Feliz Navidad: first blood.

It can happen anytime – after Thanksgiving. It can happen anywhere – but if you live in South Texas, you know exactly what I mean.

Perhaps you’re driving home from dropping your child at school, in a blissful haze at the resumption of a semi-normal routine. Perhaps you’re innocently wandering the aisles of a department or grocery store, idly wondering if that leftover Jello mold is still good and if you can get away with leftovers just one more night.  The seasonal deluge may have begun for retailers, but in the non-selling world one holiday is over, the next is a safe distance away. Ignore the sparkly displays of clamshell-secured happiness, glide serenely past anything red or green. Surely a day or two of non-festivity is allowed…

Then a twang. An opening note. And José Frickin’ Feliciano, dark glasses twinkling, cuatro firmly in hand, is gleefully humping your auditory canal once again and it’s Christmas in South Texas, like it or not.

Y’all.

Mom, watch this.

Turn the volume up so you can hear the lyrics really well.

South Texas Girl

I have a very bad feeling about this:

Because I have an almost pathological passion for this:

What I call “the real Sweeney Todd,” the one with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. Seeing this production on what? HBO? Bravo? as a teenager was a revelation, an epiphany. I did not know that words and music could work together like this.

I had seen every classic film musical ever (though very little opera), probably, thanks to my mom, and I understood vaguely that when characters came back onstage or onscreen their signature tunes followed them; that music could create mood and songs could tell stories and reveal character. But I had never understood before that a melody could be as raw and honest as any soliloquy. I had never truly heard voices and instruments in point and counterpoint, speaking to each other and to me, upping the emotional ante beyond belief. I had never known music was so… necessary. Stephen Sondheim taught me.

So when I see Johnny Depp in previews, essentially talking his way through his role, I get a very bad feeling indeed. Sure, Rex Harrison did it in My Fair Lady and created the Professor Higgins – but he had already proven that it would work in the Broadway production. Anyone who’s ever heard the Julie Andrews cast recording of Camelot (as opposed to the film soundtrack) knows that the “talk/sing” is a risk that doesn’t always pay off. And even when it does, that was Lerner and Loewe, and this is Sondheim.

Damn it.

Insomniac musings: songs that make me cry…

… and why. The list is cover-specific – not everyone’s version of a particular song triggers the blues. Got it down to a fairly short list of reasons, but I can’t really think of a shorter way to express “brings back the feelings of a particular time or experience.” Okay, for the purposes of this list, let’s call that “flashback.”

So I’ve got these categories (for all you INTJ’s).

1. flashback: instant time travel, listened to it at the time of the events
2. empathy: been there, felt that, wallowing in it
3. sympathy: may not have experienced situation but song is so damn good
4. guilt: probably showed up on a mix tape from an ex, or should have
5. association: with childhood, parents, etc.

Category 1: flashbacks

• More Than This and Slave to Love: Bryan Ferry
• Trouble: Cat Stevens
• Witches: Cowboy Junkies
• Dreaming My Dreams With You: Cowboy Junkies
• Somebody Who Loves You: Joan Armatrading
• If You Were to Wake Up: Lyle Lovett
• I’ll Be Seeing You: Mandy Patinkin
• Something I Can Never Have: NIN
• Mercy Street: Peter Gabriel
• I Remember You: Eurythmics
• Save Me: k. d. lang
• It Could Be Sweet: Portishead
• Nothing’s Changed: Chris Isaak
• Found Out About You: Gin Blossoms
• La Vie en Rose: Edith Piaf

And hey, I’m sleepy. Thank God. More tomorrow, after hours.

Another siren song for Polly

You may not see the end of it
But luckily she comes around,
It isn’t what she talks about
It’s just the way she is.

Terribly unhealthy behavior

I try not to indulge much anymore. In general, I’m happier when I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t wallow in the memories of incredibly stupid things in the past, does it? Especially late at night, listening to music while I’m painting or reading or browsing. Method actors get on my last thin nerve, but that whole sense memory thing; yep, I’m there.

I LOVE MUSICAL MISERY.

So last night I was finalizing two playlists before recording them to discs (I just can’t say ripping, it sounds so old-fart-trying-too-hard), weeping copious tears, and just enjoying the hell out of myself.

Disc #1 Terribly Unhealthy Behavior (whining and obsessing)

Disc #2 Post-Terribly Unhealthy Behavior (pissing and moaning)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, bliss.