cherryblossomfive

there's a light in my life shining over me

I can't explain it, but for some reason lately I've been obsessed with Shirley Ann Lee.

If you're not familiar with her, she's a singer of amazing talent ... gospel with a rockabilly flair. There's a song she sings "There's a Light" that is both haunting ahd hopeful at the same time.

THen I stumbled across this video:

Shirley Ann Lee clip from Kyle Obriot on Vimeo.

Where a filmmaker found Ms. Lee and played a recording of her music for her .... she hadn't heard the recording in some forty years.

Stuff like this is so beautiful, and so poetic in its ability to make me feel like all things click.

friday night dancing shoes on

It's been a long week at work, and I decided that I'd spend the night in, resting and trying to get rid of the sniffles I've been walking around with for the past two weeks ... oh and I've been knitting.

But tonight I've been thinking a lot about music. In the past few days it's been my refuge - songs for being proud, thankful, frustrated (work related), confused ... it seems I've got something for every mood.

Here are five of my recent favorites, annotated:

So Far Around the Bend - The National
"I know you're a serious lady / livin off a teacup full of cherries / nobody knows where you are living"
this song makes me think old relationships, when one half tries to find out about the other through mutual friends.

Woodcat - Tunng
"I'll look for a man to turn me into a hare / Just like you did when you did what you did"
woodsy, cool, perfect for an evening walk. the images of magical thinking  and anthropomorphism really resonate with me.

Bruises - Chairlift
"hot july ain't good to me i've got pink and black and blue for you"
the quintessential summer crush song. soaring and humid at parts.

Hornets! Hornets! - The Hold Steady
 "i guess the heavy stuff ain't quite it's heaviest / by the time it gets out to suburban minneapolis"
my favorite band hands down. i saw them no fewer than six times last year and the last time i saw them was magical.

Ya Mama - The Pharcyde
"yo mama's got a pegleg with a kickstand..."
yo mama jokes are going to make a comeback in 2009. mark my words. anyway when some friends were in town, we went to national archives and were amazed that one of the signers of the declaration of independence had a pegleg. we did some wikipedia research and turns out he was a great dancer too. the pegleg jokes have not stopped since.

now!

so often i've thought that it would be great to have songs that played when we entered a room.

i have to think that this would be a great candidate. and of course it always makes me think of this clip:

so this is the new year

I've always been a fan of Julia Pot's animation ... here's to hoping 2009 is beautiful.