Song of the day (19th November) – Mikromusic – “Takiego Chłopaka” (A Boyfriend Like This).

Here’s another Polish song I have for you.

I used to have very mixed feelings about it, and I’ve seen quite a few different interpretations of what it really is about, including that it shows all men as being awful or that women are super picky. I liked the sound of it immediately when I heard it. It’s trip-hop but the song has a bit of a folksy feel and I liked that it was sort of ironic and humourous. The song is about a woman who wants a boyfriend, and she has a whole list of what he should not be, looks like she’s such an idealist and wants just someone very exceptional who only has good traits. Yet something in this song really stung me, ’cause on her list of things he cannot be is “not a Pole”. I mean, it’s completely okay not to want to have a Polish boyfriend, even if you’re Polish, but the whole list was made up of various negative things and “not a Pole” thrown in-between, it made it look very bad and very offensive to me, and I’m sure could feel even more so to Polish guys. And I’ve seen many other people finding it controversial too.

But these days I think this song does not contain any anti-Polish messages. I think you can see this song in two ways, depending if you are an optimist or a pessimist, although I have no idea what Natalia Grosiak – the vocalist and author of the lyrics – had in mind writing this song. If you are an optimist, you can think that the girl speaking in the song is very young, romantic, idealistic and picky to begin with. She wants someone who won’t change her life overly and will just be perfectly the way she imagined him. Then, as the song progresses, she changes her mind. She decides that “yes, give me a boy who is ugly, who is a bit crazy, who has his weaknesses”. She finds someone that she loves despite the traits in him that are difficult and she happily accepts the fact that there are no perfect people and that there is no way to fall in love with someone who is perfect. If you are a pessimist, you can see this song as showing how bad life can be and often is. You begin with having dreams and hopes and wanting someone special and perfect. Only that, as you gain more experience in life and in relationships, instead of happily accepting that we all have weaknesses and it’s okay and finding someone whose weaknesses are complementary with yours and you are able to live with him the way he is, as it should be in a proper romantic movie with a happy end, you give up. Because whoever you’ll choose, it will be difficult and nothing will work out the way you want. You don’t care what he’s like anymore, maybe not even whether you love him, you just want someone and you know you have very limited choice.

Despite I am a pessimist, in this particular song I have a feeling the optimistic theory looks better not only because it’s more pleasant. It’s just easier for me to imagine such a scenario. Personally I’d rather be lonely than look for all means for whoever to be my boyfriend, even if he is a drunkard to whom I don’t feel anything.

So, here are the lyrics that I’ve translated and the song.

 

Mr Fate, please give me someone who won’t stir the water in my pond
Someone who won’t fade away like a bad dream
When there are no more fish in my pond

Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?
Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?

Give me a boyfriend
Not a crazy one, give
Not a smoker
Not a poor one, give
Not a drunkard
Not a Pole, give
Not an ugly one

Send me a boyfriend
not a crazy one, give
Not a dodge
not a clown, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not a poor one
Send me

Mr Fate, please give me someone who won’t pick all the roses from my garden
Someone who won’t eat all the apples
and run away overseas

Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?
Where will I find someone so
beautifully kind?

Give me a boyfriend
Not a crazy one, give
Not a smoker
not a poor one, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not an ugly one

Send me a boyfriend
not a crazy one, give
Not a dodge
not a clown, give
Not a drunkard
not a Pole, give
Not a poor one

Send me a boyfriend
Give me a Pole
yes, I want a crazy one!
I want a drunkard
Yes, give me a strongman
An ugly one
Yes, give me a Pole

Send me a boyfriend
a boyfriend like this
a boyfriend like this
a boyfriend like this
like this

Lykke Kristine Moen – “Fordi Eg Elsker Deg” (Because I love You).

Hi! 🙂

Today I have a cover for you. A cover of “Make You Feel My Love” by Bob Dylan, only not in English but in Norwegian. Just like there are lots of versions of this song in English, there are also a fair few in Norwegian, as it seems, and I chose the one by Lykke Kristine Moen. Of course the lyrics are slightly different to fit the melody, hence the different title for example, but mostly they make the same sense as the original.

Song of the day (12th August) – Loreena MCKennitt – “Annachie Gordon”.

Hi hi hi lovely people! 🙂

It feels like I haven’t written anything in quite a while again, so let’s first catch up on some music, as I haven’t posted any music for a particularly long time.

I’d like to show you a few songs of one of my very first favourite Celtic music singers – Loreena MCKennitt. – Alongside Enya, Aine Minogue and a few others, she was keeping me sane during a time that was particularly difficult emotionally in my life, and she was one of the first artists associated with Celtic but also generally folk music that I’ve started to listen to a lot, and one of the first harpists whose music I’ve heard. I really like her dramatic soprano, my friend Jacek from Helsinki loved her and he used to say her voice is chil inducing, it indeed is very very expressive. I love the wide range of inspirations Loreena uses in her music, she’s not only into Celtic music but also oriental music, she has adapted various poems or pieces of literary work into pieces of music or has written her own music inspired by literature, legends, myths, historical/legendary figures etc. It’s like her each album has a bit of a theme that is going on throughout the album. I like how self-sufficient she is. Apart from being a singer, songwriter, composer and harpist, she has also her own record label – Quinlan Road – and also plays a few other instruments other than harp, she’s her own manager and seems to like running the show just on her own. And I like her harp play so very much. She’s one of the better Celtic harpists out there in my opinion.

Loreena MCKennitt is from Canada, she has Irish and Scottish roots (and her father’s name was JACK! that explains everything, doesn’t it? 😉 ) and she currently lives in Ontario.

The song I want to show you in this post is a ballad called “Annachie Gordon”. If I remember well, this is one of the balads in the collection of Child’s Ballads, and it is English. I like many contemporary versions of this piece but Loreena’s is the best, because of her vocals and because of the magnificent harp! It was also the first version of this song I’ve heard, and I immediately fell in love with it. The plot of the ballad is quite, um, cliche, and now as I’m older than when I discovered “Annachie Gordon” it’s hard for me to listen to it without my sarcastic brain commenting and criticising the storyline (I basically think looking at it from these days perspective, the heroine, Jeannie, makes an impression of someone quite manipulative, I understand her pain when she was faced with having to live being married to a man she didn’t love instead of her beloved Annachie, but the scene where she falls on her knees before her father and dies looks, well, yeah, manipulative, you start to wonder if she’s going to suddenly rise up as soon as everyone leaves her alone and run away with Annachie as far from lord Sulton and her family as possible. 😀 I know, I know, I’m crazy and overanalysing). I also think life would be so easy if we really could just switch off and die when life throws sh*t at us as in the case of Jeannie and Annachie. But well, it is a ballad. And still, it is a beautiful one. I remember being absolutely fascinated by it, and for some reason because of it I really loved the name Annachie, which, you must admit, is a very unusual name, I’ve never heard in any other context or on anyone other than Annachie Gordon. I’ve even named a character in one of my short stories Annachie after him. Though now my tastes have changed and I think it lacks masculinity and looks like a fancy elaboration of Anna in the style of Annalee or Annamae, but of the more kreativ kind. 😀 Well, I guess it was apparently recreated from some old feminine name actually. Anyway, here’s the song. Hope you’ll enjoy it too. 🙂

Jac Richards ft. Clary Saddler – “Only Love”.

Hi hi people! 🙂

Today I have something very very unusual for you! In some respects, I think it’s more out of the box than anything I’ve ever shared with you in the song of the day series. It actually appears so niche that I had a little bit of doubt if I actually should. But, while even BBC was writing about him on their website, and he’s been talked about a little bit around the Internet, it feels like the echo wasn’t too big, so I thought it deserves sharing, even just to show what sort of things disabled people can do with the right support, I know for many people that would seem unbelievable.

But what am I talking about. Jac Richards is a 22-year-old boy from Llangennech, Wales (yeah, a Jac from Wales, that’s my territory) who has a severe form of cerebral palsy. In his case, that means he can’t walk, speak, sit or use his hands. He is though well developed intellectually and his senses function properly. Jac has always loved music and going for concerts and his biggest dream was to be able to make music. His dream has become achievable thanks to Forget-Me-Not Productions, who are an UK organisation helping disabled people to express themselves through arts with the use of assistive technologies. They made it possible for Jac to study music and film production and he is able to create music using his eye muscles.

The funny thing is that I read about Jac yesterday… on a Polish website! 😀 Really! I’m always into quirky music undertakings that people make so I just had to look his single up, and read more about him. You can read more about him here

and here.

By the way, I’ve recently noticed some particular tendency that there are quite a few inspirational disabled people in Wales that have been talked about recently in media or such, even in Polish media, although it could be just that I pay more attention to it or something.

Anyway, Jac wrote the lyrics to his song – which is called “Only Love” – he also composed and produced it, and played all the virtual instruments. The director of Forget-Me-Not Productions is a vocalist in this piece.

I must say that it felt rather odd to me when I listened to it for the first time. It feels highly electronified (does such a word exist? Don’t care 😀 ) which shouldn’t be a big discovery since of course all the instruments in there were electronic and it’s bordering on R&B, but, even though I do like some electronic music, even very electronic at times, what exactly bothered me in it the first time I listened to it was that it felt kind of overdone. Like, too much of everything at once, a bit chaotic, I’d say subtly aggressive even! But there was something haunting about it! I sometimes have such songs that I don’t really feel convinced to but still there is something that will make want to listen to them again. And so I had a few listens to it so far, and I must say it’s grown on me. I guess the impression of it being overdone was just temporary. There’s indeed plenty of strong emotions (how couldn’t there be, it’s Jac’s first single and I can imagine that, not being able to speak, music is now a huge emotions releaser). So, while it doesn’t feel exactly my style, and doesn’t strike exactly that special chord in my brain, I do like it! And, since that single was made last year, I’d really like to hear something else from him, I really hope we will be able to enjoy more of his music, and that more people will know about him.

Question of the day.

Hi guys. 🙂

Here’s another question I have for you.

Who was the first non-relative you said “I live you” to?

My answer:

Emmmm. Misha? 😀 … I don’t know! I’m not one for saying that too often and to just anyone, the more that it’s such an overrated phrase nowadays as if just plain saying “I love you” really meant something in the grand scheme of things. And I’m generally not too good at expressing my emotions, it’s quite a problem for me still. Also, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship, so I’ve never had a chance to use it in that context. That doesn’t mean of course that I haven’t loved anyone who wouldn’t be my relative, but, as far as I can remember anyway, I simply never told them that, for different reasons, usually just because it makes you vulnerable. I’ve had friends who would tell me in this or that way that they love me, like you love a friend, and then I’d say the same if I did love them like that too, but I don’t think I’ve ever said “I love you” as such to anyone other than my family and Mishmish, who is also my family, so doesn’t count here separately of course.

How about you? 🙂

Grace Petrie – “Iago”.

This is a relatively new artist for me, she is a folk vocalist, and she seems to write very interesting lyrics, often about politics or social stuff that – I think – aren’t too easy to write about in songs. Grace Petrie is from Leicester, and she is also an avid Shakespeare fan, and this song has been inspired by Shakespeare’s play “Othello”, more exactly the main antagonist Iago, the one who was supposed to be Othello’s best friend and manipulated him. The Iago in Grace Petrie’s song is more like a metaphor, it’s about insecurities that people struggle with in their love life, and Iago is a personification of those insecurities, so it’s like each of us has our own Iago who’s telling us bullshit. I really like this Shakespeare inspired metaphor! And the song is fabulous!

Kate Rusby – “Let The Cold Wind Blow”.

Hi guys. 🙂

Here’s another of my most favourite songs by Kate Rusby. I think it’s one of the most melancholic, at least musically, songs that I’ve ever heard, and the lyrics are also touching especially because of Kate’s expressiveness. The song is from the point of view of a ghost, who is witnessing that the love of his life no longer loves him and both she and the man she now loves live on his land. While I am not extremely fond of paranormal novels with ghosts or stuff like that, for some reason I find folk songs written from a ghost’s perspective very touching and interesting. I’ve shared another quite similar one in a way some time ago, it’s

“Nightvisitor” by Jim Moray.

I think they are both very evocative though in a bit different ways.