How could you settle for a boy like me when all I could see you was at the end of the week All the things we sign, and the things we buy Ain’t gonna keep us together Girl, it’s just a matter of time
Having the time of my life with music and movies. Watched a big screen earlier tonight which featured several of George Michael’s songs. Not a fan of the person — more of a fan of some of his compositions. Since music plays a substantial part in my life — I ought to set up a page on this site for my favorite tunes.
I went in to unwind by watching “Last Christmas” after a hard day’s work. Just another run-of-the-mill feel-good cheesy romantic film I had thought — until its jaw-dropping twist took me by surprise. Certainly not a masterpiece of a movie yet I went home thinking about the unexpected ending.
I messaged my sister about it. Because (Spoiler Alert) I don’t think the guy was a ghost (as many viewers have been deducing on the internet). Everything was brought about by his essence which emanated from his heart inside of her, I believe.
Many of the flamboyant singer’s songs (including a favorite of mine here) were haphazardly inserted throughout the flick. Never mind. It’s been a pleasant evening.
And now you’re telling me you’re having my baby I’ll tell you that I’m happy if you want me to But one step further and my back will break If my best isn’t good enough then how can it be good enough for two
There are several romantic tunes I had liked in my childhood and early teenage years that still make my knees weak whenever I listen to them. One of them is You Make Me Feel Brand New. It’s the loveliest romantic song I’ve ever listened to and The Stylistics version is the best, imo. For God bless me with you
I’m like wow, that’s the most beautiful love line I’ve ever heard within a song — even though I’m not religious at all. The rest of the lyrics that perfectly match the melody are very touching, too. … like notes to a song out of time …
Only you/ care when I needed a friend. Believed in me through thick and thin. This song is for you/ filled with gratitude and love.
You held my life within your hands/ Created everything I am.
So I’ve been pinning down my favorite love songs once more — pieces that have prevailed on my list to this day. Because I’m kind of inspired again. Never mind that the guy doesn’t exist anymore and English Lit is about to celebrate his 230th birthday by next year.
And I’m still struggling with Spotify so I continue to use YouTube. Yeah, I remain as no techie. Drat. I’ll simply console myself with my favorite mellow tunes online for now.
Please note: I’m well aware the wordings should be “for God blessed me with you.” But I prefer the line minus the conjugation — as we always lovingly say God bless you.
nov 2019 stroll at Sky Garden, Gateway, Araneta City
Once in a while, I rehash some of my selected blog pieces here for diversion, wanting to know, as a bonus, whether there has been an improvement in my, ahem, writing prowess. Music continues to be the major force that has been jazzing up my run-of-the-mill existence for decades. The post about my kind of music to boot remains to be my most favorite of them all [original post – 2012 version] and updating it recently has been a gratifying undertaking for me.
Genuine talent in music, in my opinion, is the best gift the gods of heavens could bestow upon someone. Competence in painting, acting, writing, and all the other arts can be cultivated and refined, through diligence and determination; but being a natural in the field of music? It’s either you have it or you don’t. Beautiful melody blending with the right words; what can beat that?
My taste in music is obviously mainstream. The songs I came to like were the products of an epoch that saw me glued to the radio in the 80s and 90s. Eclectic genres I have enjoyed: ballad, mellow, rock, disco, soul,…except for country and jazz (Haven’t developed a total liking for jazz yet, though I’d love to). I believe the sonic of pop music was in its heights in the 70s and 80s. A few songs from the 60s have been unforgettable, too, such as those from The Beatles ”Ticket To Ride“, “In My Life” and Burt Bacharach ”Do You Know The Way To San Jose“, “I Say A Little Prayer“. But the emergence of synthesizers, harmonizers at the beginning of the 1970s was the turnaround that dramatically heralded the new sound of music and paved the way for the optimization of our listening pleasure.
“Watch out here I come!” (clap clap clap) Remember that spoken line commencing Dead Or Alive’s best-known hit You Spin Me Round? Its lead singer was also a spin-off from Boy George’s flamboyant community, in case you don’t know.
You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby right round round round.
Stay with me and don’t feel dizzy, ok? 🙂
Then there’s the mid-part of Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears I remember chanting with a couple of friends while hanging out in my early 20s:
Something happens that I’m head over heels. I never found out, till I’m head over heels. Oh don’t take my heart, don’t break my heart, don’t…don’t throw it away.
Its MTV proved quixotic for me because it showed Roland Orzabal, leader of TFF, in romantic pursuit of a… (surprise!) librarian who sported wide spectacles while at work inside a library. FYI, to become a librarian was one of my secret dreams in my early teens.
The era had also seen me tripping the light fantastic to several dance beats; everybody in my family loved dancing. One track I loved in particular was The Look of Love by ABC which I initially thought had been belted out by a black artist. Yet ABC was actually a British band who performed in their MTVs and concerts wearing (to my delight) snazzy colorful tuxedos.
When the world is full of strange arrangements
And gravity won’t pull you through
You know you’re missing out on something
Well that something depends on you.
When your girl has left you out on the pavement (Goodbye)
Then your dreams fall apart at the seams
Your reason for living’s your reason for leaving
Don’t ask me, what it means.
Years much earlier in my childhood; my brother, sister and I had become the designated purveyors of entertainment during family gatherings and parties thrown by our relatives. I was, however, an extremely bashful kid. Take as an example: Whenever our Jackson 5 dance number reached the middle portion, my brother would take the lead and start executing The Robot – to be subsequently followed by my elder sis and (supposedly) me. But I…I would freeze for two frightful seconds, as the nearest empty chair would begin activating its magnetic pull on my butt. In the blink of an eye, the audience would find me already sitting down. They’d coax me into rejoining the performance by saying, “C’mon, you can do those moves, too.” But I’d smile and just shake my head from side to side. Didn’t they know not even Darth Vader’s Darkest Force could have lifted me off my seat and made me do The Robot?
Anyway, we always have a good laugh these days whenever the three of us reminisce on our Burn Baby Burn Disco Inferno phase.
Many songs from the 1970s & 80s are still being played here they’ve become hailed as pop classics. I haven’t grown tired yet listening to REO Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You.
And I meant every word I said
When I said that I love you
I meant that I’ll love you forever…
And there’s this personal anthem of mine: Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. (The MTV featured the lead singer’s sizzling model girlfriend at the time – who also appeared in the band’s steamy video Is This Love.)
Well I don’t know where I’m going
But I sure know where I’ve been
Hanging on the promises in the songs of yesterday
And I’ve made up my mind
I am wasting no more time
And yeah, I guess I should not be ashamed to admit I like many a songs from The Carpenters, Bread, Madonna, and Tom Jones. 🙂
Rupert Holmes was a big name in my country for ages because his melodies and lyrics appealed to our taste, e.g. Terminal. His favourite theme had been infidelity; a subject that’s hardly my cup of tea – although I get tickled pink by his hit Him.
I don’t want to own her
But I can’t let her have it both ways
Three is one too many of us
She lives with me or stays with him…
What’s she gonna do about him
Time for me to make the girl see
It’s me or it’s him
I’ll leave you with the opening verse to one of my all-time favourite songs: A slow love ballad from my most favourite male vocalist – Paul Davis. I won’t reveal its title by reason of its sentimental value to me in my younger years, but the song reportedly crawled and lingered in the Billboard charts for an incredible 40 weeks. Cool.
“There are too many windows in this old hotel, and rooms filled with reckless pride
And the walls have grown sturdy and the halls have worn well
But there is nobody living inside…”
****
P.S. As promised, this post is dearly dedicated to PTFT, the youngest blog buddy I’ve ever had. He’s been through so much these past few months and I didn’t even know. I had conjectured a guy in his 20s had been simply living his life to the max. Pardon me for my mistaken assumption, my friend. Do hold on.
Photo represents how I looked when I was glued to my radio and cassette player in my pre-teens 🙂
“I just gotta see this one, kid. So go home while I proceed to the cinema.” That was what I told my son after our afternoon stroll inside the mall last Sunday when I was itching to see the newly-released film “Rock of Ages.” I hope he didn’t mind that I decided not to take him with me as I was aware the movie might not be his cup of tea. We watch mostly action, sci-fi, even comedy movies side by side. But musical? The only time I dragged him to one was Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” – which he actually got to enjoy. Anyway the former secret mild rocker hidden beneath my temperate, quiet veneer opted to relish on watching this Tom Cruise starrer rock musical alone for some schmaltzy reasons.
Aah, the 1980s. I was this teenager who had dreamed of becoming a mellow rockstar one day (Yup, you read that right, no typo error there). But don’t we all fantasize of becoming one anyway?.. So I had no problem lipsynching or belting out Foreigner’s “Urgent” or Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield” in the privacy of my bedroom (which I actually shared with my sistah). These are among the songs I “digged” for the most part of my teenage years. Plus “Rock The Casbah” by The Clash, “One Thing Leads To Another” by The Fixx, and yeah of course, Guns & Roses’ or rather Axel Rose’s “Sweet Child of Mine.” And I thought I was cool.. It’s been a while since I heard the song “Sister Christian” and upon hearing it in the said movie, I was like transported back to the days when I was still wearing my highschool Catholic uniform singing:
Sister Christian there’s so much in life
Don’t you give it up
Before your time is due
-Sister Christian, Night Ranger, 1984
The superlative presence of the seasoned actors here are the ones worth viewing. It’s a thrill to watch Tom Cruise emoting as a wayward, over-sexed rocker who waxes incoherent under the heavy spirits of alcohol. Though I’ve watched this man through the years do his thing from one moneymaking movie to the next I never could consider myself his fan. That is, until this film. Perhaps because I’ve got misgivings about his infamous lifestyle and have had ongoing speculation about his true gender (I read too many celebrity tabloids I guess). After this movie though, I could only sing praises for this guy who undoubtedly deserves a special place in history as one of the finest artists we’ve had in motion picture industry. The passion he infuses into his art as an actor is evident in every film he has done. He can be anything he wants to be onscreen. Convincingly. Looking the part is always another plus for him. He must be in seventh heaven now reading critics’ reverence for his well-chiseled body that can definitely put 20 year olds to shame.
Cruise in “Rock of Ages”The huge glitch in this movie was the choice of the young lead stars who failed to register well on me. I felt out of sorts with Barbie and Ken (well, that’s what they look like to me).., chagrined even of their weak personas and mediocre performance (particularly the girl’s singing voice). Rusell Brand’s brand of humor couldn’t do it for me too.
Catherine Zeta Jones whose talent matches her exquisite beauty is amazing as the mayor’s take-charge and unrelenting wife determined to close down Alec Baldwin’s (He was outstanding in the film too) reportedly notorious gig joint. One of my favorite scenes was her rendition of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With your Best Shot” inside a chapel with a group of women dancers in their 30s and 40s. That brings me furthermore to commend on the excellent choreography of all the dance scenes in this film.
Zeta Jones singing and dancing in “ROA”A momentary blast from the past and another feel good movie no doubt. “Rock of Ages” was certainly worth my time and the price of its ticket. For nostalgic reasons..
And definitely for my refreshing reappraisal of Tom Cruise.
As its never-ending enthusiast, I believe music is the ultimate art that moves the world. A talent for making beautiful music could only be the works of blended cosmic events above. A wonder that somehow exists beyond my reach, artists of this kind are the most gifted and the luckiest beings to have graced our planet.
I’d venture that what I am today has a lot to do with my love for this highest form of expression. A genuine BFF of mine during solitude, it has played a huge role in my life and mental felicity. It can also mirror the depth of my sentiments, a reflection of emotional sincerity and verisimilitude that flows from inside of me. Hearing a favorite song from my past can hurl me back to my younger years with nostalgic wistfulness that never fails to provide pure rapture.
The 70s and 80s were the golden era of music. Not that crazy about country and jazz though, my musical taste varied in different genres.
As a young girl in the latter part of the 70s, I’d hole myself up with either a hi-fi stereo cassette player or the radio listening to my favorite sounds of music, while my popular sister whom I shared the bedroom with hugged the telephone lines in our living room. Paul McCartney would croon me with his ballad “My Love”, or I’d listen to Keith Carradine strum the guitar and render his unforgettable “I’m Easy”..
It’s not my way to love you just when no one is looking
It’s not my way to take your hand when I’m not sure
-o-o-
I can’t put bars on my insides
My love is something I can’t hide
It still hurts when I recall the times I’ve tried..
– “I’m Easy” by Keith Carradine, 1976
One of the best mellow rock love song I’ve ever listened to begins with “ Love em and leave em / Give them the air/ Hurt and deceive them/ Say you don’t care.” As a young girl who couldn’t easily assimilate the vocalizations of most English songs, I had scrambled to all the magazine stands searching for the songbook that contained its whole lyrics. Penned and sang by a band from Vancouver, the song didn’t get as big as it should have been in the US because it was released during the disco era. Stonebolt’s “I Will Still Love You” which manifests of inexplicable pure, unconditional romantic love also professes of undying devotion beyond logic and reasons from here to eternity. Beautiful.
Funny how reality often can’t match the splendor of love portrayed in some songs.
And there was this time when I tuned in to 99.5 RT, the only station here then that played American and British pop songs, the whole day for several weeks waiting for the DJ to play Benny Mardones’ cult hit “Into The Night”. It graced the Billboards in the early 80s only to come back to the charts a decade later to the delight of its fans once more (including myself of course).
In the 60s, my taste could only go as far as The Beatles and a few memorable classics. I believe the inclusion of synthesizers, harmonizers and other groundbreaking electronic sound enhancers at the start of the 1970s made a whole lot of difference to the sound of pop music.
My father introduced me to some musical great artists when one night he brought home long playing albums of The Carpenters, Santana, and Dionne Warwick, who originally sang most of the compositions of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David tandem. From that time on, I got hooked. “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?”,“ I Say A Little Prayer”, and “April Fools” were just some of my all-time faves that got me singing and humming before going to my class every morning in highschool.
By the way, I don’t sing very well. That’s a given. But I had my share of entertaining in another form in my younger years. Together with my siblings, I, in all my painful shyness, and sometimes in near tears yet armed with unspeakable bravado, provided entertainment per my mother’s nudge at every clan parties and gatherings by performing dance numbers. Preceded by numerous practice, my brother, sister and I would synchronize our moves to the grooving beat of Kool and The Gang’s “Get Down On It”, “Back In Love Again” by TLD, Billy Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen” and many others.
These days all three of us would laugh whenever we reminisce on what we call our Burn Baby Burn (Disco Inferno) era.
In hindsight, those times gave me a wonderful appreciation for disco music and the art of dancing, which I still carry up to these days. Growing up, my son has gotten used to seeing his mom dance whenever she hears a favorite dance tune.
As Casey Kasem’s baby during the late 1970s up to the late 1980s, Sunday afternoons had me glued to the radio anticipating the position of my favorite songs within the Top 40. Musical greats I had delighted in during those eras included The Eagles, David Gates & Bread, Elton John, Hall & Oates, Wham with George Michael, Ray Parker & Radio, etc. and yes, I was a fan of Madonna earlier in her career. Blondie with Deborah Harry, aside from their trip to the light fantastic rock tunes, had me desiring to copy her foxy fashion sense as well.
My favorites had also included one hit wonders like My Sharona by The Knack, Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Baby Come Back by Players, Keep On Lovin You by REO Speedwagon, etc. All deliriously worth listening to.
I felt kind of smug and cool for being up-to-date at that time when my country wasn’t as exposed to American and British music as it is now.
Surrounded by a profusion of these delightful rhythms and haunting melodies, I continue to bask on this no-fail panacea that certainly transcends time spans. Wasn’t it only yesterday when Andy Gibb slowly rocked his way into my heart singing “I Just Want To Be Your Everything? ”
Enrapturing my heart and soul combined, some songs I had imagined were written and meant just for me. To serenade me with their endearing melodies and the timeless beauty of their words. Indeed the finest luxury for my sentient spirit.
Music and me, no doubt, will stay together, till infinity do us part..
Bohemian Sentiments 