Tag: music

  • Re-Love

    Edvard Munch – Lovers in the Waves (Elskende par i bolger), 1896. See more here: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/edvard-munch

    It’s Spring, and to detract from the heaviness of my previous post here’s a playlist for romantic renewal. Because love, this invisible energy binding us all, continues to matter and to exist. And it can be found inside of you. However, if you’ve been feeling like I have recently, despondent and melancholic, let’s resort to some readily available auditory medicine.

    The following songs from these amazing alternative artists work heavily on your heart chakra to make you feel good and get you…in the mood for love. Adorned to the titles themselves you will also find small snipits of my favourite lyrics from these songs (most of which are also great dance tunes…) :

    1. Niluefer Yanya – Midnight Sun

    “Love is raised by common thieves
    Hiding diamonds up their sleeves
    Always I did it for you
    Never felt so sure
    You’re my best machine
    You’re my midnight sun”

    2. Idles – Grace

    “Give me grace, give me light
    Hold me up as I take flight
    Make me safe, away from harm
    Please caress my swollen heart
    Make me pure”

    3. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Echo

    “Maybe you’re a little fire
    You’ve been drowning your own desires
    But every time I see you smile, the heavens move”

    4. Fontaines DC – I love you

    “Well, I love you, imagine a world without you
    It’s only ever you, I only think of you
    And if it’s a blessing, I want it for you
    If I must have a future, I want it with you”

    5. Angus and Julia Stone – Chateau

    “Corner in your converse
    Living on the outskirts
    Trying just to figure it out
    Talking like a deadbeat, I just wanted you to see
    Everything that I could see
    Walking in the night sky, I’m always on your side
    You were really saving me”

    6. Father John Mysty – Screamland

    “Picked me up and drove by the light of the moon
    Four hours to the desert from the drawing room
    This year’s wine tasted suspicious but just enough like love
    God must be with the outcasts ’cause when I call, you come”

    7. HAIM – Summer Girl

    “I need you to understand
    These are the earthquake drills that we ran
    Under the freeway overpasses
    The tears behind your dark sunglasses
    The fears inside your heart as deep as gashes
    Walk beside me, not behind me
    Feel my unconditional love”

    8. Vampire Weekend – Prep-School Gangsters

    “Call me jealous, call me mad, now I’ve got the thing you had
    Somewhere in your family tree, there was someone just like me”

    9. Sharon van Etten – Jupiter 4

    “Touching your face
    How’d it take a long, long time
    To be here

    Turning the wheel on my street
    My heart still skips a beat”

    10. Clairo – White Flag

    “Grown apart and we’re so far gone
    But I’m waving the white flag
    Sending my love back, move on”

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Romantic Realist

    This post is more of a playlist than anything else. To remind myself and others that love is still possible and that it can be found in the irregularities, mistakes and issues of everyday life. One of the least sentimental and most romantic rock bands, whose music stood the test of time, has been the American band The National. I used to religiously listen to them in high-school, specifically their brilliantly undertstated album ‘Alligator’. Then I got the pleasure of seeing them live in the Netherlands at the Lowlands festival and in special gig at Edinburgh’s Queen Hall, which I was fortunate enough to live in close proximity to, at that time.

    And because ysterday, I drank some champagne for Christmas and Youtube randomly started playing ‘Quiet light’ in the background, just as the clock turned to midnight, I thought I’d put together a top 10 of my favourite love songs from The National with some lyrics that stand out to me. So courtesy of singer Matt Berninger (an Aquarius Sun) and the band, here are the songs I most listen to when I want to feel loved and hopeful:

    1. Brainy : You know I keep your fingerprints in a pink folder in the middle of my table / You’re the tall kingdom I surround / Think I better follow you around / You might need me more than you think you will / Come home in the car you love, brainy brainy brainy
    2. Conversation 16 : I’ll try to be more romantic / I wanna believe in everything you believe / I was less than amazing / Do not know what all the troubles are for / I fall asleep in your branches / You’re the only thing I ever want anymore
    3. Val Jester : Build a fire for Val Jester / Build a room for your love / Take your time when you tell her / How she lives in your blood
    4. Quiet Light : But I’m learning to lie here in the quiet light / While I watch the sky go from black to grey/ Learning how not to die inside a little every time / I think about you and wonder if you are awake
    5. Start a War : Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now / I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again / Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war
    6. Terrible Love : It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ with spiders / It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ in / This quiet company
    7. The system only dreams in total darkness : Maybe I listen more than you think / And I can tell that somebody sold you / We said we’d never let anyone in / We said we’d only die of lonely secrets
    8. I need my girl : I am good, I am grounded / Davy says that I look taller / But I can’t get my head around it / I keep feeling smaller and smaller
    9. City middle : You said “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams” / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in / I think I’m like Tennessee Williams / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in
    10. About Today : Hey, are you awake? / Yeah, I’m right here / Well can I ask you /About today? /How close am I / To losing you?

    With universal love,

    Lexi