Barbara's Random Thoughts

You ever want something that you know you shouldn't have? The more you know you shouldn't have it, the more you want it. And then one day, you get it. It's so good to you. But it's just like my girl, when she's around me, I just feel sooo good...so good. Right now, I just feel cold. So cold. Right down to my bones, 'cause...

Labels: lyrics, Music, quotes

Over the Rhine, Snow Angels
Over the Rhine, The Darkest Night of the Year
Pedro the Lion, It's Hard to Find a Friend
Casey Dienel, Wind-Up Canary
Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
Rosie Thomas, Only with Laughter Can You Win
Sufjan Stevens, Songs for Christmas

Plus a couple of sermons and repeated listenings of The Cure's "Cut Here" and "At the Edge of the Deep Green Sea."

Labels: Music

I've been attempting to get rid of a lot of the stuff that I've accumulated over the past few years. Last night, I went through the box of tapes in my closet. Yes, cassette tapes. I don't even own a cassette player anymore, haven't since I moved here, and yet these are still in my closet. As I went through the box last night, I came across some items that are just so embarrassing I have to share the moment with you all. (The effect will probably be lost on you if you aren't familiar with early-90s CCM...but that may be best.)

Arranged by increasing degrees of mortification, I present for you a tour through Barbara's embarrassing musical past.












Old school Michael W. Smith. I inherited the one on the left from my sister. I remember her playing it when we lived in England. The one on the right has the distinction of being the first tape I ever bought. I now have "You...need...a...Sa....vior...you...need...a...Saaaaviooooorrr" in my head.














Petra! Woo! Note the autographs on the cassette single on the right...I'm so cool.













Oh, yeah. Down with the DC Talk. What's really embarrassing is that I can probably quote ALL the lyrics from both of these, with little prompting.

You thought that was the grand finale, didn't you? Oh, no. No, no, no, my friends...get ready for this:















Carman. I have no words, I really don't. I own a Carman tape. This one contains some particularly hip tunes, such as: "God's Got an Army", "Get Your Business Straight with God", and (wait for it...) "The Resurrection Rap."

Labels: Music

I have a small mental list of things I want to do before I leave the Bay area. One of these things is to take advantage of living near SF and get myself to more concerts. Toward that end, I was checking a few websites today to see if there are concerts I'll just have to attend in the near future. And I discovered this lamentable fact: The Weepies are playing in LA on Nov. 18. Then they're playing in Sunnyvale (Sunnyvale? Really??) on Nov. 25. As it happens, I will be here in the Bay area on the 18th, and in the LA area on the 25th. GRRR. Maybe I'll pass them on the road...

Labels: Music

There's an email in my work inbox titled "since i'll be gone" and every time I see it, I get Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" stuck in my head.

Labels: Music

Yes, Lucinda, even though I now have an iPod, I will continue to post these. Here's the (rather eclectic) list of what I listened to on the drives to LA and back this weekend. (I'm even admitting to the Wilson Phillips.)

This Train, Mimes of the Old West
PFR, Them
Switchfoot, The Beautiful Letdown
Wilson Phillips, Wilson Phillips
Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill
U2, The Joshua Tree
Dave Matthews Band, Under the Table and Dreaming
Over the Rhine, Ohio
Timber Worship, Timber
And: Cure Mix for Barbara, discs 1 & 2 (Thanks, Kristy!)

Labels: Music

Another road trip to SoCal, this time for Father's Day. I went through a ton of CDs on the drive down & back, and it seems it was a rather eclectic music weekend...

Soviet Kitsch - Regina Spektor
10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack
Tracy Chapman (self-titled)
You Were at the Time for Love - Don Chaffer
My Calm//Your Storm - Caedmon's Call
Songs from the Voice
Sink or Swim - Waterdeep
40 Acres - Caedmon's Call
More to this Life - Steven Curtis Chapman
Glow - Innocence Mission
Sixpence None the Richer (self-titled)
O - Damien Rice
Mineral - Jesse Harris

Labels: Music

Lucinda reminded me about Pandora this week. David turned me on to it several months back, and I played with it a bit and then forgot about it.

If you're unfamiliar with Pandora, do check it out. You enter a song or an artist and it creates a streaming station playing songs that it thinks are musically similar to what you've entered. And if you wonder why it played a particular song, it'll tell you. Currently playing: The Shins' cover of We Will Become Silhouettes (who knew The Shins covered The Postal Service?!). Here's the explanation: "we're playing this track because it features a subtle use of vocal harmony, meandering melodic phrasing, major key tonality, acoustic rhythm guitars"...hmm, meandering melodic phrasing. I like the sound of that.

So anyway, Lucinda mentioned last week that I should listen to M. Ward, and yesterday she sent me a link to her M. Ward station on Pandora. I checked it out, and discovered over the course of the afternoon that Regina Spektor kept showing up. Far more often than the original object of the whole exercise, in fact. But I'm not complaining at all.

Labels: Music

The irony of my complaints over having nothing to blog about is that now there's a lot to talk about, and not really the time to say it in. I started a post about Thursday's concert and never finished it. Then I was enticed to go to another concert yesterday. I've got a lot of music swirling around in my head, and I'm sure I'm not going to do justice to describing it all. But it's not like I'm going to have time later in the week, so here you go.

Live music is such an awesome and yet such a fleeting thing. I feel like I want to soak up everything at a concert: the lyrics, the melodies and harmonies, the vocals, the instruments, the performer's mannerisms and quirks, the vibe of the audience, the looks exchanged with friends, the smile of recognition when a familiar and beloved song is played...I want to remember it all.

I think it's partly because of this desire to absorb everything and hang on to it, that I usually enjoy a concert more when I'm familiar with the music. I'm such a lyrics girl. When I listen to a new album, what I love to do if I can is sit down alone, with the lyrics in hand, and read through as I listen. If there aren't lyrics in the liner notes (which always bugs me), I'm compulsive enough to try to track them down online. But I can't consult lyrics during a concert. ;-)

With live music that's new to me, there's so much to take in. If I know the music, it takes me one step closer to being able to remember everything better later. Because I've already absorbed part of it, I can enjoy it that much more. (That said, not knowing Regina Spektor's music certainly didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying her show on Saturday. What that girl can do with a keyboard, her voice, and a couple of drumsticks on a chair...)

Wow. I totally went off about that. I'm gonna rein it in here. I'm currently sitting at the dining room table, and am being distracted by the roommate conversation going on around me. (It's a miracle...we're all home at once!) Julie just said: "You know what you should do right now? You should write your blog with us all sitting right here." Heh. Ok.

Maybe I'll just end with this:

Hem
Over the Rhine
Regina Spektor

Go check them out. You have been given links. You have no excuse.

Labels: Music

I have to dive into some serious work today, but I just wanted to take the time to say that last night's Over the Rhine and Hem show was AWESOME. I mean, I knew Karin Bergquist could sing, but wow, that woman can SING. More later.

Labels: Music

The Builder and the Architect (Sandra McCracken)
A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band (Rich Mullins)
Illinois (Sufjan Stevens)
Recovering the Satellites (Counting Crows)
The Crucible (Sandra McCracken)
(self-titled) Jars of Clay
My Calm//Your Storm (Caedmon's Call)
(self-titled) Tracy Chapman
Let it Die (Feist)
Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack
Our Hopes and Dreams (The Owls)
A Boot and a Shoe (Sam Phillips)

(This just wasn't a weekend for books on CD.)

Labels: Music

There are a few songs that I can never listen to just one time through. It's like a reflex; I have to hit the back button and play the song just one more time. They're addictive. Like the Colonel's chicken. ("He puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly!")

On that list right now:
If I Could Write – Sam Phillips
Bothered – Over the Rhine
Tear in Your Hand – Tori Amos
Nightswimming – REM
One – U2
Bleed to Love Her – Fleetwood Mac
Springtime Indiana – Sandra McCracken
Anna Begins – Counting Crows
Misguided Angel – Cowboy Junkies
Mushaboom – Feist
Peace – Rich Mullins

Latest addition:
Go – Innocence Mission

Anybody else have songs that create this compulsion?

Labels: Music

Go
The Innocence Mission

Georgia, it grew in the night when you thought it was
tired, and how can it always recover and come
and want to whirl you around with your eyes closed,
no matter how you say: I won't go,
go, go.

Georgia, we follow along, it goes pretty far.
You go ahead, I'm going to wait in the car.
Instead of run with my feet when they won't go.
Okay I will, but I don't know.
Go, go

And you would think now hope would be tired,
but it's all right.
You would think now hope would be tired,
but it's all right
You would think tired, ragged and oil-brown
but it's all right

And I know it seems useless,
I know how it always turns out

Georgia, since everything's possible we will still
go, go.

And you would think now hope would be tired
but it's all right,
it's all right

Labels: Music