Jonah’s gotten pretty demanding about his music lately, especially when we’re driving. For instance, today while driving we had to listen to a swing version of the five little monkeys jumping on the bed.  The entire time we were driving.  Like on repeat.  Good thing I’m pretty darn tolerant of that sort of thing.

EKBO has given us a bunch of kid’s CDs and there’s a song at the beginning of one that Jonah likes a lot.  I think he’s also heard her sing it and talk about how her preschoolers like it (I’ll let her detail that for you all) so it has special meaning for him.  I do admit that it’s pretty catchy sounding.  From listening to the musical tune, minus the lyrics, you might assume that it’s more complex than it actually is, but you’d be wrong. It’s a straight forward song involving a series of movements kids can follow.  Anyway, the rest of the CD has some good songs, some departures from the run of the mill children’s chord progressions (read simple and Western), a few annoying ones and is a refreshing change from something like a Raffi CD.

The album is called “Down in the Valley” by the New England Dancing Masters.  I looked them up and apparently they are a group that produces albums and books about singing games and dances, specifically geared towards teachers.  I’m not sure where their influences come from but the “Down in the Valley” album really does have some unique stuff on it.

I’ll shamelessly tell anyone that House MD got me through the first month or so of breast feeding with Jonah.  I believe I watched about 4 seasons worth during those epic feeding sessions.  This time around I’ll gladly thank the Olympics for getting us all through that first couple weeks.

I have to admit, I haven’t ever been a big fan of the Olympics.  They’ve never really interested me in any kind of meaningful way.  I’ve always chalked that up to not really being a very big sports fan.

Perhaps because they were happening so close to home in Vancouver B.C. (or perhaps because we were sitting around a lot at weird hours!) everyone at my house got into the spirit of them.  Annoying patriotic crap aside, I found some of the cheesy stories about the athletes appealing, I liked watching a number of different sports and evenings really became a family bonding time when we’d watch to see what new skier would bite the dust or my mom would say, “Oh no not curling again!”

I really liked how Evan Lysacek handled the negative comments from the Russian silver medalist.  He so gracefully turned everything into something positive and refused to making anything of them.  I believe I have a little crush on him now.  He and other athletes showed so much more humility than I’m used to seeing from our “star” athletes we see on tv every day.  I really liked that.

Jonah even liked some of the events and when he saw some skiing he said, “I go snow with Kayla,” reminiscing about going to Snoqualmie with his friend.  When he watched a skier crash he got really concerned and we had to explain that she was ok and getting help.  Shows he’s not a psychopath, right?

And now for the musical portion of this post…  Turns out a song used in an Apolo Ohno commercial is from an album we own and the tune is quite catchy.  It also sounds like the Olympics to me, if that makes any sense at all.

It’s from a group called The XX and is the intro song to the album. The album itself is pretty good too, using a lot of electronics and catchy beats. I plan to give it more playing time soon.

I saw this fascinating article the other day and thought it would make a perfect Friday Music post, especially since I haven’t been listening to any other new music in the last couple weeks. Before this article I’d never heard of the “My Way” Killings or really anything about Karaoke in the Philippines. It also reminds me that even with my anthropology studies, I didn’t spend much time thinking about the Philippines in general. This is a long one so bear with me and I’ll post the actual song too.
~~~~~
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: February 6, 2010
GENERAL SANTOS, the Philippines — After a day of barbering, Rodolfo Gregorio went to his neighborhood karaoke bar still smelling of talcum powder. Putting aside his glass of Red Horse Extra Strong beer, he grasped a microphone with a habitué’s self-assuredness and briefly stilled the room with the Platters’ “My Prayer.”

Next, he belted out crowd-pleasers by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. But Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”
“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”
The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?
Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars have removed the song from their playbooks. And the country’s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr. Gregorio here in this city in the southernmost Philippines, are practicing self-censorship out of perceived self-preservation.
Karaoke-related killings are not limited to the Philippines. In the past two years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Karaoke-related assaults have also occurred in the United States, including at a Seattle bar where a woman punched a man for singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” after criticizing his version.
Still, the odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the Philippines, if only because of the ubiquity of the pastime. Social get-togethers invariably involve karaoke. Stand-alone karaoke machines can be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning. And Filipinos, who pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad singers.
Indeed, most of the “My Way” killings have reportedly occurred after the singer sang out of tune, causing other patrons to laugh or jeer.
“The trouble with ‘My Way,’ ” said Mr. Gregorio, “is that everyone knows it and everyone has an opinion.”
Others, noting that other equally popular tunes have not provoked killings, point to the song itself. The lyrics, written by Paul Anka for Mr. Sinatra as an unapologetic summing up of his career, are about a tough guy who “when there was doubt,” simply “ate it up and spit it out.” Butch Albarracin, the owner of Center for Pop, a Manila-based singing school that has propelled the careers of many famous singers, was partial to what he called the “existential explanation.”
“ ‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant,” Mr. Albarracin said. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.”
Defenders of “My Way” say it is a victim of its own popularity. Because it is sung more often than most songs, the thinking goes, karaoke-related violence is more likely to occur while people are singing it. The real reasons behind the violence are breaches of karaoke etiquette, like hogging the microphone, laughing at someone’s singing or choosing a song that has already been sung.
“The Philippines is a very violent society, so karaoke only triggers what already exists here when certain social rules are broken,” said Roland B. Tolentino, a pop culture expert at the University of the Philippines. But even he hedged, noting that the song’s “triumphalist” nature might contribute to the violence.
Some karaoke lovers are not taking chances, not even at family gatherings.
In Manila, Alisa Escanlar, 33, and her relatives invariably gather before a karaoke machine, but they banned “My Way” after an uncle, listening to a friend sing the song at a bar, became enraged at the laughter coming from the next table. The uncle, who was a police officer, pulled out his revolver, after which the customers at the next table quietly paid their bill and left.
Awash in more than one million illegal guns, the Philippines has long suffered from all manner of violence, from the political to the private. Wary middle-class patrons gravitate to karaoke clubs with cubicles that isolate them from strangers.
But in karaoke bars where one song costs 5 pesos, or a tenth of a dollar, strangers often rub shoulders, sometimes uneasily. A subset of karaoke bars with G.R.O.’s — short for guest relations officers, a euphemism for female prostitutes — often employ gay men, who are seen as neutral, to defuse the undercurrent of tension among the male patrons. Since the gay men are not considered rivals for the women’s attention — or rivals in singing, which karaoke machines score and rank — they can use humor to forestall macho face-offs among the patrons.
In one such bar in Quezon City, next to Manila, patrons sing karaoke at tables on the first floor and can accompany a G.R.O. upstairs. Fights often break out when customers at one table look at another table “the wrong way,” said Mark Lanada, 20, the manager.
“That’s the biggest source of tension,” Mr. Lanada said. “That’s why every place like this has a gay man like me.”
Ordinary karaoke bars, like the Nelson Carenderia here, a single room with bare plywood walls, mandate that a singer give up the microphone after three consecutive songs.
On one recent evening, at the table closest to the karaoke machine, Edwin Lancaderas, 62, crooned a Tagalog song, “Fight Temptation” — about a married man forgoing an affair with a woman while taking delight in their “stolen moments.” His friend Dindo Auxlero, 42, took the mike next, bawling songs by the Scorpions and Dire Straits. Several empty bottles of Red Horse crowded their table.
“In the Philippines, life is difficult,” said Mr. Auxlero, who repairs watches from a street kiosk, as he railed about government corruption and a weak economy that has driven so many Filipinos to work overseas, including his wife, who is a maid in Lebanon. “But, you know, we have a saying: ‘Don’t worry about your problems. Let your problems worry about you.’ ”
The two men roared with laughter.
“That’s why we come here every night — to clear the excesses from our heads,” Mr. Lancaderas said, adding, however, that the two always adhered to karaoke etiquette and, of course, refrained from singing “My Way.”
“Misunderstanding and jealousy,” in his view, were behind the “My Way” killings. “I just hope it doesn’t happen here,” he said.
~~~~~~~~
Here are the lyrics to “My Way”
And now, the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I’ll say it clear;
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full -
I’ve travelled each and every highway.
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets? I’ve had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew,
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried,
I’ve had my fill – my share of losing.
But now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that,
And may I say, not in a shy way -
Oh no. Oh no, not me.
I did it my way.

For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself – Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.

Yes, it was my way.

Here’s another Shazam find.

I just knew I recognized the voice singing on the radio the other evening but it was no song I’d ever heard. Sure enough, for those of you Shins fans out there, it was James Mercer doing a side project with Danger Mouse and they’ve announced an album to be out at the beginning of March.

From the reviews, it sounds like people are pretty excited about the mix of sound these two are creating. I’m just feeling darn proud of myself that I know some current news happening in the musical world. It’s definitely been a while!

Since I don’t actually have the album I’ll leave you with the Broken Bells website. It’s kind of cool so hopefully that’ll make up for having to use an outside link. This is the album’s first single, called “The High Road.”

One of my mental New Year resolutions was to listen to more new music in 2010. So far I think I’m fairing better than last year and I have my phone to thank for that. For those of you who have applications on your phones you might know about Shazam, which I have to say is totally awesome and helpful for my musical improvement.

Shazam is a little program that lets you record something you’re hearing – it records about 20 seconds for you – and then analyzes what you are listening to. As long as it can figure it out, and it’s quite good, it’ll bring up a link of the song and album and then further links to where you can buy it on itunes or read reviews about it or send a note to yourself about it.

A couple weeks ago I was at Sip and Ship and this catchy little song came on that I just had to get more info about so, boom, Shazam to the rescue! It was a strange sounding song. 80s beat, slightly Davie Bowie sounding vocals in the beginning and then cutting to this totally 70s sounding falsetto. I couldn’t believe the instantaneous mix of genres going on in the song. Anyway, Slanky downloaded the album later that evening for me and it’s totally fun and peppy.

The band is called Empire of the Sun and the song I heard was Walking on a Dream. The group is actually an Australian group classified as electronic but they really mix genres throughout the entire album. I think at least one song also has some live guitar in it. It’s a pretty fun album, though not for all types of listening occasions.

I won’t include lyrics here because a) I don’t know what they are saying anyway and b) this review doesn’t really cover the meaty stuff like what the song’s about and whatnot, i don’t see that as being the point when it sounds fun.

I’m busy writing a wedding ceremony (not going well) and our computer with all of our music is not currently functioning but in light of my current circumstances I HAVE been trying to narrow down some of my favorite love songs. I’ll try to compile that list soon but for now think of some of your own and list them!

We’ve given in to the hype with the new documentary and remastering of the albums so we’ve been on a bit of a Beatles kick here lately. Jonah seems to really dig the simple straightforward rock so we’ve got a good thing going.
So many of our friends grew up with parents listening to the Beatles but I have to admit, neither Slanky or I have much experience. It’s amazing that we’ve missed such a big part of our culture and we’re hoping to play a little catch-up. The song I chose can’t really be called a favorite given my limited knowledge but it’s on the Revolver album that Slanky picked up the day the new ones came out. I think it’s pretty catchy and dancy so there you have it.
Do any of you have favorite Beatles songs? I’m curious to hear any Beatles related childhood memories!

Got to Get You Into My Life
I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn’t know what I would find there.
Another road where maybe I
Could see another kind of mind there.
Ooh then I suddenly see you,
Ooh did I tell you I need you
Ev’ry single day of life?
You didn’t run, you didn’t lie,
You knew I wanted just to hold you,
And had you gone, you knew in time
We’d meet again for I had to hold you.
Ooh you were meant to be near me,
Ooh and I want to hear me,
Say we’ll be together ev’ry day.
Got to get you into my life.
What can I do, what can I be?
When I’m with you I want to stay there.
If I’m true I’ll never leave,
And if I do I know the way there.
Ooh then I suddenly see you,
Ooh did I tell you I need you
Ev’ry single day of my life?
Got to get you into my life.
Got to get you into my life.
I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn’t know what I would find there.
Another road where maybe I
Could see another kind of mind there.
Ooh then I suddenly see you,
Ooh did I tell you I need you
Ev’ry single day of life?
What are you doing to my life?

From Revolver, originally 1966, remastered 2009 – Paul McCartney singing

Friday Music has taken a bit of a hiatus, mostly because I hit a bit of a try spell for a while there, musically speaking. Not much music was happening in the house besides Jonah’s music which is fun and all but not really blog-worthy most of the time. His tastes are expanding though and so I’m sure we’ll soon be hearing about bands like Peter, Bjorn and John or The Arcade Fire.

Going to Bumbershoot rekindled things a bit so here’s my favorite song from The Long Winters, who we saw on Saturday night. It’s a love song but a bit on the mournful side. I think there are several interpretations but right now I’m thinking it’s about moving on or the lack of ability to do so. I really like the lyricism though and its beautiful quality makes up for the depressing subject matter.

IT’LL BE A BREEZE

This fall I don’t know if I survived
I woke up still on fire
Are you saying I’m still alive
These are pieces I didn’t know I had
Each a different shade of blinding
These are pieces you left behind
Not the pieces that fit with mine

It’ll be a breeze
Is it your kisses I’m feeling?

I am a tree
Build a nest in my hair
Your voice appeals to me
It’s exactly how I feel

I’m fading in and out
And I don’t mind
I try to let you know I’m fine
And I can hear you crying

The Long Winters, When I Pretend to Fall

Also, for you music enthusiasts, here’s Ben Gibbard doing a cover.

I’ve thought long and hard about this post (hence the backdating as some of you astute readers may notice) and what sort of song could possibly be put here on this particular day. I thought about sad songs, like that Death Cab one about how being with someone who passes is a true expression of love, or angry songs to express a sort of bitterness that a part of me feels. But my gut tells me those aren’t the stories I should be telling right now.

If you never got the chance to know Kim Otten then I’m here to tell you that a there will always be a tiny something in your life that’s missing. As a mother, a wife, a friend, a family member, mentor and teacher she touched the lives of so many people who are now feeling the weight of her loss. But my feeling is she’d not want us to get bogged down in overwhelming sadness or bitterness we may feel. Those feelings will be saved for private moments. Instead, here, I’ll celebrate her life and the afterward that I dearly pray is all she hoped it would be and more.

What a Wonderful World
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss and originally performed by Louis Armstrong

I’m doing this post rather late as we’ve got guests in town. I thought it’d be poor form for the Friday Music post to be late on only its 3rd running but perhaps when you see how little effort I’m making you’ll think otherwise.
My choice this week is from a CD given to us by the McCanns. It’s got some wonderful tunes on it but my favorite is the title track, Down at the Sea Hotel. For a long time this was the CD that played Jonah’s night music and so this song reminds me of sleeping, which isn’t something we’ve been doing well this week because of this hot weather. So here’s to lovely lullabies and the wish for good sleep! I’ll have to update the other verses of the lyrics because I can’t find a full spread of them on line right now. Oh and I can’t find a youtube clip so I’ll have to figure out some sort of audio file. Consider this post severely unfinished, thus barely scraping by the deadline.

Update: Lyrics finished!!

Down at the Sea Hotel
Tuna is tired,
the seahorse is sleepy,
the hammerhead’s not feeling well.
The catfish is yawning- it’s lights-out time down at the Sea Hotel.

Good night. Good night. Sleep tight. Sleep tight.
Down at the Sea Hotel.

They’ve eaten their minnows.
They’ve eaten their worms.
They have no more stories to tell.
Octopus stretches all eight of his arms down at the Sea Hotel.

Good night. Good night. Sleep tight. Sleep tight.
Down at the Sea Hotel.

Good night!

By John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson, Lucy Kaplansky, Guy Davis, Lynn Miles And The Wailin’ Jennys

Update: Here’s Audio!!