impy: tori from jackie's strength video (i believe)
  Final T&S day... til we cross streams again and get Mae Whitman in their I Was A Fool video. (If you have been enjoying my random flailing, I Was A Fool has a lyric video to tide you over til then. *cough*


   Our last song is also the last song on the album. Shock To Your System is the oddball on the record (yes. I am old) in that it sounds very little like any of the other songs. It also sounds like a record closer. I like my last song on any given album to go big. So big you feel the need to crank the volume way up and have your own mini concert right there, wherever you happen to be. Go big or go home, kids. And they do. Oh, do they.


  The other reason I love Shock to Your System (and consider it to be one of the three best songs to sing along to) is the lyrical content. It's sung as if someone is both sympathizing with the fact that hey, life just kicked you in the kneecaps again but it's time to drag yourself back up to your feet and start moving forward. It won't be easy, it won't be fun at first, but you've got to do it. So you need to climb out of your funk and get on with your life.
   And if you should need someone there to keep you going, well... you've got someone. Even if that someone is simply the part of you that wants to move past this. The great part of this is that's actually what was intended. Woo!




You got a shock to your system
knocked your heart right out of sync

you're only meant to hurt once in awhile
who gave you reason?
you're only meant to cry once in awhile
who gave you reason?

you got a shock to your system
pull yourself out of it
I know that shock to your system
knocked your heart right out of sync


what you are
what you are
what you are
what you are is
l o n e l y


you must rely on love once in awhile
to give you reason
you must rely on me once in awhile
to give you reason



I wrote the song as if it's from the perspective of someone singing the song to me.
So maybe it's like me now giving advice to myself back then.


---

  It's rarely fun to realize you've been living a bit of a cliché and that you were only partially aware of it at the time. I suppose that since I've become aware of it I'll better be able to actually deal with it instead of pretending. Though lord knows I'm good at pretending...

  I noticed that right after my father died I was unable to really concentrate on reading much of anything at all. This was somehow not a big surprise and also a huge shock all at the same time. On the one hand, of course I couldn't just sit here and read through someone else's fictional problems or concentrate on anything all that long because my mind was otherwise preoccupied with not falling apart. One foot in front of the other, keep the momentum going because someone had to keep it together and with the boy drinking and Mom having lost her husband and Widget being a child, I elected myself. It's not like I didn't realize there was no law that said someone had to be holding it together, or even that if I did come apart at the seams that someone else wouldn't step up to the challenge.
   It just didn't seem likely nor did it seem right.

So the trade-off was that I couldn't really read much beyond a whole shitton of BSC and SVH books. It was unusual because I barely remember a time when I didn't read to feel better or just because I enjoy it. I really don't think I need to remind anyone here but just in case: I am a big ol' book nerd. I love them. The feel, the smell, the crisp pages of a new book and the softer pages of a well loved books. I don't mind margin writing though I don't really suggest it for library books nor do I engage in it, but I do like the peek behind the curtain of whomever last owned the book. Books. I sort them for fun.

Having them not bring me much of any solace was not something I would have expected prior to going through the past two years, but as it was happening it made sense. Fiction has a way of killing people without necessarily dealing with the fallout in ways that should be read by someone who can't afford to just randomly start sobbing at work. No big deal.

While I didn't disappear into the books of my childhood, I did keep them around and I read through quite a few, skipping some of the really obvious ones that I figured would trigger a crying jag that might not end.

I was aware of cutting this bit of my normal happiness out of my life as it happened, though it wasn't really a conscious decision.

What I didn't realize until yesterday (though it had been bubbling up for awhile) was that I'd also cut out music. I can't claim to be a huge music person in that I know anything beyond "I like this" and I'm not a die hard "music is life!" person, but I will admit that it adds something to life.
And I cut it right out without much of a thought. I mourned the inability to read through the pain but I didn't even notice that while my brother would crank up his music to room shaking levels, my own music collection was literally collecting dust and not much more. Maybe at first I was afraid to connect any other songs to a time in my life I didn't really need any further reminders of, but it soon spiraled into not listening to much of anything at all.
  At the risk of sounding incredibly dippy, the right song adds some color into your world. Sometimes in a more literal sense (some songs/voices have colors) and sometimes it's just something people say that makes sense even if I can't really articulate why. Without it, life becomes a blur of grey.

So. Yeah. I'd walked right into the cliché of someone's death sucking the color out of my life. And I let it happen so thoroughly that it didn't even really ping on my radar until something eventually rushed in to fill the void.

The last two years have been filled with other people's music more often than not. Mums would pick the radio station more often than not, especially at home, Widget raided his father's music collection in a sense, and the boy leaned on Billy Joel for damn near a year, probably because the ride home from the hospital featured one of his songs and the ride there had as well, I believe. But aside from a few Tori songs played in the shower, my side of the musical conversation has been pretty quiet.

Until now.

And that's why I've been so enthusiastically sharing Heartthrob. Not just to annoy you, though that might be an added bonus.

And unrelated but.. )
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (no happy)
One more to go. Don't get too excited, k? I thought it was time to rip what's left of your heart out and stomp on it. Repeatedly.



If you start the song but feel it's not for you, do me a favor and wait it out. At the end the song goes from sadly paranoid to heart-wrenching.

If Closer got my attention, it was Now I'm All Messed Up (particularly the end) that cemented my absolute need to buy the whole damn album. About 3:21 or so, the song swerves into heartbreak city and never comes back out and you might find yourself weeping on the inside, just a little.

I'm a sucker for a sad song, I'm an even bigger sucker for a song that'll break your heart and is about heartbreak to boot (some sad songs aren't, you know?) so this is pretty much catnip to me. Like I said, I adore sad songs. They say so much.



why do you take me down this road if you don't want to walk with me?

now I'm sick inside wondering who,
whose life you're making worthwhile?

why do I take this lonely road, nobody here to walk with me?
don't want to start fresh all over again

go (please stay) go (please stay) go if you want, I can't stop you (you'll go if you want to)



You're screaming at someone to go but it's very obvious that you want them to stay.
And I was in a movie, how would I act? If there was rain involved...






In other news, yesterday was just a weird day for humanity. I don't understand how people can be so awful to one another or think so little of human life that they're willing to snuff it out so purposefully.
  On the flipside, you have people who more than rise to the occasion and instantly restore your faith in humanity. I think this might actually, legitimately be the fastest turnaround my heart has done in a case like this.
   For those keeping score at home, Widget came home yesterday evening and he was all abuzz about the bombings (that's such a weird phrase to ever have to utter and it breaks my heart that in some areas it's a common phrase) and I kind of marvelled in this completely freaked out way. This is a kid who still cannot watch Ghostbusters because he's afraid of Stay Puft, but this, this he's okay with? Then I remembered that there's a moment when you get your first seriously big news story that you find out about on your own and it's this weird mix of "there's an entire world out there!" where the terror is balanced by the awesomeness of that realization, no matter how horrible the event that might've prompted this realization.
Plus he got to know more than Mums who'd been away from any news outlets. So, there's that.

Proof that you should all be grateful I am not a foster mama to kittens: Cass is and she's got one girl kitty and three boys. The boys piled up on her to sleep and dude, I'd have named her Wendy and they'd be the Lost Boys because they need a mother. (Wasn't sure I'd need to explain that but um, just in case my mind works in mysterious ways.) Then she gets a fifth and I'll be damned if it's not taking all my control to not call him Johnny 5. Number 5!

What, it's just me?
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (prettyliars: happy hanna)
You know what we need? We need a straight-up love song. Yes? Yes! I'm pretty good at picking up various broken hearted songs but it's a lot more difficult for me to find an honest to God love song that isn't somehow sad. I've struggled with this deficiency since high school ("do you have anything that won't make me want to jump off the nearest bridge?") and oddly as the years go by, I think I've managed to lose more than I've gained. But only in this area, really. Go figure.

Anyway, one of my favorite lines for the entire album is lurking in Love They Say:

You don't need to worry
This love will make us worthy


How great is that?



The first time you held my hand
I knew I was meant for you
The first time you kissed my lips
I knew I was meant for you

Love, they say there's only one
Love, the kind that's not undone
Love, I know you are the one



I'm torn on this BTS video. On the one hand, told to write a love song. That just sounds weird, but I'm sure I have a terribly romanticized version of how songwriting actually happens. On the other hand, she does Serious Love Song Research (which makes me think of [livejournal.com profile] luxken27 when in her Research mode) and it's kind of hilarious how the song developed from said research.

And then we veer off into territory where I kind of cringe because it's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz and why do I even know this? But that prompts "People need guidance." and that's also worth the price of admission. (Which, incidentally, irks me when I say this to someone and they're like "but admission is free so..." Way to miss the point!)

Anyway, Love They Say is a sweet little song with one of the best lines ever and you're welcome for this grueling work of me gushing nonsensically and then sharing videos so you don't have to go out and find the song, the lyrics, and then the stories behind the songs. You are super welcome. It's okay.

Oh, and we use Hanna's happy icon because there's a picture of Ashley Benson meeting Tegan and Sara and it's adorable and the streams crossed and no one died yet, Egon.
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (MH: Lagoona mocks you)
Oh, universe. What is going on with you? First you're all:
 photo saysomethingfunny_zps11895678.gif
 photo somethingfunny_zps09809d0b.gif
  And I was okay with this because Bomb Girls is a fabulous show and I may be in love with Betty, but I'm pretty sure that's the point of the show. (You mean it isn't? Lies!)

And then you spring that T&S thing on me for Easter and I'm sure the rest of the people around me wish I'd move on but we're not done yet. However, out of respect for people, we'll just assume that you've got the picture musically.

And then yesterday during my random Golden Girls episode before bed, it was Isn't It Romantic which is the one where one must explain to Blanche the difference between Lebanese and Lesbian. :P

Alrighty, universe. You like things themed, do you?

But before bed (after GG we read), we cracked open our book (me, myself, and a pile of cat fur) and behold: character everyone assumes is gay but turns out not to be.

Oh, Universe. You're so... theme-party.

There was no point to this other than sometimes you just keep tripping over the same themes no matter where you go. In return for reading this, I offer you more proof of the pure joy that is Betty:
 photo tumblr_mjmz8mp0yy1r18uvso5_r1_250_zps3e910bb4.gif
impy: Claudia and Stacey from The Baby-Sitters Club at the beach (just beachy)
Soooooo, we continue our little jaunt through Tegan and Sara's Heartthrob album. I hope you're either enjoying this or hating it so much that each time I pop up you cringe a little. But I'll settle for apathy if I must. If I must!

Today being Sunday, we're going to loop back and pick up two songs. One I already gushed about to begin with and the other is technically our song for the day. Whee!

Song o the day is Goodbye, Goodbye. It's an incredibly upbeat kiss-off that, again, sounds right at home at the roller rink. My god, man. Break out the side ponies, lace up your skates, and let's go.

Only, y'know, not. Because I'd be the first one down. :p


I'm a sucker for songs that sound one way but lyrically are completely different than you'd expect. I happen to think it sounds upbeat, but I suppose your mileage may vary. Since you get a lyric video, I'll only share a few bits for funsies, but remember: actual song is less "woes!"

Goodbye, Goodbye
You never really knew me
never ever
never ever saw me,
saw me like they did
You never really loved me
never really
Never really loved me like they did


You could of told me goodbye
You let me try knowing there was nothing could do to change you
You could of warned me
Knowing there was nothing I could to do change you


But who is they? A third party to this dance? Friends who get you? That's what the muse is for, guys.


How is 'you never really knew me' kind of not like an asshole thing to say?
This song is sort of a rom-com.
Goodbye, Goodbye a song for they.



And now we swing back to Closer, which is a good chunk of the reason behind me buying the album. That's right. One song and I'm done. In my defense... it's a really happy making little song. Seriously, this is not a band known for super happy and warm and fuzzy things and this? This is all of those things and more.

It's definitely a song for that giddy first rush when you're busy falling head over heels whether you wanted to or not, and all you want to do is be around that other person. ♥

Vids! )
The night sky is changing overhead...
I won't treat you like you're oh so typical.



Well, I thought you were being a bit polite and Canadian...
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (feel this way)


Oh, hey. You wanted your heart ripped out of your chest and that in song form? Well, luckily for you, I've got something that I think qualifies as the why you get after a breakup you didn't instigate... and sometimes even for those as well.

How Come You Don't Want Me
I can't say that I'm sorry for getting so ahead of myself
I can't say that I'm sorry for loving you and hating myself
I had nothing to show you
I had nothing to hold you down
It's killing me to walk away

How come you don't want me now?
Why don't you want to wait this out?
How come you always lead me on
Never take my call, hear me out?
Why don't you wanna win me now?
Why don't you want to show me off?
Tell me why you couldn't try
Couldn't try and keep me here

I see you by my house walking with a different girl
I see you by my house talking with a different girl
She's got nothing to show you
She's got nothing to hold you down
You're killing me, walk away

One day soon I won't be the one who waits on you
Some day soon I won't be the one who waits on you



Personally, I believe that if you have never been either physically or emotionally curled up on the floor crying and wondering why don't you love me anymore, you are either the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet or you haven't done something right. This isn't to say that I think this condition should be permanent, nor do I think it has to mean you've fallen in love more than once. You could be the person who got them back and the world is sunshine and rainbows, possibly with a side order of lollipops.


But I think everyone kind of needs that moment of why otherwise you're going to end up saying or doing something that could get you hit with a frying pan and odds are good that jury is going to be filled with people who did get their hearts smashed so they might say that the person who panned you was completely justified. In the right country the jury might pan you if you survived. Y'know, just because.

Random: Shortest song on the album.


I wonder when you feel like an adult and not so much like a kid.

We're a little over halfway done. You may rejoice or weep. Possibly both?
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (sadness)
Yesterday we went bitter, so today we go with "sounds like it would be bitter but somehow isn't."


Do yourself a favor. If you only force yourself to listen to one of these T&S songs, listen to this one. I think it's honestly the prettiest of them all. It's gorgeous, even on tinny phone speakers.

  Odds are good that sometime or another you've gone and been a fool for love (or what you thought was love) so universal appeal right there. Sometimes it really isn't you. Sometimes you just wind up in the wrong relationship and nothing can save that, no matter how long you hold on.

The way I did behave is sung kills me each and every time, as does the foolish heart bit. Every. Time.

Trust me this one time. It's three minutes or so of your life that you won't miss. If you're in need of an 80's fused muse, you might even get a plot bunny or two. Just me? Well, fair enough.

---
I Was A Fool

Do you remember I searched you out
How I climbed your city's walls?
Do you remember me as devout
How I prayed for your calls?

I stood still is what I did
Love like ours is never fixed
I stuck around, I did behave )

I'm the only one hanging out here in happy land, aren't I? I suppose it's to be expected but still. Sadness. Sadness for your ears to not be experiencing the same levels of happy that I am.

So many plot bunnies are being born that all I've got is a sea of words in my brain, swirling around so fast that I haven't a clue as to what will actually come of it. But something will. I'm just not sure what it'll be.






I'm not a loser.



Onwards: My CD and stuff finally arrived yesterday. After 7pm. Way to cut it close on that whole "before 8pm, guarenteed!" thing, UPS. I don't understand why everything else will show up at 3 or 5 but not this. :P It's a good thing I didn't hold off on the shower so I'd have ~music~ or else I'd have gone to work with soaking wet hair instead of merely damp.

That sound you heard maybe five minutes ago was the sound of my weekend plans imploding. That's right. The one time I didn't have any intention of backing out of said plans and was looking forward to them? They go up in a puff of smoke. Hilarious, life. For some reason having the plans delayed a week doesn't inspire a sigh of "thank goodness" and is instead "meh. Do not particularly wish to go now."

I might spend too much time with cats.

Reading the first of the newer Monster High books. Aside from the superficial aspect where the art tends to give poor Rochelle a serious case of bobblehead-itis, I keep stumbling over Robecca's bees knees and similar exclamations. For someone who was disassembled a hundred years ago, I'm not really getting that vibe from her speech patterns. Which is vexing me far more than it should. That aside, enjoyable and I do like that it has artwork and not just text. Because I'm five years old at heart, I guess.

Might as well just continue to edit for funsies! Sometimes I kind of think I'm losing my mind. People will say something and I'll just stare blankly. Sometimes this turns out to be their fault and not mine (they'll confuse conversations and there's no way I should know what they're talking about) but sometimes it's like someone else was at the helm of my brain. Disconcerting to say the least. o_O

Also, it is lonely to fangirl alone. I'll remember this the next time someone else is fangirling and has no one to keep them company.
impy: Ghoulia Yelps ready to destroy everything with the text 'Die Now.' (MH: die now)
I'm torn, torn I say! Last night I had one song stuck in my head all night and today I have another one stuck in my head. Both are good and have certain similarities (love goes wrong more often than not) but which do I go with? *muse*


We go with bitterness to offset yesterday's surprising lack thereof!


I Couldn't Be Your Friend kinda says all you absolutely need to know. Sometimes relationships crumble for whatever reason and sometimes one side goes off the deep end, only to realize that hey, they were (possibly) wrong but then the friendship that might've been the foundation of the relationship cracked beyond any possible fixing.

And then things just get nasty. Sometimes you just burn it all to the ground, man. And sometimes you just can't be friends.

oh oh ohs abound here and you might be catching on to the fact that to me these are musical crack. I don't even understand, they just are.


now you wanna cry
call me a cheater
left you to die
though I did neither

do your worst

i couldn't be your friend
even if I tried again
I couldn't be your friend

that sounds so fictional

now you wanna say
you had it all wrong
now you wanna say
you had me all wrong

I couldn't be your friend



You're an a-hole.

The absolute best part of this song, aside from the song itself (and the bts vid there) is the placement on the album. It comes right before the love song.


In case you wondered there is very little rhyme or reason as to which song is assigned to which day. In fact, there's only one song that has a set day. Everyone else is just random.
impy: tori from jackie's strength video (smilie)
A song for a bad day/week/year/lifetime:


I'm Not Your Hero might be my favorite song on the album. I'm not 100% sure of this, but for two and a half days, I played this song as close to repeat as one can get while still listening to other songs occasionally. It's the fourth track on the album and it comes after a fizzy pop-love song and two break-ups, so it's a bit unexpected. Trying to figure out why anything with this song on it would get hisses of "it's all fluff!" It sounds lighter than it is, people.

I'm a sucker for a song that says hey, you'll get through this, whatever it is. And you might've noticed that I'm kind of in need of such a song so...

Standing where I am now
Standing up at all
I was used to feeling like I was never gonna see myself at the finish line

I was used to seeing no future in my sight line

Sometimes it feels like they want to remind me
Send all those villains after me

I'm not their hero
But that doesn't mean that I wasn't brave
I never walked the party line
Doesn't mean that I was never afraid

Learning all I know now
Losing all I did
I never used to feel like I'd be standing so far ahead

Sometimes it feels what I recovered you lost

Sometimes it feels like the side that I'm on plays the toughest hand
Holds the longest stand
Sometimes it feels like I'm all that they've got
It's so hard to know I'm not what they want


Why yes, yes that was a good chunk of the lyrics. But there are oh, oh, ohs!



Story behind the song. Sort of.
impy: Claudia and Stacey from The Baby-Sitters Club at the beach (just beachy)


Amazon promised me they'd let me listen to my Tegan and Sara album while it took its sweet time getting to me (it's bringing a book and a toy along with it) and oh. my. lord.


I love every damn song on this thing. Every. Single. Song! I can't shake the 80's pop-fizz feeling for a good chunk of the album and it's like the best gift ever. There are a billion things spinning through my head and I can't wait to make sense of them, so if you're in need of an 80's fueled muse, you could do a lot worse. ;)


(and if you wanted a behind the scenes of this song.)

you carried romance in the palm of your hand
you called the plays for us
you clung to self restraint,
you followed the plan
you put the brakes on this
and it drove me wild


Yes. Yes you are going to end up with a track by track posting each day for this, and yes. You are going to enjoy it. Unless you're already a Tegan and Sara fan and one of the ones not liking this go round in which case I am so sorry for you.

But I'm still doing it. :P

I love that this song is so happy, although one could take the lyrics in an entirely different way. If one so chose, that is. So it's either this poppy song about one person making sure the relationship doesn't burn out all too soon (as it might if the other person were left to call all the shots) or the happiest break-up ever as you look back on what you had and smile.

Or something else entirely. I feel the need to lace up some 80's skates and work this out. Except it always took me about an hour to warm up on skates and about five seconds to crash and twist my ankle again. So maybe I'll see if someone else is hit by a plot bunny on skates and stories shall appear as if by magic!

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impy: tori from jackie's strength video (Default)
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