If Monaco is the sound of me falling in un-clingy love, I guess this is the sound of the clinginess setting in. It’s all too personal to really talk about. The lyrics aren’t exactly cryptic (or especially good), so I’ll leave it at that.

Early one morning
When all the world’s asleep or dreaming
And the summer’s failing
She’ll get on a plane
And not come back

I want to tell her to stay
But she wont:
She’s already gone away

I want to tell her not to leave
But she won’t listen to me
And I mustn’t be pathetic

Maybe if I could change her mind and
Use the right words at just the right time
She wouldn’t leave me on my own
I’m sure by now I must’ve grown on her
Maybe she’d settle down maybe
Maybe she’d settle for me?

But no:
She’s going away soon
To the other side of the vast, wide globe

I want to tell her to stay
But she wont:
She’s already gone away

I want to tell her not to leave
But she won’t listen to me
And I mustn’t be pathetic

And I won’t see her again
She’s such a dear friend to me
And now she won’t let me see her be her
In case it breaks her heart or mine

So there’s this girl. And she’s awesome. We met months and months ago. I liked her from the start, and I daresay she liked me too. We stayed up into the wee small hours talking about all kinds of big and small things, without any awkward pauses, or moments of boredom or offense or anything like that. And then we kinda went our separate ways. She was coming out of a serious relationship and I was living a couple of hundred miles away. Nothing had really happened; there were sparks, but neither of us acted on them, so it was easy enough to drift off.

A while later, I moved nearby. She certainly wasn’t the sole reason, but. Well, anyway. We reprised our sparky friendship, and then one week it kinda grew into a little more. We talked. Nothing serious. She wasn’t looking for a big relationship. I was cool with that. Or at least I said I was. I think I thought I was. Anyway. She went off on a weekend break in Monaco (a divorce party [not hers, mind]  apparently. Seems an odd thing to throw a party for, to me) and I wrote this little song.

A while later we went on our first proper ‘date’ (celebrating my newfound gainful employment). I silenced a busy Nando’s with my impersonation of the sound giant tortoises (or more accurately, male giant tortoises) make when mating. She turned bright red. Fun was had, wine consumed. Afterwards, in a doorway on our way back towards the station where I was seeing her off, I played her the song through my headphones, and tried not to die of embarrassment while she silently stood, occasionally smiling nervously at me. She liked it, and told me as much.

That night is so vivid in my mind, while last week is as hazy as my childhood. Funny how the significant days burn their way into your memory.

I like this song. It’s cheesy pop, which isn’t my usual forte, but I think it works quite well. I could do my usual thing of deconstructing the component parts, drawing your attention to the lazy bits, but I won’t. I like it, and that’s enough. And it has a cheesy guitar solo. And cheesy strings (but gosh darn it, if I do say so myself, they’re bloody well-arranged strings…).

Monaco

Strange to think I felt
So closed off
When all I had to do was try to
Talk to someone new, and I found you.

You’re off to Monaco:
Good luck
Flirting in casinos with other
Blokes, but I don’t mind I really don’t

Because in time I’m sure
You will be mine
The way I’m yours,
If you want me

It’s funny how one night,
Two evenings and a day
Can make me feel this way
About someone who’s not even looking for love;

But even so I know,
I know
I’m at least someone you like,
And that’s alright; that’s all I really wanted

Because in time I’m sure
You will be mine
The way I’m yours,
If you want me

(You don’t know what you want you just know what you like
I don’t know what I want I just know what I like)
[repeat ad lib]

Because in time I’m sure
You will be mine
The way I’m yours,
If you want me.

I abandoned my blog. I abandoned a lot of things. I can’t promise I won’t abandon them again. If you’re reading this (and by virtue of the fact you’re reading this, you obviously are reading this) then there is at least some point to posting blogs here, besides creating a repository for spammers to post pointless comments that I barely bother to read before deleting. But since you are reading this, why not comment? Even if it’s just to tell me that I, my blog, or my music are shit. It’d be nice to know there’s someone other than a hundred million spam bots out looking at my page, even if you don’t happen to like it.

Deary me I sound rather insecure, don’t I? I’m by nature quite insecure. But I think I’m getting better at feeling secure in real life, so I blame the fact that the internet is so impersonal, and that blogs (or at least, unpopular ones) are about as interactive as a shelf of dusty books. The authors don’t know if they’re being read, and the readers don’t know if the authors are even alive still. I should make an effort to read and comment on other blogs; use the law of reciprocity to my advantage. But that seems so cynical, and the honest truth is that I have neither the time nor the patience to read and reply to enough bloggers to put my name out and about. I’m a muso, not a pro-blogger.

Anyway, muso. Aha! Yes that was the point. I have a new soundcloud page over here, and while it might not be to everyone’s tastes, the music on there is (at present) rather poppy. So maybe it will be less divisive than my other muzak. I’ll be posting individual tracks here, along with little rambles about what inspired them or whatever else comes to mind, over the next week or so.

Hope you like the new tuneage. Let me know.

Bish
x

Nice cheerful article this weekend, David… Winter blues?

“When there’s a controversial war, some nice, middle-class people go on an organised weekend stroll. When petrol is too expensive, lorry drivers blockade the major roads and the country grinds to a halt. Our leaders would have to be fools to take the former more seriously than the latter.”

Valid point, but it seems to scratch the surface of a much broader problem – political disenfranchisement. The nice, middle-class people who organise the weekend strolls are the only ones left who think the electorate can (or indeed should) effect political change – the wealthier elite certainly don’t, and the working classes aren’t interested (as long as their boys go to war in titanium safety bubbles with super-missiles to kill any nasty enemies who dare to fire at them, who cares who they’re killing? a job’s a job). Petrol prices are one of the only remaining political indicators which remain tangible to nearly everyone, so when they become prohibitively high, inevitably more people are mobilised to take more drastic action to press the government to address them. Plus, historically, blockading roads with lorries achieves results while weekend strolls just make a bit of a mess, so a majority of people consider themselves to have better ways to occupy their time.

Your flatmate’s point about the washing machine simply illustrates that fact that consumerism is more central to our culture than democracy. Is that just pragmatism, or a corruption of the kind of society we like to think we live in? Communism’s an over-zealous solution to the ‘problem’, and full-blown-socialism isn’t much better (not that a socialist party would ever be elected in such a climate – one mention of the word ‘tax’ and all but a brave few would take their votes elsewhere), but I do feel there’s room for an expansion (and – not wishing to sound too flippant – democratisation) of democracy.

Open it up. Make the MPs represent their constituents, make the constituents express their views through regular local referendums on key topics. Remove the oligarchical political party system, thereby leaving power in the hands of the populace. Invest in more accessible, more informative politics programming, and technological infrastructure to enable people to vote the way they do for reality TV (only, y’know, without the fear of vote-tampering).

By making our politics OUR politics, you eliminate the hypocrisy, and force people to confront their own selfishness. Empowering the populace will raise awareness (the most commonly-cited reason for political apathy is: “It don’t change nuffink, does it?”) which may (or may not, but at least on our heads it will be, not those of a bunch of well-meaning but distant politicians) lead in turn to social change – perhaps we’ll take expensive oil in return for the moral high ground, or perhaps we’ll settle for the higher ethical price to see lower figures at the pumps, but either way, we’ll have no-one to blame but ourselves.

If anyone has any comments to make, you can try using my still-not-really-working-properly-because-I’m-a-wordpress-retard comments form below, or else email me.

Hope you’re all well,

Bish x

1) Recorded Parker Airspace with Friends (Live) at the weekend, which was tremendous fun, but means much headaches and mixing to be done to get the best out of our slightly ham-fisted recording arrangements…
2) Written a couple of interesting new songs. Not recorded yet, due to horrible cold, but will do when I’m well. They have vocals, you see…
3) Uploaded the latest ParkerAirbish collaboration, “Let This Be Our Quest”, which you can hear below…
4) Got very drunk with good friends, on many occasions (suspect this may be the reason for the cold).

So, here’s the track, for your delectation (or otherwise):

Lotsa love and snot,
Bish x

As ever, I’ve left blogging til right before bed, so apologies if this doesn’t make sense.

By the very fact you’re reading this, you must be reading this. I however am, at this moment, not sure if anyone’s reading this… So erm, leave a comment at the bottom, if you have time…

Anyway, you (since you’re reading this, yes, I’m addressing you) might be interested to know I’ll be uploading something new to my profile on thesixtyone tomorrow/later today (Tues 29th) at around four-thirty in the afternoon (GMT). If you have nothing better to do, you might like to sit on the page pressing refresh, so that you stand the best chance of ‘discovering’ the track, which earns you a percentage of the hearts or something, I dunno. I still haven’t mastered the rules of thesixtyone – it’s a bit like Dungeons and Dragons, but with music instead of the dragons.

Got to sleep. Last night I had a horrific dream which got worse and worse and worse. I’ll write it up in graphic detail for your (assuming you’re reading this – let’s not start that again) reading pleasure tomorrow sometime.

G’night,

Bish x