Have you ever seen one of those statements, articles, or even books that touts all of life’s lessons being contained in something? Often, it’s some passion someone has, like marathon running, or some show or movie. Sometimes it’s in a relationship or person, whether it’s one with your dog, or a hero/heroine you look up to.
For a future quote to point to some fun references, I’m wondering if you’d mind leaving a comment and completing the phrase Everything I needed to learn about life, I learned…
You don’t need to explain it if you don’t want to. That would likely be rather long, I would think, because there’s a LOT to learn about life! But if you want to, you go for it.
I’m not going to explain my choice much other than to say, go see it and think hard, over and over again, about all the many things said, situations presented, solutions developed. And also think about all the things not said, or done, but perhaps implied. So my answer is Continue reading →
My name is Minh. I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada . I am the owner and sole contributor of this blog that is one of my many hobbies. I have it to learn things, and to share things I think others might value.
What’s on this blog?
I write and create content about all kinds of things.
I listen to a lot of music, but a lot of older music. That’s because there’s not a lot of new music played on the radio that excites me. Most actually annoy me so much I can’t stand leaving it on for long. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t great music these days. It’s just a lot harder to come by, it seems. However, I am sometimes shocked by how “out of it” I am not to have heard about certain musicians who have been very successful and who makes, performs and/or sings great music. Well, I had one of those moments tonight with Georgian-born British singer Ketevan “Katie” Melua and her music.
I routinely listen to the many channels of the Internet radio site Iceberg Radio, varying them based on how I’m feeling. But a lot of the stuff I listen to there are old stuff. I just happened to have decided to put it on the Love Song Radio channel tonight (under Adult Contemporary, then Love Songs) and was cleaning house when Katie’s The Closest Thing to Crazy came on.
Stopped me dead in my tracks, the soft and basic nature of the song, then the voice, then the concept chorus because by the time I got my thoughts together on all that other stuff I was hearing, the song had it the chorus.
This is the closest thing to crazy that I have ever been
Never mind the rest of it for now, though it’s beautiful. I just liked the concept of how she spun that old concept of being crazy in love as coming close to that edge rather than just the old going overboard mindlessly. She is aware of all of what’s going on, but can’t help it, it seems, and I loved that helpless sense of losing control conveyed. And then the rest of the chorus:
This is the closest thing to crazy I have ever been
Feeling twenty-two, acting seventeen,
This is the nearest thing to crazy I have ever known,
I was never crazy on my own…
And now I know that there’s a link between the two,
Being close to craziness and being close to you. (Full lyrics, video with lyrics)
Basically, in half a song, one chorus, one line, she had me!
Research after I returned to reality show that the song was written by British based songwriter, musician, producer and Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry (2009), Mike Batt, in 1995. However, his version of it on MySpace (Track 1) just doesn’t have the same impact on me, even if it’s nice. It was Katie’s performance abilities that gave the song its magic to me to put it over good to great. Poor guy, but I can empathize, having heard other people sing my songs better. The one song I have on MySpace, beautifully sung by Lis Soderberg, is the perfect example.
Wow! Talk about missing the boat! It’s like the sailboat left, gone several times around the world and came back and I hadn’t known!
But you know, I’m not going to entirely take the blame on this one. None of my friends ever said anything about Katie’s music. Many of them are musicians and/or are pretty into the latest music, but not a word of Katie’s music has ever been mentioned. And as for the Halifax (Nova Scotia) radio stations, when they ever played her music I don’t know but I’ve never heard it. For all the modern crap they play, you’d think they’d recognize a modern gem to play more often when they could!
Ah, ’tis the joy of discovery, and what led me to look her up on YouTube to learn more about her. There, I found some fabulous videos of her and her music, some of which have had over 3 million views. Yep, she’s pretty famous, all right, and I’m just a hermit in this case!
So is anybody reading this not heard of Katie Melua? Tell me if so, or just take a stab at telling me how much I need to “get out” more or something! 🙂
.
LOVE the lyrics on this one! Katie seems to like correlation and causality lyrics! 🙂
.
And another lovely song among many, which I’m having trouble stopping myself from including them all!
