taking something base and makin' it so much better

i have a nephew who hates tomatoes. i can't really say why, i just know that he absolutely hates them. however, if you took that same tomato and added a little vinegar, corn syrup, a dash of sugar, some herbs and few spices.... then he suddenly loves it. and i mean really really loves it. he puts ketchup on everything. last week i saw him put some of the red gold on his waffles. yes on waffles that already were topped off nicely with abundant helpings of butter and syrup. so what does this have to do with music? as i was driving today Chromeo's remix of The Kids Don't Stand a Chance came on. this got me thinking about The Police and subsequently Sting. I hereby declare that Sting is the musical equivalent of the tomato. just a few notes of "Fields of Gold" and i start to dry-heave. however, if you add a little Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland i could listen to it all day.
it is a matter of time before my nephew will get over the tomato thing, but i'm pretty sure sting will pretty much always be a douche.

The Kids Don't Stand a Chance (Chromeo Remix) (mp3) - Vampire Weekend

Don't Stand So Close to Me (mp3) - The Police

So Lonely (mp3) - The Police

sooo i have this pretty gnarly headache, and my eyes are bloodshot. the diagnosis is simple - not enough sleep. this is nothing compared to what the mother of our little howler is going through. don't get me wrong... the noise our diminutive neonate makes isn't so much a wail as a tiny inarticulate sound that, when left unaccompanied for a period longer than 4 minutes and 23 seconds, begins to crescendo into a clamor

Photo by: flydime

that rivals The 1883 the Krakatoa eruption.


ahh the joys of parenting a 3 month old. there are a lot of little tricks to getting him to go back to sleep. or at least a state of non-noise making for (hopefully) up to 45 minutes. I have honed my sway (figure 8 style - all in the hips)/bounce (not too much, i personally try to mimic the gentle rising/falling that one would feel if they were adrift on a raft in a very calm ocean)/shhhh (maybe 40decibles with a little extra air right past his ear). However not even the swaybouceshhh seems to be working, so i have started singing softly to him. My partner in crime has all these cute little songs about chickens, rent and jello that she uses during play time, but i don't really have any that i sing (and each of my siblings could argue vehemently against me actually calling it singing - as i tend to fall into the orca whale mating call pitch more often than not) except two. In my rendition of these ditties the lyrics are changed, but the intent is still right on par.


Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby (mp3) by Allsion Krauss, Gillian Welch, and Emmylou Harris. This is the one i sing the most to the little man. The lyrics are derived from a traditional mountain lullaby, However T-Bone Burnett (producer and arranger) asked Gillian Welch to expand upon it. There is something remarkably beautiful, if not a little haunting about it. I can and have listened to this song on repeat for incredible stretches of time.

Beautiful Boy (mp3) by John Lennon
This is the acoustic demo, because let's be honest the jamacian steel drum sound on the track from Double Fantasy was a little much. I know its a crappy recording and there is nothing but treble, but it's the best I had. I really wanted to post the Ben Harper version from the Instant Karma: Campaign to Save Darfur version, but I lost it when i transferred my library. Sorry.

so as a bonus, I'll give you another sweet ballad. Although I don't think I'll be singing this one to my son anytime soon.
Sweet Child O' Mine (mp3) Taken By Trees

~j