Song of the Day #9 - Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - The Lady is a Tramp

Time for some crooning. Tony Bennett is one of the few old school crooners left and in 2011 he released an album where he sings duets with more modern day stars, for instance, none other than the fabulous Lady Gaga. And with Gaga in the studio there were really only one jazz standard they could do; "The Lady is a Tramp." I had actually not watched the video until a few days ago, I simply never knew it existed, but oh my, it's brilliant. Gaga can sing, Tony can sing and my they both can play too! Musical play date this one.

Song of the Day #8 - CC Cowboys - Død manns blues (Dead mans blues)

These days we have a program on Norwegian tv where Norwegian artists cover each others songs. It's a group of seven artists who in the end all will have covered each other, covering one artist in every show. Next week one of my 90's heroes will be up, the lead singer and song writer of a band called CC Cowboys, Magnus Grønneberg. I am so looking forward to see what the others will do with his songs. I tried to describe CC Cowboys music and role in Norwegian music for my Dutch boyfriend yesterday, and found it quite difficult. It's something very gritty about the music and raw and real and straight from the heart. Hm.. Maybe it's just very rock'n'roll. This song is fairly old from 1990 so the style here is a lot more gritty then what has been made later. To me this song brings back memories of being a kid and aspiring teenager and hearing this tunes from by brother's bedroom who was in the early twenties. It was something very dangerous, fantastic and scary about them, I was instantly hooked.

As to what the lyrics are about.. Not that sure, but they are quite brilliant anyway. There was a book released in Norway with the same title as the song, so it might be it, other than that it seam to have some quite clear references to what happens to a man coming home from war.

Below the video you find the lyrics quickly (!) translated into English.
(The film in the video are fragments from a performance at Svalbard acoustic DVD. More here.) 




Det satt en stakkars faen                      - A poor bastard sat
På en benk ved der jeg bor                  - On a bench close to where I live
Hans øyne var fulle av tårer                  - His eyes where filled with tears
Han skreik til alle som gikk forbi          - He screamed at everyone
                                                                       who passed him
De ristet på hode å sa:                         - They shook their head and said
Hærregud hvor jeg er lykkelig              - My God, how lucky/happy I am.

Ref:
Eeeelsker jorden,                                - Love the earth
Blir elsket av jorden                            - Being loved by the earth
Jeg elsker deg,                                    - I love you
Jeg elsker deg,                                    - I love you
Ååå du elsker meg.                             - Oh, and you love me

I 1945 våknet han opp fra sin drøm   - In 1945 he woke up from his dream
Som har punka hele gutten           - That had fucked up the whole boy
Bombing, Plyndring,                             - Bombing and pillaging
Horing og Drikking                               - Whores and drinking
Alt som hører nervekrigen til.                - And everything that is
                                                              part of the nerve (gas) war

Etter krigen reiste han til moderland igjen, - After the war he went home
                                                                  to his motherland
Til sin kjære hustru som ventet ham hjem, - To his dear wife
                                                               who waited for him at home
Men ting var ikke så vel                  - But things were not that well of
Hun hadde fått en ny venn              - She had gotten a new friend
Så bar det ut i drømmene igjen.  - Then it was off into the dreams again.

Refrain

Medalijen på sitt bryst                            - With the medal on his chest
Raste han rundt                                      - He was raging around
Med Vin, sprit og øl i sine årer         -  Wine, spirits and beer
                                                                       filled his veins
Å som tiden går det er 40 år i år    - Oh, how time flies,
                                                                 it's 40 years ago this year
Siden en bom så dagens lys.                   - Since a bom was born.

Ref.

Et sørgelig historie,                                - A sad story
Fra en sørgelig pen                                -From a sad pen.
Jeg krever ingen benåding                      - I need no pardon
Jeg ber ingen bønn,                               - I pray no prayer
Ber ingen bønn,                                    - Pray no prayer
Jeg ber ingen Bøøøønn                         - I pray no prayer

Ref.

Song of the Day #7 - Stereophonics - Maybe Tomorrow

Sunday, and this song somehow seams to fit. Flowing and makes one thing about life a little.The last six months I have walked to work a lot and for me it's a brilliant moment to listen to good music. I love walking and listening and see the world glide by around me. Needless to say I have been listening to a lot of different stuff, and so far there is one song that beats anything else; Maybe Tomorrow by Stereophonics. The flow of the song and those beautiful harmonies that goes through the whole song just cuddles you a little as you wander into the world and has just the perfect pace to take in the morning rush hour and passing people. Try it yourself, you will love it too.

These great experiences made me want to look into the song a bit more. I had actually not seen the video until a few weeks ago. And it's quite lovely. Watching it and also really listening to the lyrics for the first time made me realize that the song is about being lost in the world and slowly finding your way home and yourself or having hope that some day you will. For me that made the song beautiful in a new dimension. "I've been the upper side of down and the inside of out, but we breath, we breath.."

Other blog posts about Stereophonics and Kelly Jones, the lead singer. 

Maybe Tomorrow on Spotify

Song of the Day #6 - Sean Lennon - Dead Meat

I have written about Sean Lennon before in my blog, but I couldn't help posting this song as a Song of the Day when I found this lovely live acoustic version. John Lennon has always been my favourite Beatle. Sean Lennon is his father's son, yes, that's true, but by golly, he deserves to be recognized in his own right too. What a great musician and songwriter! Light, delightful arrangements and melodies and what a voice!

You can read more about my thoughts on Sean here.



Here is the original version of Dead Meat

Song of the Day #5 - Aerosmith - Crazy

Time for some 90's nostalgia. This song takes me straight back to being fourteen and sitting together with my friend in one of our rooms out in the countryside and watching videos that we had taped on VHS. And what a video. This gives every 14 year old big dreams on what lies ahead in the rest of a teenage years: a mix of "Wow, I really want to be like that," and secretly "That looks to scary and crazy". The closest I got was climbing over a fence in a park and wading around in kids pool in the middle of the night in an English town. That was four years later. And of course one can not help but noticing the fantastic similarities between father and son. Great people. Good hit makers, those boys in Aerosmith. Enjoy your weekend, and don't go to crazy.

Song of the Day #4 - Shania Twain - Man! I Feel Like A Woman

Today I stumbled upon an Oprah interview with Shania Twain. Shania Twains voice always makes me cry, because it has this genuine quality to it I think, and I have always admired her ability to turn out one hit tune after the other. I guess it helps to have worked together with such a brilliant producer as Mutt Lange for many years, but still. I was surprised to learn that she is struggling with her voice and why.

The last years I have been wondering what has been going on with Shania. I read that she had moved to Switzerland and though: "Oh, well, that's that, she has quite and is enjoying her calm family life." Then the next time I looked it up, I found out that she and her husband Mutt Lange had split because he had been having a relationship with her best friend and assistant. Wow, imagine what that feels like. So today, I was curious when I saw that there was an Oprah interview up on YouTube. She was talking about her life and all the things she had gone through; to cut it short, growing up in a home with domestic violence, very poor, her parents dying when she was young so she had to take care of all the brothers and sisters, then fame with all that bottled up and then the whole story with her husband. On the show there was also announced that she was doing a documentary series where she tried to find her voice, which from all this stress and insecurities just had gone. It's was so interesting to me how a woman who had always seemed so confident and strong turned out to have so much bottled up that it in the end ended up effecting her physically. It's a good series.

And so.. why this song? Because it's fantastic tune and a great video spoof of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to love", and I love the colour scheme and outfits and all about it. It's a celebration of a strong woman, but at the same time remember, people are not always as strong as they look. No one is, and we all need to remember that.

Song of the Day #3 - Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?

The last days this song has been running around my brain so much, so today was no choice really, it had to become the Song of the Day.

R. U Mine was released about a year ago, and to be honest it kind of escpaped my radar as it is a single, and not part of any album. It was not untill a few days ago that I saw the music video for the first time and that lifted it to a new level for me. First of all I love the fact that Arctic Monkeys are one of the bands who still dare to be really "leather-jacket-rock'n'roll-stars" and at the same time they make brilliant, exciting and bad to the bone rock'n'roll. In this video they look bad ass, pure and simple. I love the idea for the video, I love that we get a sneak peak into what happens the first time a band hears a song.

 I almost never get bored when I listen to Arctic monkeys. More often I catch myself wanting to head bang to the beats and discovering new details. I often listen to lyrics a long time after first hearing a song, but when it comes to Arctic Monkeys, I can't help it. That is also one of the things that made me fall in love with them in the first place; the way Alex Taylor phrases his lyrics over several lines. My favourite in this song is: "In my mind, when she's not there, right beside me, I go crazy.." You can hear it several times during the song, for instance here. It stretches across the lines of the music in a fantastic way. And who can withstand such dark lovely riffs. There's something 70's rock about this and the part of it that I like, and maybe a tad of Rage against the Machine?

Song of the Day #2 - Traveling Wilburys - Handle With Care

For my generation of kids that grew up in the 80's the music cassette was still a big part of our everyday life. At that time there was a cassette player in every car, and one of the few cassettes in my parents car, that we hadn't taped form the radio, was the one with Traveling Wilburys. Every time I hear them now I get that safe, cosy feeling of going on a car trip with my parents, for instance for a summer holiday. The weather is nice, the nature outside is green and we are ready for some great adventure.

This music is perfect car music still for me, it slides along over the road like the car. Secondly what a group of people! It's bound to be quality when you put George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan in the same band! One of my favourite songs is "Handle with care", so that's today's Song of the Day. It's one of the songs on the record where all of the guys show of their talent in different parts; the beautiful leading voice of Harrison, the high notes of Orbison and the gritty in between by Dylan and Petty and Lynne. Hope you have some great memories with this one too or will make new ones now. And we all could use some summer in January.

Song of the Day #1: Muse - Space Dementia

There is a lot of talk about Muse these days, so my first Song of the Day is dedicated to them. I discovered Muse back in 2001 and where lucky enough to see them on the Norwegian Quart festival the same year. It was one of those brilliant afternoons, they where followed by The White Stripes and there was almost no audience, we felt lucky to be there. I remember being so thrilled by the way Matthew played piano and guitar live and that voice on top of it. I am still a great fan of the first two records, but after that it has somehow lost is flavour to me. It's not so innovative any more, or maybe the thrill of something new is just lost to me. Anyways.. Space Dementia was my favourite then and still is. Darn it, that is so good piano and guitar playing and what an arrangement!! Enjoy!