Singing

Where do you supposed we humans got our ideas about music as a way to communicate?

Mexican gray wolf Hélène

Something Of An Anthem

She's imperfect, but she tries
She is good, but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won't ask for help

She is messy, but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up
And baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine

Shoshana Bean, from the musical adaptation, Waitress, by Sarah Bareilles

Lady Day

Real, soul-crushing tragedy was part of Billie Holiday's life, and some would certainly hypothesize that it's what really drives anyone who inhabits The Blues the way a Billie Holiday could.

But that drama doesn't have to be a defining thing. For humans, it can be a strong colorative aspect, and have a deep important influence, but it almost never actually defines the person completely.

We're just kind of amazing that way.

How It Should Be

How it was once, and how it can be again.

Carson McKee - Covering Jesse Collin Young - Sunlight

250 Years Ago

Beethoven was born in 1770. He's recorded baptized on December 17th, but no one is sure as to the actual date of his birth.

So, I'm a little late, but happy birthday, Ludwig.

Today's Tune

Kings Return - God Bless America.

The last chord is killer. It sounds just the right kind of tension. Because even though this America is a truly amazing and beautiful and majestic place, there's lots of work to do. Because there's always lots of work to do in a country founded on the basic premise of just moving the thing forward - towards "a more perfect union". Not perfect - more perfect.

We're never done with that work because we were never supposed to be done with it. There's always an expectation - it's always "OK, what's next?"

Our song is never done.

Classical

Line Rider - In The Hall Of The Mountain King - Edvard Grieg

Testing

Just wanting to see if I can embed a whole play list from YouTube.

New Tune

Scott Cook and The She'll Be Rights

Leave A Light On

Play Me

You think you can sing, do ya? Can you yodel in harmony?

Gotta Be Something Left

Gillian Welch - One Little Song

Redemption Is Where You Find It

NewsLetter (pay wall - you're allowed a few freebies):

Her emotional saviour, even in her bleakest moments, has always been music.

And, boy, can she sing. Having supported the likes of Van Morrison and Nanci Griffith, Kaz has toured extensively across the world and has a buoyant following.

One of her songs - Lipstick and Cocaine - has become an internet sensation - detailing the abuse she suffered at the hands of a former partner. He slit her throat with a kitchen knife (the scar is still shockingly very visible).

‘It was six years of torment and abuse, physical horror. But I felt that was all I was worth,’’ she says of the abusive relationship. ‘‘He nearly killed me more times than enough.’’

‘‘Through the beatings and everything that he done, I just kept saying to myself - ‘Go on Kaz, you keep going - there will be moment when you can get free’.’’

The time came, when he tried to kill her.

She says: ‘‘I lay, and as graphic as it is, I saw the blood rising - that’s when my mum’s face came to me from the grave. Whether I was hallucinating or not, I don’t care, it saved me and she said ‘Come on honey, one more fight - you can do this, get up, get to the phone’.

‘‘He had kicked me unconscious, but the policeman got me and I woke up the next day in the hospital and the doctor said to me ‘do you know what you’ve done to yourself?’’

Sickeningly, her partner told the medical team that she had cut her own throat.

In the video for Lipstick and Cocaine, filmed in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, tears trickle down her face as she sings so emotively about the experience.

She says the song is a thank you to the doctor and policeman who saved her.

‘‘At last someone believed me,’’ she says.

The audience, too, are deeply affected by her unabashed emotion

Every line packs an emotional wallop- a lifetime’s hurt magically condensed into three minutes.

It is an immaculate, gut-wrenching, miserable and wonderful song.


Kaz Hawkins:

Deep Breath, Everybody

It's hard. Nothing but bad news and fuckups trying to blow sunshine up our skirts. But we have to try.

Breathe. Relax. Chill.

A Song

Don't Call Yourself A Christian -- Eric Schwartz

This Was A Long Time Comin'

The Founding Fathers Sing

New Shit

So this is more than a little weird. Two of my least favorite genres come together to make something that I like.

GangstaGrass.

And now my brain hurts.

This New Thing

...isn't new at all.

The Doomed
A Perfect Circle

Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word

And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude
"Good luck, you're on your own"

Blessed are the fornicates
May we bend down to be their whores
Blessed are the rich
May we labor, deliver them more

Blessed are the envious
Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain
Blessed are the gluttonous
May they feast us to famine and war

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
All doomed
All doomed

Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word

And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude: "Good luck"

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous? What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?

Source: LyricFind

A Perfect Circle

Tune For The Day

That's How Every Empire Falls - (John Prine) cover RB Morris

A bitter wind blows through the country
A hard rain falls on the sea
If terror comes without a warning
There must be something we don't see
What fire begets this fire?
Like torches thrown into the straw
If no one asks, then no one answers
That's how every empire falls.

Seasonal Tunes

Make a joyful noise, bitches.

That Song

That Song In Every Musical That No One Likes --Sara Smallwood Parsons