Frou-Frou – It’s Good To Be In Love – Details

Australia so far is defining itself by a lack of emotional extremity and I’m not feeling anything special music-wise. Unless I can find a song about credit card debt, which I am throwing myself into with delight, life is pretty easy.

This has been one of my favourite songs ever since I first heard it, and it gets regular playback. I was just about to write on my regular blog about how strange it feels to not be in love, when the irony of the fact that I just put “It’s good to be in love” to play on iTunes hit me. Being in love sucks. And this song confirms that.

My whole body is currently rejecting drama. I tried to puke the chocolate cake I ate for breakfast (why the fuck I thought that cake would be a good idea I don’t know) but my body is hardened and won’t vomit. I could feel my stomach clamp down on it, wrestling with me, determined to keep its food, unhealthy or not. And I suppose it has a point. What’s most unhealthy, a piece of chocolate cake, or throwing up cake?

And my heart is the same. It’s pointing out that boys are a waste of space. I was on a road trip with two lovely, cute, funny, clever boys, for a whole day, and yet I couldn’t get myself to flirt and charm. I couldn’t do it. Just like when I was bent over the toilet earlier, poking away at my tonsils, trying to coax the food back up, and yet it would not come. I tried desperately to coax my charms out, to put myself out, but there was no self to put out. I was happy just sitting in the back of the car snoozing and embroidering.

I like it. It’s weird but I like it. I’m finally a whole, just me. Complete.

I don’t know where to start
Say I’m tired or throw a party
These cucumber eyes are lying the more that I smile about it
And all of my clothes feel like somebody’s old throwaways
I don’t like it

It’s good to be in love
It really does suit you
Just like everything
I’m happy you’re in love
‘Cause every colour goes where you do

I’m adoring you
It’s all good
You’re so beautiful
I’m black and blue all over
You’re breaking my flow
How could you know what I’m saying all about it
When all of my clothes feel like somebody’s old throwaways
I don’t like it

It’s good to be in love
It really does suit you
Just like everything
I’m happy you’re in love
‘Cause every colour goes where you do

I feel so powerless
I’ve got to stop it somehow
Oh come on what can I do?
Why’s it happening
How’s it happening without me
Why’s it happening
How’s it happening that he feels it without me

It’s good to be in love
It really does suit you
Just like everything
I’m happy you’re in love
‘Cause every colour goes where you do

Amy Winehouse – I Heard Love is Blind – Frank

I couldn’t resist him
His eyes were like yours
His hair was exactly the shade of brown
He’s just not as tall, but I couldnt tell
It was dark and I was lying down
You are everything he means nothing to me
I can’t even remember his name

Why’re you so upset?
Baby, you weren’t there
And I was thinking of you when I came
What do you expect?
You left me here alone;
I drank so much and needed to touch
Don’t overreact
I pretended he was you
You wouldn’t want me to be lonely

How can I put it so you understand?
I didn’t let him hold my hand
But he looked like you;
I guess he looked like you
No he wasn’t you
But you can still trust me, this ain’t infidelity
It’s not cheating; you were on my mind
Yes he looked like you
But I heard love is blind

Yes, more Amy. But I love her music and I love her songs, and I identify so much with her, and this song is great. It’s so humourous, and it’s a great “Girls can do it too ya know” song. I haven’t been updating these last 10 days because I just haven’t been hearing as much music as I am used to hearing; I have been living on a sofa in Melbourne and it’s hardly convenient. But I’ll be moving into my own place in a week and a half… soon I’ll be back in form.

The Killers – Everything Will Be Alright – Hot Fuss

I am having the shittiest day. Week. Month. No not true, just this week. But there are good things. Including laying in Shizuo’s arms listening to the Killers. I wish I didn’t have to leave him behind. 48 hours till Melbourne, exactly.

Tu tu
Tudu
I believe in you and me
I’m coming to find you
If it takes me all night
Wrong until you make it right
And I won’t forget you
At least I’ll try
And run, and run tonight
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright

Lalalalala
Aw aw
I wasn’t shopping for a doll
to say the least, I thought I’d seen them all
But then you took me by surprise
I’m dreaming ’bout those dreamy eyes
I never knew, I never knew
So take your suitcase, ’cause I don’t mind
And baby doll, I meant it every time
You don’t need to compromise
I’m dreaming ’bout those dreamy eyes
I never knew, I never knew
But it’s alright
Alright

Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Will be alright

The Cardigans – Starter – Gran Turismo

I used to pull this song out with clockwork regularity. It used to be poignantly true, oh so very true. After all, I am constantly having new beginnings; at the ages of 6, 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and now 24, I chucked in everything I knew and started over afresh.

But this is the first time that I feel like Starter isn’t the right song for my new start.

This is the age
when my past should be gone
but it’s just stronger than the aims I have

I’ve reached it at last — that age. My past is gone. S. was the last vestige of the old me. Now I have aims, and the past is no longer interfering. Recently, and particularly today, I have felt with utmost confidence that I *can* and *will* do what I love as a career. I am going to get there. Whether in Melbourne or Taipei or London or wherever. I can do it. I have aims. I have ideas, for research, for work, for everything. I can do this and I will.

Lifetimes of changes
a strange generation
explanations never come in time

It came. Not an explanation as such, but he gave it to me. He gave me the answers I needed, in time. I’m moving on. It’s over. I’m going to miss having someone to think when I listen to music. But he won’t be there anymore. He’s now part of the past.

Starter was such a negative way to start a new beginning — because it wasn’t a song about starting and beginning, it was a song about running away from the present and taking refuge, making excuses, in the past. This is my 10th new beginning. It feels right. I really feel, clicheed as it may sound, that it is the beginning of the rest of my life. It’s the last new beginning, because when I leave Australia, and the next country after that, I won’t be running away. I’ll still be listening to the same CD, just a different track!

This is a start
that I know I’ll believe in
so I’m leaving everything behind
Keeping the parts
that I know I’ll be needing
and I breed to be a better kind

And I’m leaving everyone behind

This is the age
when my past should be gone
but it’s just stronger than the aims I have
Turning the pages
I used to hang on to
I was young and I have changed my mind

And I’m leaving everything behind

New beginning again
a bit closer
new beginning again
a little bit closer
New beginning again
a bit closer to the end

This is the time
it’s a delicate line
to the beginning of what’s yet to come
Lifetimes of changes
a strange generation
explanations never come in time

So I’m leaving everything behind

Frou-Frou – Old Piano – Details

What’s that you’re saying there, oh well
rain rushing window pane, oh well,
not sure what space I’m in, oh well
but I’m safe inside me here, oh well…

lying here…

rain…
rain…
It’s been raining all afternoon… I’ve had my phone switched off and this song on and I’ve been hiding from the world. Packing and thinking, eating and thinking.
quiet and quieter
I love this video someone made, it fits perfectly within this song. I hunted down the original story and it is good too. Makes me think about what I want and what he hasn’t given me and what I have to accept.

Stereophonics – Goldfish Bowl – Word Gets Around

I’ve not been recovering too well from all this birthday celebrating. I think the ketamine pushed me over the edge, even though, sad addict that I am, I’d give up all the rest, the 4 solid days of partying and drinking and friends and gorgeous dresses, just for more k instead.

I’m so ready for Australia, I feel really overwhelmed by the whole Taiwan affair and I just want to get out of here now. Friends have become a drag, a responsibility, an impediment. Ally needs to leave me some space to breathe. JS needs to work out his priorities. I need to pack. I think tomorrow I might just switch off my phone. Damn Facebook getting in the way though… *sigh* And work! Christ, why the fuck is work so depressingly… nah shut up dear. Work is ok, if I’m going to be sleeping in in the morning, then I can go out after work instead.

I love this album. I’m always surprised that it doesn’t get more recognition, because to be honest, I think it’s a classic — one of those albums where every single song is amazing. I love it, I’ve been listening to it for almost exactly ten years and I’m still not tired of it.

Goldfish Bowl is not one of my all-time favourites on the album. Usually I hear it but don’t really listen too carefully to it, preferring most of the other songs, which I know the lyrics to. This evening I’ve been thinking and self-loathing and writing my other journals and such… this came on and there are a few perfect lines…
The hall down town just burnt to the ground,
My boxing ring turned to ash,
Red-head, ginger bread, sells tickets at the door,
Stella sleep walks in the sand

I feel like my world, my show, my fight just suddenly dissolved beneath me and suddenly I, the redhead, fake display of sweetness, knocking back beer after beer, snorting line after line, am lost, disoriented, confused, I’m drinking, sinking, swimming, I’m drowning, working, smirking, learning, I’m burning, sleeping, thieving, cheating, beating, I’m eating, I’m deep in a goldfish bowl…

I’ve been through this before and I’ll be fine in a couple of days. The longing for ketamine will dull, the longing for S. will dull, the pain will dull, and soon it will be time to pack my bags and pull on my party shoes again in a new city. Find a new goldfish bowl…

Same long faces in the work-mans hall,
Caramel Crisp counts his birds,
Cliff Chips lines up his dominoes,
Kingfisher lead singer calms his nerves

I’m drinking, sinking, swimming,
I’m drowning, working, smirking, learning,
I’m burning, sleeping, thieving, cheating,
Beating, I’m eating, I’m deep in a goldfish bowl,
It’s sink or swim

The hall down town just burnt to the ground,
My boxing ring turned to ash,
Red-head, ginger bread, sells tickets at the door,
Stella sleep walks in the sand

I’m drinking, sinking, swimming,
I’m drowning, working, smirking, learning,
I’m burning, sleeping, thieving, cheating,
Beating, I’m eating, I’m deep in a goldfish bowl,
It’s sink or swim,
Looking in, They’re looking in

Hard up, outta luck, time to ride the village bike,
A bike been used ten times or more,
Grape vine, here’s the wife, lays down her royal flush,
I think I’ve lost another wife

I’m drinking, sinking, swimming,
I’m drowning, working, smirking, learning,
I’m burning, sleeping, thieving, cheating,
Beating, I’m eating, I’m deep in a goldfish bowl,
It’s sink or swim,
They’re looking in, its sink or swim

Maria Mena – Just Hold Me – Apparently Unaffected

Comfortable as I am
I need your reassurance
And comfortable as you are
You count the days

But if I wanted silence
I would whisper
And if I wanted loneliness
I’d choose to go
And if I liked rejection
I’d audition
And if I didn’t love you
You would know

And why can’t you just hold me
And how come it is so hard
And do you like to see me broken
And why do I still care
still care

You say you see the light now
At the end of this narrow hall
I wish it didn’t matter
I wish I didn’t give you all

But if I wanted silence
I would whisper
And if I wanted loneliness
I’d choose to go
And if I liked rejection
I’d audition
And if I didn’t love you
You would know

And why can’t you just hold me
And how come it is so hard
And do you like to see me broken
And why do I still care

Poor little misunderstood baby
No one likes a sad face
But I can’t remember life without him
I think I did have good days
I think I did have good days

And why ….
Why can’t you just hold me
And how come it is so hard
And do you like to see me broken
And why do I still care

This is my favourite song today, for two different reasons. I found this posted as a video in a blog I read, and the first 4 lines were like a punch to the stomach.

I have been worrying myself sick about Gray and why he wasn’t talking to me. Although this is a love song, our love is a different love, love different from that a boyfriend and girlfriend have. He’s my best friend and we have been such for the last 4 and a half years. And yet this last couple of weeks, at a time where I really needed some reassurance and a sign of his love, I felt that he was avoiding me, and that when we did talk, he was kind of annoyed by me.

Only in the end, this afternoon I talked to him about it and he was surprised and ever so lovely. I cried a little into my laptop as we spoke on MSN. I was so relieved. Gray I love you and I hope things never change! I’m sorry for being a paranoid over-reacting baby.

Rachel Sage – Sistersong – Morbid Romantic

I’m loving girls at the moment. I love them, and I love my sister, and I love the shared sisterhood and bonding between girls which you get nowhere else. This evening I met a wonderful girl, and I think she is absolutely amazing and I am hoping that we will be friends in Melbourne. She has given me the comfort and the reassurance and the friendliness and the overall… sisterly love and support that boys just can’t provide.

Last night I went out with a pack of boys and did my usual Scarlett Showdown. But tonight… the girls brought me so much more than the guys ever can.
Leaving Taiwan is bringing me a confidence, a freedom from men. I don’t want to get involved with any of them because I don’t want to relive an S. drama, don’t want to waste a year pining for someone — because I can’t be sure that won’t happen. Guys are throwing themselves at me and when they hit the glass wall, they get all butthurt and sad, and accuse me of thinking too much and making things complicated.

So it may seem to them. But this is the simple way out. My sisters and me.

This year was meant to be the year of the woman. I was 23, the age my mother was when she had me, I thought that it was the year where I would transition from girl to woman. It was the year of sex — of taking back sex, of getting rid of “fucking” and ending one night stands which left me feeling cheap and used. I have such high hopes for the next year. I’m going to throw my birthday party in a week, but in fact I will be celebrating the end of this year, my 24th year, which was not a bad year all in all, all years are good… but I will be shedding off the sadness and the dependance and the silent misery and the desperate hoping for a man to save me.

This is the year where my friends will come first. Last year my friends were behind me, propping me up, keeping me going. This year, the friends I haven’t even met yet, well they will come first. I am determined to have fun, to be happy and to not let anyone get in the way of my happiness. My new aim in life is not to find a man, it’s to make people happy, to be fun to be with. To have so many friends that I’ll never notice the boys.

Everybody’s looking over your shoulder
Seems they can’t wait to hear what’s next
Everybody’s saying she’s looking older
Could it be there is a cruel subtext to

All this endless adulation
All this reckless infatuation and

I will stay with you tonight in
Case this corset gets too tight and
I will keep you company cause
That’s what a sister should be

So they said it was the year of the woman
I believe it was the year of sex
Maybe this’ll be the year of the human
Maybe that would be a bit complex for

All these endless aberrations
From meaningful expectations and

I will stay with you tonight in
Case this corset gets too tight and
I will keep you company cause
That’s what a sister should be

Everybody’s looking under your mattress
Seems they can’t wait to find that pea
Maybe you were never quite the princess
Everybody was afraid you’d be and

All these endless presentations
Must affect your concentration so

I will stay with you tonight in
Case this corset gets too tight and
I will keep you company cause
That’s what a sister should be

Amy Winehouse – What is it about men? – Frank

Understand once he was a family man
so surely I would never, ever go through it first hand
Emulate all the shit my mother hated
I can’t help but demostrate my Freudian fate
My alibi for taking your guy
history repeats itself, it fails to die
and animal agression is my downfall
I don’t care ’bout what you got I want it all

It’s bricked up in my head, it’s shoved under my bed
and I question myself again: what is it ’bout men?
My destructive side has grown a mile wide
and I question myself again: what is it ’bout men?
What is it about men?

I’m nurturing, I just wanna do my thing
and I’ll take the wrong man as naturally as I sing
and I’ll save my tears for uncovering my fears
for behavioural patterns that stick over the years

It’s bricked up in my head, it’s shoved under my bed
and I question myself again: what is it ’bout men?
My destructive side has grown a mile wide
and I question myself again: what is it ’bout men?

I’m in an Amy Winehouse phase (recently it was the Killers, but they correspond to a more desperate and unhappy state of mind). I’d write about almost every Amy Winehouse song I have but I’ll only quote this one… regardless both Frank and Back to Black are excellent. What is it about men? I can’t ignore them, I can’t disregard them, I can’t stay away from them, even when they’re bad, even when they belong to someone else… I can’t stop staring, can’t stop talking, can’t stop smiling, can’t stop playing and pushing and giggling and wanting them, wanting all of them and all of each of them…

This isn’t my bblog so I won’t go more into that. But yeah… what is it about men…

Amy Winehouse – Wake up alone – Back to Black

It’s okay in the day I’m staying busy
Tied up enough so I don’t have to wonder where is he
Got so sick of crying
So just lately
When I catch myself I do a 180
I stay up clean the house
At least I’m not drinking
Run around just so I don’t have to think about thinking
That silent sense of content
That everyone gets
Just disappears soon as the sun sets

This face in my dreams seizes my guts
He floods me with dread
Soaked in soul
He swims in my eyes by the bed
Pour myself over him
Moon spilling in
And I wake up alone

If I was my heart
I’d rather be restless
The second I stop the sleep catches up and I’m breathless
This ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me and I cannot run now
My blood running cold
I stand before him
It’s all I can do to assure him
When he comes to me
I drip for him tonight
Drowning in me we bathe under blue light

His face in my dreams seizes my guts
He floods me with dread
Soaked in soul
He swims in my eyes by the bed
Pour myself over him
Moon spilling in
And I wake up alone
And I wake up alone
And I wake up alone
And I wake up alone

Maybe in a few months I’ll read this and smile at my foolishness, because Melbourne will have been nothing like I imagined… I’ll still be waking up alone and dreaming of S.

It gets better. But I don’t even want to let him go most of the time… and this is why I am looking forward so much to Melbourne and to getting the best of my old life and the best of my new life and nothing of him left.

But you know what? This is actually a nice song… because… I used to feel that way. And I don’t, not anymore. I still obsess… but there were nights like this, endless months of nights like this. And it’s no longer the case.