Insecure, what you gonna do
Feel so small they could step on you
Called you up, answering machine
When the human touch
Is what I need
-James
- Jill Scott & Lupe Fiasco
Daydreamin’ - Childish Gambino
Bonfire - The Killers (U2 Cover)
Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
Archive for the ‘Song’ Category
Out To Get You
March 25th, 2012You Hate Me But You Will Respect
January 28th, 2012I added new songs to my home page under “Songs On Repeat.” I’ve been really digging these songs lately, and continuously hitting back on my ipod or car or itunes (too bad you can’t hit repeat on Pandora). I hope you enjoy them too.
I once again have been dealing with file transfer issues as other countries and websites have been downloading the tracks I have been putting on here. I may have to switch to a soundcloud type solution, but for now, gonna try for one last time, posting on the homepage.
Daydreamin’
Jill Scott Collaborations
Jill Scott & Lupe Fiasco
This song begins with the vinyl like singing from Jill Scott. And then the beat drops. It’s a song that makes me feel like summer time. Its an odd song lyrically, about looking through the eyes of a 40 story tall robot. But I guess when you fall asleep on a beautiful day, and you dream, you dream of big things.
Now there’s hoes selling hoes like right around the toes
And the crackheads beg at about the lower leg
There’s crooked police that’s stationed at the knees
And they do drive-bys like up and down the thighs
And there’s a car chase going on at the waist
Keep a vest on my chest
I’m sitting in my room as I’m looking out the face
Bonfire
Camp
Childish Gambino
I am on a Gambino kick. I can’t stop listening to him. I recommend the Childish Gambino station on Pandora as well. His recent album Camp, deserves to win any award that might be available. It came out in late November and I think it will be one of the best albums of the year. The track that stands out the most, at least initially, is the song Bonfire.
As a rap/hip-hop song there is language that some may not be comfortable with. Despite this, its difficult to not be impressed with the lyrics that he strings together.
By the way, if you have never heard of Childish Gambino, that is the stage name of actor, comedian, writer, and of course rapper, Donald Glover. He is most well known for his role on the TV show Community as Troy.
Yeah, they say they want the realness, rap about my real life
Told me I should just quit: “first of all, you talk white!
Second off, you talk like you haven’t given up yet”
Rap’s stepfather, yeah, you hate me but you will respect
Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
AHK-Toong BAY-bi
The Killers (U2 Cover)
If you know me, you know that I am obviously a big U2 fan and have been to many of their shows. One of my favorite albums of theirs, Achtung Baby, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary
As a tribute to the 20 years, an album was put out with all of the songs covered by other artists. One of my other favorite artists, The Killers, performed the song “Ultra Violet.” It is a great mixture of U2 and The Killers.
When I was all messed up
And I had opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb
Hanging over my bed
Working Hard Just To Shake The Yawns
March 2nd, 2011I added new songs to my home page under “Songs On Repeat.” I’ve been really digging these songs lately, and continuously hitting back on my ipod or car or itunes (too bad you can’t hit repeat on Pandora). I hope you enjoy them too. And in case you weren’t aware, there is a little “play” button next to the song on the home page where you can listen to the song.
It has been awhile since I was able to post one of these, or any post for that matter. My site went through a reprogramming by the great people at Gorirra Consulting. Mix that in with the awesome progress we have had at Matters of Grey (185K visitors per month!) it has been a busy time of life.
As a warning, all three of these songs have some swearing in them.
Green Lights
Written Thursday
e-dubble
You may recall that I featured this artist last time I made a Songs On Repeat posting. I also had the privilege of interviewing him for a Matters of Grey post. He went 52 straight weeks creating a new song. I don’t think there is anything I can do for 52 straight weeks, let alone something that takes so much creativity and talent.
Most of his tracks speak of his challenge, working hard, chasing his dream. I can listen to his tracks one after the other, and I come away inspired and motivated. When I am struggling with time for life, jobs, websites, I think of him and his determination. He recently did a mix tape of many of his “freestyle fridays.” You can download it for free. The dude is amazingly talented, and he will continue to kill it in 2011.
His track that I lately can’t get enough of is called Green Lights. This song both pumps me up, and tears me up. I get sentimental for him when he is told by his father of the pride he feels in him for chasing his dream. It also talks about people and situations pulling him down, but he recants that notion by saying that “all he sees is green lights” and that he is going to keep pushing for his dream.
If you know what has been going on in my life lately, you might be able to know why this resonates with me. People and situations may be trying to bring me down, but I’m going to keep pushing through.
cuz’ they keep pullin’ us down
but I ain’t stoppin’
cuz’ all I see are green lights
and even when I’m wrong I mean right
Please believe I-
know I’m gonna need to revise
but this life don’t give retries
so I’m on it
and up at the break of dawn
workin’ hard just to shake the yawns
Rootless Tree
Live At Fingerprints: Warts and All
Damien Rice
Damien Rice is an amazing poet, song writer, singer, musician. He doesn’t have many albums out there, because the process he goes through in writing a song takes such an emotional toll on him. His songs are loaded with emotion.
I love his song Rootless Tree. The original version is an angry song. This live version is stripped down to a pure level of raw emotion.
What i want from this is to learn to let go
No not of you of all that’s been told…
…Let me out let me out let me out
Hell when you’re around
99 Problems
Free Download
Jay-Z featuring The Dap Kings
I downloaded this track somewhere. Maybe here. It features the brilliance of Jay-Z with a smooth jazzy accompaniment.
Jay-Z raps about being kept down by many different factors of racism and discrimination. But he sees the silver lining in the situation saying that he may have a lot of problems, but he has a good woman and a good support system and he won’t be kept down.
I’m like fuck critics you can kiss my whole asshole
If you don’t like my lyrics you can press fast forward
And It’s All Vanity
August 3rd, 2010I created and mailed 3 new compliations to my friend Josh this week. As usual, I used some photography from my trips for the artwork. Another usual for me, is naming the disc from a lyric on that particular disc. Click on an image for a larger view and the ability to scroll.
Who They Be? Well They Be Us!
May 9th, 2010I added new songs to my home page under “Songs On Repeat.” I’ve been really digging these songs lately, and continuously hitting back on my ipod or car or itunes (too bad you can’t hit repeat on Pandora). I hope you enjoy them too. And in case you weren’t aware, there is a little “play” button next to the song on the home page where you can listen to the song.
If you recall, the last time I did this, my site was basically hijacked by China. Ok, that’s a little dramatic, but I started getting so many downloads of the songs, that my hosting company had to warn me. I am going to try a new naming convention this time, we’ll see how it goes.
Rome
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Remix Collection)
Neighbours with Devendra Banhart
The band Phoenix is extremely hot and trendy right now. Deservedly. Their latest album is the best album, at the very least, from the last 2 years. Because of this, many other artists wanted to remix their songs. So Phoenix provided the layers, and these other bands went at it.
One of my favorites from this is the track called Rome. It is very chilling moody song. One night I kept it on repeat and listened to it over and over for over 4 hours.
The cover starts at the bridge of the original, and doesn’t really leave. The bridge has such emotion behind it, it excels on it’s own. Below is a video of the actual band playing the song, to compare.
Always and forevermore
I call to say I’m on the way
2000 years remain in a trash can
Let burn the cigarette somewhere
Ashes till it falls , falls, falls
VCR
XX
The XX
I have been discovering and as Joey would say, inventing a lot of new bands and new music recently. I have found them from television shows, the inter-webs, or in this song’s case, friends (Thanks Annette!).
Even though the guru disagrees, I think this song falls under the category of “lazy rock.” It is very melodic and easy to listen and groove to.
It also has a very cool sentiment. It is a song that talks about having a lover who is your best friend, that you can talk to about anything at all. In this song’s case, they both feel that they will be together forever, cause they “just know.”
I wanna find myself by the sea
In anothers company
By the sea
I wanna go out to the pier
I’m gonna dive and have no fear
Cos you, you just know
You just do
Hampden Parks
Freestyle Friday’s
e-dubble
This song and artist was one of those completely random discoveries for me. I even passed it along to a friend who wrote about it on their blog, and the artist went and commented on it!
It is a mash-up of the theme song from the TV show “Parks and Recreation” by an artist named e-dubble. This artist, does freestyle raps and provides the audio for free on his website. So far I like his style. This song is very catchy and one day at work recently, found myself listening to it on repeat for about 60 straight times.
speak when necessary
no i’ve never been a loud mouth…
im a business man
and a buisness, man
obstacles made me who I am…
yes you know the name
young english, black paisley…
who they be, who they be, who they be, who they be,
well they be us
Empire State Of Hackers
February 3rd, 2010I came into work on Monday morning, and I had an email waiting for me from my web hosting company. It read:
Please be advised that your account, andymorales.com, is approaching one or more resource allotments. Details are provided below…In the last 30 days, your account used 73GB of 75GB. If, on 02/26/2010, your rolling 30-day bandwidth total exceeds your bandwidth allotment, you will be automatically billed $12.00 for every 1GB over your allotment.
I was caught off guard. My website, though it is very robust, does not take up a lot of space on my server. I also don’t have many items on my site that could be downloaded or that could cause that much traffic. So I examined my stats, and it appeared that I was getting slammed.
I first looked up the stats from the previous day, January 31, 2010.
Mixture of stats from January 31, 2010
85 Thousand Times!
The first thing I noticed was the amount of KB’s transferred. That is a ton! Other stats that I found interesting were that the majority of people were using the outdated and troubled IE6 browser. I clicked on the link in the stats for the top two referring sites, to only get blocked at work by Websense, for “mp3 file sharing.” And then I saw what was being transferred–Jay-Z. Now its a great song so I certainly don’t blame them, but cmon, almost 5 thousand downloads in the one day! Why is China, chinese search engines and file sharing sites locking on to me and a song that I had on my site.
I then reviewed my stats for the past month, and not just the one day. The Jay-Z song was downloaded 85 thousand times.
Every fews months I put on my home page 3 songs that I have been listening to often. It is a way to share both my musical tastes with people, but also an easy way to listen to the song when away from my ipod. A user can go to my home page and click the play button and find out what I am currently digging.
If you go there currently, you will see that I removed the mp3 files, and that if you currently click on play, nothing will play. I had to do this because of this traffic issue, and these sites. Hopefully I can figure out an alternative way to post these items since this has been one of my favorite features of my site.
Im not sure what was sadder though. The fact that I got slammed by China, or the amount of times the different songs were grabbed. Jay-Z was grabbed almost 5 thousand times. Phoenix only about 600. And sadly, Belle and Sebastian only about 60 times. Poor Belle and Sebastian. Its a genius song however.
Welcome To The Melting Pot
December 29th, 2009I added new songs to my home page under “Songs On Repeat.” I’ve been really digging these songs lately, and continuously hitting back on my ipod or car or itunes (too bad you can’t hit repeat on Pandora). I hope you enjoy them too. And in case you weren’t aware, there is a little “play” button next to the song on the home page where you can listen to the song.
If I Ever Feel Better
United
Phoenix
Lryically this song is a sad yet redemptive song about someone that has gone through a terrible heartache. He knows that this pain that he feels, however devastating, will some day fade away. He is confident in that. However, you can also feel the deep sadness that doesn’t want to believe that. There is courage in this song. There is perseverance and faith.
Even though this song has such heavy lyrics, the beat of the music is really catchy and always makes me happy when I hear it. To me, its a happy song. I cannot help myself but to dance around and sing to this song. This song makes me happy.
Dark is the night, cold is the ground
In the circular solitude of my heart
As one who strives a hill to climb
I am sure I’ll come through I don’t know how
They say an end can be a start
Feels like I’ve been buried yet I’m still alive
Dress Up in You
The Life Pursuit
Belle & Sebastian
This is a beautiful, serene sounding song that takes a wallop with its lyrics. Every verse is a power punch to the gut. Its going along all pretty sounding and then you hear the F bomb, and have to rewind to make sure you heard it correctly. The more you rewind it, the more it stands out as brilliant and genius.
I love it when the horn section comes in as well. I wrote a pensée from this song not too long ago.
Blow up in the face of my rivals
I swear and I rant, I make quite an arrival
The men are surprised by the language
They act so discreet, they are hypocrites so fuck them too!
Empire State Of Mind
The Blueprint 3
Jay-Z (with Alicia Keys)
I recently posted two videos of this song. Its a great song about the city of New York. However, I truly love the lyrics that Alicia Keys sings. Lyrics that give you hope and that pump you up to believe that anything is possible. Jay-Z meanwhile takes you through his memory of the city and all that he has experienced there. Looking back on his life, he is grateful for all he has seen and done.
Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves in life about how much we are blessed. At the same time, we have to always believe that we can accomplish anything, no matter how difficult a belief that might be.
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
Theres nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in new york
These streets will make you feel brand new
The lights will inspire you
Here We Are Now, Entertain Us
December 22nd, 2009This application on facebook I first found really fascinating. It takes all your status’ of the year, and forms them into a new year’s card collage. What an interesting way to sum up a year.
However, it wasn’t. It had a VERY limited amount of space. I started eliminating all long status’ and started choosing mainly the really short ones. And since I speak mostly in lyric or quote, mainly chose those. This is what I came up with.
Empire State Of Mind
October 6th, 2009This is Jay-Z and Alicia Keys performing his song “Empire State of Mind.” I love this song for Alicia Keys. She nails her part and sings a very motivating line. Although, what’s with the one big earing?
“There’s nothing you can’t do…these streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you.”
Dress Up In You
September 4th, 2009I always loved you
You always had a lot of style
I’d hate to see you on the pile
Of “nearly-made-it’s”
You’ve got the essence, dear
If I could have a second skin
I’d probably dress up in you
-Belle and Sebastian