The last remaining songs on my mix tape for Jim enter into the seriously nauseating intricacies of our relationship and how it’s developed over the last 11 months. So of course I’m going to include them! I’ll make a token effort to spare you by not going into as much detail as I did for the previous tunes… sort of.

15. The Magnetic Fields: You And Me And The Moon
I know I know, breaking the mix tape rules, but it’s not my fault The Magnetic Fields have a song to fit every idiosyncratic romantic situation that any of us have ever had! ‘In a cool gay bar where the people are entertaining…’ Jim and I had our first kiss in a gay friendly pub in Shoreditch called George and Dragon (I know this is from 2010 but read the last line of the review… spooky!). We were on the opposite side of a booth we were sharing with two  guys who were also making out. A picture of diversity.

16. Cut Chemist: What’s The Altitude?
This is one of my favourite tracks from Cut Chemist’s album The Audience is Listening. It’s about a boy and a girl whose relationship flies so high that it reaches outrageous altitudes.

17. Aphex Twin: Window Licker
It’s the moment every new couple has (I think). The moment you seriously discuss music and show each other your favourite music clips. In my nervousness and preoccupation with appearing ‘cool’ all I could remember were the intensely disturbing videos by Aphex Twin. So the first impressions Jim got of my music taste were Window Licker and Come to Daddy. Way to make a guy think you’re really weird. This track is actually better enjoyed via purely aural means – it’s amazing. If you do watch it on Youtube, be warned, the introduction goes for about 7 minutes and as my Year 8s would say, ‘has a lot of swears’.
By the way, I forgot to mention that track number 1 (The Chemical Brothers – The Test), is one of the coolest videoclips out there (controversial statement I know).

18. Radiohead: Thinking About You
Usually I find it insanely annoying when people join in with my singing. I sing away all day like a child with a social skills disorder, which understandably annoys friends, housemates and partners alike. I guess they assume I want them to join in with me. Not so! Nothing’s worse than having your own personal boogie interrupted by someone else. Even worse, when it’s interrupted by someone who can actually sing. So although Jim subtly removes himself from the room when I’m belting them out, I appreciate that he a) doesn’t whinge too much about it (I have made a huge effort to decrease the volume when he’s around at his request) and b) doesn’t intrude on my moments as he never sings anything! Or so I thought… until this song came on iTunes shuffle one Saturday morning spent pottering around his room, and we quietly began singing along at the same time. Jim broke through his singing barrier and I loved it rather than being annoyed. I didn’t look at him for fear of breaking the spell. Ahh Radiohead… bringing people together since Pablo Honey. ‘I bled and I bleed to please you…’

19. Nina Simone, Horace Ott: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
This plaintive plea from one lover to another speaks for itself really. My old housemate and I used to joke about waiting for the right amount of time to pass with a new boy before ‘showing him the crazy’. To say I have… issues… with relating to men would be an understatement, but I really am just a soul whose intentions are good. Really.

20. Missy Higgins: Stuff and Nonsense
One big thing that’s changed for me over the past couple of years is being able to name my anxieties and, in fact, to acknowledge that I have an ongoing problem with anxiety. One of the triggers for which is being in a serious relationship. It’s bubbled underneath the surface in lots of past situations, often with negative consequences. A nice lady called Roxy who I saw once a week for a few months this year gave me the ability to identify and acknowledge the reasons that that kept happening. While that process was happening, I needed things to be ‘just about the now’ as Miggy Higgins explains in her great Split Enz cover. Live for the moment, don’t worry about what might happen in the future and get caught up in catastrophising. I couldn’t let things go forward before I felt ready, and being honest about that in a calm, reasonable way was something new… scary but ultimately amazing. To get closer, I had to step away a bit. I knew the issue was with me, and for the first time I really decided to do something about it.

21. Joanna Newsom: Good Intentions Paving Company
A lovely song about complicated patriotism, exploration of identity and love. Also very fun to sing in the shower! A couple of years ago my friend James and I had the opportunity to see Joanna Newsom play at the Beck’s Music Box as part of the Perth International Arts Festival. I was hoping all night that she would play this, and hurray… she did!

22. The Panics: Don’t Fight It
The Panics are a local Perth band who Jim now loves thanks to being introduced through this song! It contains one of my favourite lyrics at the moment: ‘I left my heart in places, forgot every one of their faces, and tried to navigate a broken path of which I may have helped create. In any incident, this is never no accident, to stand alone… and let the silence make itself at home. Oh give it up, those dirty tricks, no quick fix could undo it. Oh give it up, I won’t resist.’

23. Crowded House: It’s Only Natural 
This song completely speaks for itself in regards to how I feel after almost a year together. It also makes me think of sitting in a pub somewhere in Perth on a hot afternoon, and all of a sudden a Crowded House song starts playing. A few enthusiastic drunkards from each table join in with New Zealand’s finest and my happiness levels go through the roof. Not long now! It’s just 6 weeks until Jim and I are with his family in New Zealand, and after that, drinking beers in Perth pubs. I just hope we don’t take the weather with us *nudge nudge*

 

So Jim, that’s it… the meaning behind all of your songs. If, by chance, you’re considering breaking up with me, could you at least wait a couple of months so this isn’t so embarrassing? Thanks.

xx

Today is the fourth day of my week-long alcohol-free stint, and I feel… kinda crap! My New Years resolution was to have two alcohol-free nights per week, which is the general go-to figure for the health authorities and good-intentioners. My mission sounds insane to most of my British friends, who find it weird that I drink every night. I don’t mean drinking myself into oblivion, or even feeling drunk…but I do have a glass of wine or a beer after work which sometimes turns into two… if I’m at home… on my own. The number creeps up to three, four or more if friends have invited me out. I don’t wake up in Zone 9 covered in spew with my stilettos in my handbag, so I never thought it was an issue! However,  my Doctor recently probed me uncomfortably (not in that way), about my intake. He was relentless, countering my vague, dismissive responses with questions like ‘how many nights exactly?’…’but what kind of beer… a half pint or a pint?’, and eventually whipping up a calculation that I feared wouldn’t be pretty. He leant back in his chair, stared at me with a face uncannily similar to Thom Yorke’s, and declared ‘You drink three times the amount that a woman your age should’. Damn. Despite my usual resistance against any type of authority figure telling me what to do, I listened to him partly because he followed this announcement that he understood I was probably self-medicating my pain.

Anyway you look at it, I’ve done a pretty rubbish (such an English term) job at sticking to my New Years resolution, which at the time of its creation seemed perfectly feasible. I’ve decided to buy some more ‘yummy drinks’ as I realised that the only options available to me were always tap water or some sort of booze. I don’t tend to buy juice, cordial or fizzy drinks as I have an illogical fear of sugar (illogical given the massive sugar content of most alcoholic drinks). On Monday I went out and bought some ginger beer (with no added sugar!), and have been drinking that instead. It’s great! Tasty, gingery and it even has ‘beer’ in its name. I’ve also decided not to drink when I’m by myself, because it seems sad and a bit pointless. Having a beer or glass of wine has become firmly associated with unwinding after work, and I’ve had to make a conscious effort to partake in other stress-reducing activities instead of cracking open a bottle. Oh the joys of borderline alcoholism! The longest I’ve gone without drinking since I moved out of home at 20 is two days. TWO DAYS. Until now.

Besides the first two days when I really craved a beer and could only banish my yearnings through neurotically googling liver disease, it has been slightly easier than I anticipated. Last night I was weirdly hyperactive at 8pm, and my nerve pain was hitting about an 8 out of 10 on the ouch-o-meter. By 8.30pm I was fast asleep on the couch, snoring away as Jim and his bemused  housemates lived their lives around me. Besides waking up briefly while Jim guided me to bed, I slept for a full 12 hours and felt like I had been hit by a truck this morning. I’m not sure if that was the result of some kind of alcohol withdrawl, but if sobriety can have that much of an affect on my body I’m tempted to stretch my booze free jaunt to two or even three weeks to make sure my poor abused liver has some hope in hell of recovery. Plus, who could argue with Thom Yorke?!

Anyways, here is my playlist for Jim, continued:

10. Belle & Sebastian: Piazza New York Catcher
‘Elope with me Miss Private and we’ll sail around the world. I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl’. I’ve previously mentioned that my time in Doncaster was a mixed bag. On one hand I finally had time to myself after sleeping in shared dorms for around 3 and a half months. I could sit in peace and quiet at my B&B without anyone bothering me, pondering my life in Perth and all I had learnt. On the other hand, Doncaster’s depressing high street smelt faintly of sewerage and the junkies were scary. As well as dissecting the past, I looked to the future; as the bus to work wound its way through light industrial estates and small villages with boarded up pubs, I listened to this song and imagined more whimsical times. I started to think again about becoming someone’s wayward girl. How many nights of talking in hotel rooms can I take? As many as you got.

11. Killa Queenz: Sweaty Wet
The Killa Queenz are a female hip hop act from Australia whose live shows are usually amazeballs judging by the various YouTube clips I’ve seen. Unfortunately when they came to Perth they tried to fill something like 3 gigs in a few days, and on the night I saw them there was some major international hip hop guy playing elsewhere in town. It wasn’t quite the dance hall frenzy I imagined, but I still think they’re awesome. After being single and honestly disinterested in guys for so many months, at the Edinburgh Festival I suddenly turned and decided it was time to be in the Game again, to the amusement and finally the exasperation of my friends (both new and old). This song kind of reminds me of that time, feeling so cocky… yet at the same time really, crushingly insecure and unsure of myself. I also played it during the Camino to give me an extra burst of energy when I needed it… it’s so much easier to bust a move when you have some fiery Ugandan/Belizean Australians sassing in your ear. It conveniently annoyed the hell out of El when I sang it out loud… she has since labelled it ‘the worst song in the world’. Decide for yourself!

12. The Shins: Young Pilgrims
This has been one of my favourite songs for years, I love most of the lyrics written by these guys. How could I pass up such a literal title when choosing a song to depict the Camino pilgrimage of last September? It’s quite an inspiring tune – ‘But I learnt fast how to keep my head up ’cause I know there is this side of me that wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just fly the whole mess into the sea’. In my view, undertaking a Camino is an active choice that people make to search for something within themselves and to get that tiny bit closer to their concept of God/enlightenment/being a happy person. Which I think is totally cool. It’s of utmost importance that you learn to keep your head up, particularly if you’re prone to having it fall through the floor.

13. The Magnetic Fields: All My Little Words
 When you hear the opening lyrics of this song you think ‘Oh my god how cheesey’. You are a splendid butterfly? Gimme a fucking break. But then you totally get drawn in to this gorgeous song about a fleeting, confusing, hopeless romantic encounter. Which I was sort of trying to work out and come to terms with on the hike, amongst so many other things. I love how the Magnetic Fields tap into delicious, at times tongue-in-cheek misery, then tickle you with word-play that Stephen Fry would love for the sheer sound sex of it. Again, I think if El hears me warble suddenly about a certain winged insect ever again, she’ll punch me.

14. Gerry Rafferty: Baker Street
Enter Jim! We met outside Baker Street station. Jim was reading a paper, leaning against the rails and waiting for me to arrive. He looked up from his paper and we locked eyes for the first time… later that week, I told him he had spectacular eyeballs… awwww. So of course, Baker Street is now sort of one of our songs. Despite its uplifting wind instruments, Baker Street is actually quite a depressing song if you listen to the lyrics. ‘Just one more year and then you’ll be happy… but you’re crying, you’re crying now’. Jesus. London is a city that sometimes chews you up and spits you out. Stating the obvious there. I’ve seen people along the way that for whatever reason just didn’t have the timing or the financial/emotional resources to run at it and make it their bitch, which you have to do if you’re going to live here. At least they could go back to wherever their homes were… some people don’t have it so easy.

More next time!

Sober bam!

Choons

Next week I’m going to get a new phone. My faithful iPhone 3 has served me well and witnessed many eventful scenes over the past three years. Today I looked through its various apps, nooks and crannies and realised that I’ve had the same limited playlist saved on there for over a year… since I planned the music for my bar shifts at Zoo Venues. I listened to the same songs every day for a month… then took the same playlist with me to Portugal and listened to it every day for two weeks. Now I listen to it most days on the tube! I’m over it! I am known for playing songs to death, but this has gone too far.

Another wake up call to my lack of musical development of late was my construction of a Spotify playlist (today’s version of a mix tape, sadly) for Jim. Of course it’s great to showcase your faves… songs that have helped shape the person you are today. But I used to make playlists with songs that I had just heard, by bands I was just discovering! I blame this on my lack of driving nowadays, and thereby my disconnection from my beloved local radio station RTRfm 92.1. I really miss driving along and hearing new independent songs that aren’t gross, autotuned, mass marketed piles of poo (sorry UK). It’s exciting to hear something new and then go on a search to track down more by that artist. There’s nothing more awesome and surreal than driving around the abandoned streets of Perth city in the middle of the night to the sounds of Difficult Listening – RTR’s experimental music show. Oh well. I guess I need to find something that will fill the gap, or just suck it up and stream it online (it’s not the same!).

It was while I was sitting at the beautiful Public House in Islington having a roast with my friend Alex that I firmly decided to do something about my dire musical situation. Song after beautiful song played and I had no idea what they were or how to get them. Ones I almost recognised would come on and drive us crazy, even when we cornered the super friendly bar guy and demanded the names and artists, he helplessly told us he made his playlist ages ago, it was on shuffle, and there was no way to see what songs had played recently and in what order. Maybe he needs to take a good hard look at his approach to music too!

Anyways, I did manage to put together a mix tape for Jim, and I’m going to list the tracks here. And before you’re all like ‘ew, no one gives a fuck about your weird lovey dovey mix tape, and anyway, isn’t that meant to be private?’, let me reassure you that in typical narcissistic style, the mix tape was mostly about me. I was trying to tell a story about my life before Perth, how I felt just before I left, and some of the things that have happened since then. So whatever, here it is. Rah.

1. The Chemical Brothers: The Test
This is a bit of a celebration of my early twenties… hazy, crazy early twenties. There were moments that seemed a bit of a test, set to a backdrop of wobbly sounds and wobblier people. It was really really fun though.

2. Warpaint: Shadows
This band is famously hot. Shannyn Sossamon (indie princess and DJ extraordinnaire who named her kid Audioscience), co-founded it. A rather morose second track, but we’ve skipped forward to my Paused Period, just before I bit the bullet and fully decided to make the move from Perth. No other song captures the apathy, the anguish, the endless languish, oh!… that was my life when I tried to just sit on the couch and not make anything go wrong. Delightfully depressing.

3. The DO: Travel Light
These guys are a French/Finnish two-piece band. I said that the previous song captured my apathy. Well I guess this one captures the process of detachment from everything and the realisation that I had been, and would be alone, and that was OK. ‘I don’t care about the scratches, no one followed me this far. Oh broken bones but empty head’.

4. KYU: Pixiphony
KYU are two girls from Melbourne. You have to listen to this loud, with lots of bass. Also fill your heart with girl power, or just the realisation that everyone is powerful (cheeeeesey). Seriously though, this song meant to lot to me and was in my head a lot as I left home.

5. Architecture in Helsinki: Hold Music
Yay fun! I had such a light hearted and amazing time in New Zealand for 6 weeks, where I started remembering who I really was and the fact that I love meeting new people. I learnt a lot and hung out with a whole lot of English under-25s on their gap years. Woohoo! This song is just silly.

6. The Mint Chicks: Fuck the Golden Youth
These guys are from New Zealand, my brother introduced them to me (by that I mean I stole his CDs for ages). I love most of their songs, they’re geat to jump around to. This song is also dedicated to the one bum-hole on the Kiwi Experience who ate my banana and then constructed the skin in the fridge to make it look like there was still a banana in it. You hilarious asshole.

7. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys: Empire State of Mind
I had to put this in, I had quite a few moments to this song in NYC! Singing along to it with an entire bar in Hell’s Kitchen, alongside hardened New Yorkers as well as travellers. My friend Jo and I danced on the red steps in Times Square Alicia-styles, which was awesome, particularly as I was wearing ridiculously high heels. Also, I remember walking out of my dingey (but cool movie dingey) hostel off Times Square and walking around thinking ‘bah, it’s just like any other big city’. Within half an hour, I was almost euphoric. The streets really do make you feel brand new!

8. Gill Scott-Heron: New York is Killing Me
This is exactly how I didn’t feel about New York. Gill S-H is a really influential/important poet though, and I think this song is really cool. Remembering how tough people can have it in big, enveloping cities makes me grateful that things have worked out for me not only in New York, but in London too.

9. The Fall: Edinburgh Man
It’s sort of distant now, but before my festival experience in 2011 I held this really idealistic view of Edinburgh. After NYC I spent a week in London lazing around and annoying my friends, before living in Edinburgh for a few weeks. It was in May-June, so it rained heavily and steadily. I moved in with a Scotsman, a Spanish girl and a Scotswoman and loved my time there. Then I got a job in Doncaster and had to go because I was broke. Hang on, anyway, this song is about how much I love Edinburgh and how, despite all my subsequent fallings to Earth and intense experiences there, it will always have a kind of fairytale status in my heart.

I’m sleepy now. One more day of work til the weekend!

Playlist to be continued…