Archive for April, 2009

I 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.

3×5
Room For Squares
John Mayer
Its not a secret that I am not a huge fan of John Mayer.  However, I think they guy is unbelievably talented.  Not only is he an outstanding guitar player, but he has a great sense of humor.  If you haven’t seen them already, you should check out the videos I previously posted.  He jokingly says in one of those videos, “If I can’t get the girl, why don’t I just tell her I’m John Mayer?”  He is also often witty and clever.  

I have been a proponent of living with your eyes open.  What I mean by that, is that often whether it be vacationing, or in real every day life,  we live behind a camera.  We forget to realize that we are there, in the middle.  Whether it be birthday parties, concerts, or vacations, I am consciously trying to take “mental” pictures.  To take in and capture the moment, so that years from now, I might remember the scent in the air, the color in the sky, the hug of a friend–the many different moments of a moment that a photograph cannot capture.  Not that I am against pictures, as I think pictures are great tools to spark the memory.  But it is our mental image, our mental picture of the memory that will bring joy for many years.

John Mayer talks about that in this song.  And as I have been preparing to travel to Italy, it is a reminder to live through your minds lens, rather than your camera lens.

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy cliche
And its strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky are next to mountains anyway
Didn’t have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m in the mood to lose my way
but let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
it brought me back to life

A Dustland Fairytale
Day & Age
The Killers
This is the second time in a row, a song from this Killers album has made it into my Songs On Repeat section.  This is surprising to me.  Although I love the Killers, this album as too many weaker songs.  Though, as told from the last 2 S.O.R, it has some catchy tunes as well.  If you haven’t seen it on these pages already, you definitely have to check out my snide of their cool light show performance of “Human” at the MTV European Video Awards.  Every time I go to Vegas now, I always think of the time I saw the Killers live there at the Hard Rock, as well as the time the lead singer came on stage and sang with U2 “In a Little While.”  Bono called the Killers “the swankiest band in Las Vegas.”

Dustland Fairytale is a great story told through song.  There is speculation that the song was written by the Killers lead singer, Brandon Flowers, about his Mom and Dad and how they met at age 15 in a trailer park.  Either way, its a catchy tune that brings back childhood memories of fairytales.  I recently wrote a pensée snide with the following lyric:

And the decades disappear like sinking ships
But we persevere god gives us hope
But we still fear we don’t know
The mind is poison

Crush
Lipstick and Dynamite Wonder
The Violet Burning
This one is probably the heaviest musically that I have put up here yet.  For a long time (and I’m not necessarily kicking it off yet), this album has been in my “fantasy five” (5 cds that you would want to have if you were stranded forever on a desert island).  Part of that might because I was once stranded with this cd only.  It was May of 1997 and when I reached the hotel in Greece, my case of cd’s was missing (I do not know to this day if I left them on the train, if someone stole them, or the running joke on the trip – if Ben Morookian had merely taken them.  All that was left was this one cd that I had had in my cd player at the time.  This cd kept me company through long bus and train rides, and it carried on for the other cds, the faithful departed.  Anyway, this has always been one of my all time favorite bands.  And this cd has been released twice, once as a self-titled and once as the above title.   However, both cds are identical.

We are finding where we want to go
We are trying to regain control
Let the streams of light pour down on me
Let the love that heals me set me free
Come on, crush me