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Favourite Songs I Heard for the First Time in 2009

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What were your favourite pieces of music that you heard for the first time last year?

I don’t necessarily mean music that came out last year, just that you heard it for the first time last year because it was new to you. If you care to share, you can put it in the comments following the post. I’d love to know to expand my musical horizons.

Below are a list of favourite songs I heard for the first time in 2009, enough that would fit on CD were I to have made one. Most were from musicals as I really got into them in 2009 after my classic jazz year in 2008. A few were one-off takes on television events, though, so I’ll start with one that was both. It was available on YouTube like most of my selections so I have included the videos to have the music right here for you. I also linked the songs to blog posts I did inspired by them, where I did one.

Someone Like You

from Jekyll & Hyde
Linda Eder & Frank Wildhorn on 2000 PBS Special
Linda Eder delivers a loving performance of this gorgeous song with touching lyrics, accompanied by husband Frank Wildhorn, who had composed the song. (blog post)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Upload of this video sometimes seems a bit slow so please be patient.

If You Were Gay

from Avenue Q
Rick Lyon and John Tartaglia
Love and humour, not just in song but also video spoof. (blog post)

The Internet is for Porn

from Avenue Q
Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Rick Lyon & the Guys
Possibly the funniest song I have ever heard! (blog post)

Mix Tape

from Avenue Q
Stephanie D’Abruzzo and John Tartaglia
A song that dragged my emotions up and down, enhanced by Stephanie’s nuances of acting while singing this song. (blog post)

As Long as You’re Mine

from Wicked
Idina Menzel and Norbert Leo Butz
An often overlooked song from Wicked that I only heard once I saw the musical, rather than hearing the more popular songs from it. However, I loved it immediately, especially the soft-spoken ending.

Academy Awards 2009 Introduction

Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway
This number was both brilliant and unexpected in being clever, funny and spectacularly performed. My intro to the full talents of Hugh Jackman. (blog post)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Monologue Song

from Saturday Night Live November 7, 2009
Taylor Swift
How to trash everybody you want to with class and humour while being really cute about it. (blog post)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Dark Eyes

by Bob Dylan
Judy Collins
Judy Collins gives this sad Dylan song a haunting rendition. (blog post)

Better Angels

Lesley Gore
The original It’s My Party girl seriously grows up with this beautiful tune I first heard on CSI Miami (compilation video of episode shown below).

I Got a Feeling

Black Eyed Peas
Just an awesome dance song, ’nuff said cause I’m getting dancing! Best 2009 song in my opinion. (I chose the flash mob version shown on Oprah for the video cause it’s also so awesome!)

Wake-up

The Arcade Fire
I heard this song via the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are and thought they had made a pretty good choice for a theme song.

The Closest Thing to Crazy

by Mike Batt
Katie Melua
Pretty much describes what feeling in love feels like to me. (blog post)

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Gayla Peevey
I heard it on a Telus commercial and loved it immediately, a bit surprised I had never heard this 1950s seasonal classic until now. (blog post)

You’ve Gotta Have a Gimmick

from There’s No Business Like Show Business
Bernadette Peters, Julia McKenzie, Ruthie Henshall
This is probably the ultimate example of my claim that girls have all the fun songs in musicals, and the video only emphasizes the point.

Married

from Cabaret
Ron Rifkin, Michelle Pawk
A charming little song about marriage. A compact version is shown below.

Mystery

performed on the show Inside the Actor’s Studio
Hugh Laurie
A hilarious and charming example of how lyric writing sometimes feels like to me, trying to find desperate rhymes and more desperate words that conform with desperate rhymes. (blog post)

Love, Look in my Window

from Hello Dolly!
Ethel Merman
There isn’t a video for this one but the piece was written for Ethel Merman when she joined Hello Dolly! If you hear her perform it with the emotions she does, you’ll know why it was written for her. I can hardly keep from crying at points in it. Probably good I don’t have the music for that reason!

Some Lyrics for Singing Voice Mail Messages

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I had written these “voice mail songs” many years ago, when I used to live in Vancouver and we only had answering machines. It was also when I didn’t have to worry about getting “professionals” calling me. If you might have to worry about that, I highly recommend you don’t use these and just enjoy them. The singing messages are about 30 seconds long to sing, which is long for a voice mail, but that’s these lyrics’ “price” of fun. That’s why I recommend no intros, despite some being written as first verses of the songs where you could have the intros.

I sang these lyrics into my answering machines with the real music playing in the background, loud enough so you had the tune, but not nearly loud enough to overpower my voice. Given the recording quality of answering machines then, it was as good as poorly recorded karaoke. That technique can still work today, but given all the tech out there for karoake YouTube videos and recording features right on the cell phones and computers, try recording using the karoake links below with your cell phone or computer recording feature.

Or just record singing solo, unaccompanied.

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Mr Grinch, from the original Dr Seuss Christmas special

This is most appropriate for December, or whenever you feel is appropriate to start having the Christmas theme in your life. However, I don’t think it has to be for December or Christmas. For singing purposes, it is the part from 1:25 in the video below. In the lyrics of the real song in the video link below the lyrics to the karaoke version, it’s the verse that starts with You’re a foul one, Mr Grinch.

Don’t hang up please, like the Grinch,
Leave a message, it’s a cinch!
Leave your number and your name,
And a message if you’re game,
It’s a cin-inch!
The three words that best describe when
Are as follows, and I quote:
“At! The! Beep!”

Mr Grinch Karoake Link to YouTube

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Somethin’ Stupid, by Frank and Nancy Sinatra

This is meant to be recorded straight up from the beginning. To keep your message as short as possible, though, I would recommend skipping the intro and starting at 0:11 of the video below (or the equivalent in the karoaoke video link below the lyrics).

Hello, my friend, you’ve reached (two-syllable name)
But I’m not home to get the phone
And chit-chat with you.
But if you leave a message then, I’m sure that when
I’m home I’ll get in touch with you.
So at the beep please leave your name and number
And why you called me so I won’t be blue.
And then hang up so when I’m home
I’ll know you called and I’ll make sure
I call you…
(I’ll call you – like at the end of the song)

Somethin’ Stupid Karaoke Link to YouTube

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Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, by Bob Dylan

This one I would absolutely recommend skippping the intro cause it’s 35 seconds long and people will hang up before then, wondering what the heck that music is all about, including if they’ve dialed the correct number. I don’t care if there’s auto-dial these days. They’ll recheck, or think they hit the wrong auto-dial. You’ll have wasted their time, and if it’s long distance, their money. So start at 0:31 or so of the video for a brief lead-in, or the equivalent spot on the karoake video link.

They’ll phone ya when you’re tryin’ to have some fun,
They’ll phone ya when your mind is out to lunch,
They’ll phone ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck,
They’ll phone ya when you’re tryin’ to get a (beep!),
But never will they phone when you’re at home!
(That’s when) Everybody should get phoned!

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 Karaoke Link to YouTube

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Games that Lovers Play, by Connie Francis

I think Wayne Newton has the more famous version of this song, but I was not able to find it on YouTube. However, composer James Last wrote it for Connie Francis, specifically, so this is the original version. The intro is pretty short, but I would still skip it and start at 0:09 of the video below. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a karoake link. If you can find either the Wayne Newton version or karoake link, please do share. Thanks!

There are games that many foolish callers play,
Like how some don’t leave a message come what may,
Never caring who gets hurt along the way,
Let’s not play those games that callers play.

No karoake link was found for Games that Lovers Play

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Listen to Judy Collins Singing a Bob Dylan Gem, Dark Eyes

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JudyCollins BobDylan

Judy Collins and Bob Dylan

I am making my way through the Dylan discography to learn more about his music. I have to go slowly because like Emily Dickinson’s poetry, you can only take so much at a time before you either go numb or it hurts your head too much to take any more given the power of all the meanings contained within it. The beauty of good poetry is that it’s like being able to tell many stories in many languages all at once. The beauty of a song with good lyrics is that it adds one more language, the universal language of music, to the power of poetry.

Not long ago, I came across this hidden gem of a song by Bob Dylan, Dark Eyes. Bob Dylan has written many songs amazing to an extent I don’t have words to describe them, but not all are well known. That’s why I called it a hidden gem.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
From the 1985 album Empire Burlesque, Dark Eyes was written virtually on demand when Arthur Baker suggested something simpler for the album’s final track. Dylan liked the idea of closing the album with a stark, acoustic track, particularly when the rest of the album was so heavily produced. However, Dylan didn’t have an appropriate song. He returned to his hotel in Manhattan after midnight, and according to Dylan:

“As I stepped out of the elevator, a call girl was coming toward me in the hallway – pale yellow hair wearing a fox coat – high heeled shoes that could pierce your heart. She had blue circles around her eyes, black eyeliner, dark eyes. She looked like she’d been beaten up and was afraid that she’d get beat up again. In her hand, crimson purple wine in a glass. ‘I’m just dying for a drink,’ she said as she passed me in the hall. She had a beautifulness, but not for this kind of world.”

The brief, chance encounter inspired Dylan to write “Dark Eyes,” which was quickly recorded without any studio embellishment. Structured like a children’s song, with very rudimentary guitar work and very simple notes, it’s often quoted for its last chorus: “A million faces at my feet, but all I see are dark eyes.”

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As for what I think of Dark Eyes, I would put its lyrics, following the fan video below, on the same level as any other of Dylan’s songs. That’s a general ranking, though, rather than one for purposes like war songs or love songs, etc. I especially like how the “chorus” is just one simple line at the end of the verse, as simple as the musical structure of the song. This version I heard, though, was magnificently performed by Judy Collins who not only had a beautiful voice, but a beautiful one to properly treat this song in performance. Everything all taken into account, Dark Eyes has already become a favourite Dylan song, and Judy’s version a favourite Dylan cover.

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Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside,
They’re drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide.
I live in another world where life and death are memorized,
Where the earth is strung with lovers’ pearls and all I see are dark eyes.

A cock is crowing far away and another soldier’s deep in prayer,
Some mother’s child has gone astray, she can’t find him anywhere.
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise,
Whom nature’s beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.

They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I’m sure it is.
But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.

Oh, the French girl, she’s in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel,
Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel.
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies,
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.

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Least Likely To Facebook Tagging Meme

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After creating my version of the next generation of pictorial Facebook tagging meme in the Most Likely to version,the logical progression was a Least Likely To version below so this is original at the time of posting as far as I know it. While one can use this  poster in a pessimistic way towards tagging people for the future, to identify friends who would be least likely to do something, I meant it as a reflective exercise with the instructions being to tag friends who were least like to do something.

This is an exercise to acknowledge how people change in big ways we don’t expect, but that we should afford them the chance to in life, rather than blocking them in by removing their potential. I’m generally a positive kind of guy, though with a bit of a wicked sense of humour, at times, as you can see by some of my choices in the poster below. As a result, despite using the same poster as the Most Likely to version, I changed the picture text to be more general in some circumstances. We may dream or lift others to the post of president, for example, but in reality, just being a leader applies to far more of us than president, no matter what kind of president you want to consider.

Here’s how to get the new graphic for your Facebook fun:

  • Click on the picture below to get it at full size.
  • Right click on that picture and save to your computer.
  • Upload it to your Facebook profile.
  • Tag your friends!
  • Click the Back button on your browser to return to this post.

Please click here for a complete list of over 100 Facebook picture tagging memes on this site with which you can use for fun with your friends.

 

In case you don’t recognize some of these people, they are as follows, left to right:

  • Top: Peyton Manning, Wangari Matthai, Osama bin Laden, Paris Hilton, Jet Li
  • Middle: Pamela Anderson, Bob Dylan, Oprah Winfrey, the current Dalai Lama, Sue Johannson
  • Bottom: Claudia Schiffer, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, Anna Nicole Smith, Barack Obama

I’m too tired to put links to all these people but you can Google them, and maybe guess why I’ve put labeled each as such.

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Most Likely To… The Evolution of a Facebook Tagging Meme

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Note: Since this posting, I have evolved Facebook picture tagging memes on my own ideas far beyond this concept I saw. My ideas involve real world and life actions rather than just associating ideas. They are listed under the Action memes category, involving what I call Facebook 2.0 tagging memes.

The pictorial Facebook tagging memes that have been going around in many variations seems to have evolved into that common high school year book feature, the Most Likely To… page. I saw one just hours ago, but it was so poorly done (mostly due to almost unreadable small type) I went and created my own, text, picture compilation and all. Here’s how to get it:

  • Click on the picture below to get it at full size.
  • Right click on that picture and save to your computer.
  • Upload it to your Facebook profile.
  • Tag your friends or let them tag themselves.

Please click here for a complete list of over 100 Facebook picture tagging memes on this site with which you can use for fun with your friends.

In case you don’t recognize some of the people in my new version, they are as follows, left to right:

  • Top: Peyton Manning, Wangari Matthai, Osama bin Laden, Paris Hilton, Jet Li
  • Middle: Pamela Anderson, Bob Dylan, Oprah Winfrey, the current Dalai Lama, Sue Johannson
  • Bottom: Claudia Schiffer, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, Anna Nicole Smith, Barack Obama

You can Google these people if you want to know more about who they are, and maybe guess why I’ve put labeled each as such.

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