Falling in love with a song immediately is a special experience that happens less frequently to me than perhaps others. I have so many interests and I am not musical, of course I’d love to be and I make my own attempts, but my hours are not filled with listening to tons of music. They’re filled with silence, podcasts, audiobooks and the sound of espresso machines and voices. Outside my head, just to clarify. You have to captivate someone’s attention for a mere 240 seconds, hardly seems enough time to tell a story. Turns out, it’s more than enough. The instruments and melody is communicating in a different language, a vernacular that could never be fully understood or explained through thought. It transcends everything. Like our basic needs for food, shelter, water, sex; music is a shared experience amongst the human race, from the most primitive to the most highly evolved societies. Music and movement are in our bones and through some mystifying progression we now live in a time where the music archives, along with most genres of expression, are exceedingly long and overwhelming, busting at the seems with originality and truth. Some really gnarly and rank shit as well. But some flabbergasting talent. Extraordinary brilliance. Here’s a few songs/videos that left me spellbound, motion and speech-less, in awe and in love.
Jack White- Love Interrupted
“I won’t let love disrupt, corrupt or interrupt me.” This song conveys all its magic and beauty through the voices of Jack White and Ruby Amanfu. It speaks to the whirlwind, consuming experience that is being wrapped up in love. The passionate spark of real love electrifies your being and this primal vortex devours all that you thought you were, leaving something more pure, more ecstatic, more alive to carry on with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErNRBTPbEc
Time to Pretend- MGMT: Are we fated to pretend? Is there anything in form that is not disingenuous? Of course the answer is yes, but it’s not common. It’s spreading, thankfully, but we need to apply the laws of exponential growth and shine so much fucking light that we drown out darkness, muting the noise. Doesn’t mean unconsciousness won’t exist. It simply means it won’t be pervasive, it won’t be our everyday reality, or our morality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9dSYgd5Elk
Love Lockdown- Kanye West: I fall in hate/love with Kanye everyday; kind of. I hate how much I love him because that man’s ego is catastrophic at times. But his essence is brilliant. I don’t think he’s evil or corruptive spiritually. He seems, at times, excessively dynamic, but that’s why he’s fascinating and immensely talented. And this song makes my heart beat to a new, breath-inspiring rhythm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZwMX6T5Jhk&feature=related
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?- Amy Winehouse- 27. The age I currently am. Where my heart will stay forever. Something in my soul says I was meant to be this age. When I was younger it felt more like 47. But as you evolve you realize how meaningless the physical age means and how you rate on levels of happiness and maturity. I’ve really hit my happiness stride this year and I think it’s because slowly but surely I no longer am fearing death. And so in the very tragic and sudden deaths of the immensely talented Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston, unfortunately, we didn’t give them a chance to gain back their dignity before they passed. One died well before her peak and one died quite a bit after. But that doesn’t matter. They were good human beings who made many self-destructive mistakes. There’s some people who commit crimes that I feel very little sympathy toward and hold little hope of resurrection. A great example here is Jerry Sanduski. I think not. Rot in prison, sir. You’ve had enough freedom. But drugs? Come on people. Who are we to criminalize and cast away those who truly seem unable to help themselves at that moment? Hypocrites. I think Amy Winehouse was bestowed with a natural, universal, primal, call it god-given gift. And that was her honest, raw expression through that sultry, pain-ridden voice. I feel her when I listen. Just like many greats before her: Janice, Jimi, Kurt, Heath, etc., Amy’s gift and memory will show itself in history, it will be lasting and it will be positive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ludxpkyrab0
The videos for Somebody I Used To Know by the original artist, Gotye, and the immaculate cover by Walk off the Earth, convey with just two bars the unique pain of a broken heart. The creativity put forth in each is astounding. I am humbled and awestruck, barely breathing for those 4 plus minutes. That intangible quality is so specific to music, to songs, that it cannot be experienced through any other art-form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY
5 people playing 1 guitar?! Incredimazeballs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NF2edxy-M&feature=related
Feed your belly, eyes, ears, nose, mind, body and soul with beauty and truth. You deserve it.
I love connecting with souls who resonate with my own and those who challenge it, too. Connect with me via Yoga, writing and humor, or all of the above on twitter.