileged to be able to somehow share in that moment. And so today, one of my all-time favourite songs, from two of my all-time favourite artists. A song that heralded the birth of me as a complete and utter romantic:

 

TURN YOUR LIGHTS DOWN LOW

Bob Marley & Lauryn Hill

Turn your lights down low

And pull your window curtain

Oh, let Jah moon come shining in

Into our life again

Saying, ooh, it’s been a long, long time

I kept this message for you, girl

But it seems I was never on time

Still I wanna get through to you, girlie

On time, on time…

Turn your lights down low

Never never try to resist, oh no

Oh, let your love come shining in

Into our lives again

Saying, ooh, I love you

And I want you to know right now

Ooh, I love you

And I want you to know right now

That I, that I…

I want to give you some love

I want to give you some good, good loving

Oh I, oh I, oh I

I want to give you some good, good loving

Loving you is like a song I replay

Every three minutes and thirty seconds of every day

And every chorus was written for us to recite

Every beautiful melody of devotion every night

This potion might, this ocean might carry me

In a wave of emotion to ask you to marry me

And every word, every second, and every third

Expresses the happiness more clearly than ever heard

And when I play ’em, every chord is a poem

Telling the Lord how grateful I am because I know him

The harmonies possess a sensation similar to your caress

If you’re asking, then i’m telling you it’s ‘yes’

Stand in love, take my hand and love

Jah bless

 

‘Turn Your Lights Down Low’ by Bob Marley and Lauryn Hill

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

Music Week (Day 1)

As usual I have about 15 incomplete posts just waiting to be finished and published, but I want to do something different today. If you hadn’t noticed already, to me music = life. If I’m not listening to something, then I’m almost definitely singing to myself or drumming out beats. And if I’m not doing THAT, then be sure the secondary voice in my head (not the one thinking and saying stuff, but the background one) is doing the same – playing a song, or singing, or making beats. I used to think everyone felt that way, but I get surprised time after time when I talk to people who like music fine, but it isn’t their main squeeze, you know? Anyway, every day for a week, starting today, I’m going to write the lyrics of a song I’m really feeling. It could be the whole song, it could be just a verse or the chorus or whatever. It may be a favourite song, or it may just be something I listen today every once in a while. Whatev.

 

SLIP OUT THE BACK

Fort Minor

I’m no hero, you remember how I was, you know

All I ever did was worry, feeling out of control

To the point where everything was going end over end

I’m spinning around in circles again

This is where you come in

All of this to explain to you why

I had to separate myself away from yesterday’s life

Please remember this isn’t how I hoped it would be

But I had to protect you from me

That’s why I slipped out the back before you knew I was there

I know you felt unprepared

But every single time I was around I just bring you down

And I could tell that it was time to be scared

That’s why I slipped out the back before you knew I was there

And I know the way I left wasn’t fair

I didn’t want to be around just to bring you down

I’m not a hero but don’t think I didn’t care

Slip Out the Back by Fort Minor

Image via Wikipedia

Atticus

We were chilling in his room again, just listening to music. Then he asked me if I’d ever heard this song, and played it for me when I said I hadn’t.

Then he asked me to be his girlfriend.

 

To kill a mocking bird is to silence the song that seduces you

Why?

’cause you need that desire in your heart to survive

And you need that burning fire in your soul

To know you’re still alive

So catch me when I fall

Or did I dive at your delight?

 

Remember what I lost

Like hot coals in my hand from days gone by

Like Pandora adored the euphoria as her heart raced

Like love lost you’ve got to try

Even in vain

Feels like you’ll go insane

But you’re the hardest instrument that I’ve ever had to play

 

In my heart I can fly

And I cannot disguise my love

There is no time

And I wouldn’t know how to

The constellations tonight are so fiercesomely bright

My love, I have no fear

I am Atticus now

 

So why don’t we fall into the waves?

Can’t you see how my heart yearns to misbehave?

(Atticus by The Noisettes)

 

I wish it was possible for my answer to have been yes.

Goddess of Love

When i am sitting at the door of a tavern,

I, Ishtar, the goddess,

Am prostitute, mother, wife, divinity.

I am what people call life,

Although you call it death.

I am what people call Law,

Although you call it Deliquency.

I am what you seek

And what you find.

I am what you scattered

And the pieces you now gather up.

Ancient lyrics to Ishtar, the Mesopotamian Goddess of Love

[Eleven Minutes]

Hymn To Isis

for i am the first and the last

i am the venerated and the despised

i am the prostitute and the saint

i am the wife and the virgin

i am the mother and the daughter

i am the arms of my mother

i am barren and my children are many

i am the married woman and the spinster

i am the woman who gives birth and she who never procreated

i am the consolation for the pain of birth

i am the wife and the husband

and it was my man who created me

i am the mother of my father

i am the sister of my husband

and he is my rejected son

always respect me

for i am the shameful and the magnificent one

hymn to isis, third or fourth century b.c.,

discovered in nag hammadi

Rediscovery.

When I used to get emotional – angry, sad, scared, confused, hurt, lonely – I would sit down, and just write and write poetry (sometimes 5 or 6 in one sitting) until eventually my energy would be channelled away from what I was feeling, and into what I was saying. Then I’d stop. I don’t believe I’m particularly talented or gifted at it, but it’s what would get me through those dark spots. About two years ago though, I guess I just felt too much at once, you know? And nothing could help. I haven’t written a poem since.

I’m trying to get back some of the old me. I used to be so wonderfully creative – I wrote short stories, I wrote poems, I played piano, I sung… But I just dropped everything one by one, and now i feel so…dry. And devoid. Of course I’m not yet ready to just pick up a pen and get back to it, but I’m hoping for inspiration. So I’m going to start by posting maybe a few of my poems, maybe even a story when I’m ready, and then hopefully, eventually, i’ll be brave enough to reopen that chapter of my life.

So, these poems have been shared with no one. EVER. I’m literally shaking at just the thought of putting them out there for someone, anyone to see. But I invite criticism. I last wrote when I was 17, and I started at about 13. Since I figured out the importance of dating my work way too late, everything I post, until I eventually state otherwise, is from that period of my life.

They’re really not very good, I know, but hopefully I’ve grown (still am) since then.

*sigh*

So here’s one:

I clutch the pieces of my heart close to me.

The blood drips between my fingers

Yet my eyes remain dry.

Another piece falls out and I choose to let it go

Or risk losing the rest of me.

I can never be whole again

But I will remain strong!

Don’t look into my eyes

Ignore my despair.

My heart is breaking

And no one even knows.