My GF Sez » Music

Love is the Answer – Barbra Streisand

guysezual — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:34:19 +0000

Love is the Answer – Barbra Streisand

Guy Sez: OK, she’s airbrushed on the album cover. No way 67 year old Barbra Streisand looks like she’s still in her twenties.

Having made that crack, I’ll note that her voice remains the same: every note, every word, every phrase perfect. Not a lot of the geschreying of old, but the material doesn’t need force. This album is more reflective, more serious. These are not the love songs of a twenty year old, every line oozing passion and urgent need. These are the memories of a lady who has had a rich and romantic life, looking back with wistful joy.

Straight up, go for the deluxe edition with the two CDs. The songs are the same on both (though Disc 1 has a bonus track), but Disc 2 is just Barbra and a jazz quartet, instead of the overlaid orchestra on Disc 1.

It’s not just me. Barbara’s voice is the treasure here, and no matter how good the boys in the band may be, they are not the reason to buy this album. Forget the orchestral versions and stick with the quartet.

Love is the reason, love is the answer, and each one of these carefully chosen love songs will hook into your romantic heart, where Barbra’s mellow tones will coax out the loving fool in you. These are songs to share on a quiet night, just you and a lover enjoying each other’s closeness. Songs for holding hands, songs for a glass of something, songs for a fireside evening together.

Grl will tell you all that, Sister Hazel aside, I like the older stuff. And that’s mostly so. Biz Markie can make me laugh without a smile cracking his big round face, but yeah, for me it’s Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra and Simon and Garfunkel. And Barbra Streisand.

She was fantastic, crooning Memory from The Way We Were. Or taking a bath with Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born. I used to wear that part of the Beta smooth, rewinding it, hoping she’d stand up, covered in suds as she looked into my eyes and sang Evergreen to me.

Love is the Answer. Right. Hit the fast forward on that clunky old video and we’re into the next century, though you wouldn’t know it, looking at Babs in all her Photoshop glory, showing a little bare shoulder, a little tit, nothing but a blanket between her and a middle-aged male fantasy.

The key song is Here’s To Life:

But there’s no “yes” in yesterday
And who knows what tomorrow brings or takes away
As long as I’m still in the game, I want to play
For laughs…for life…for love.

It’s been a good, satisfying life, Barbra tells us, but she’s not ready to give up the fun. Not yet. I’ve listened to the song a dozen times and gotten more out of it each time.

In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning, despite its poignancy, is almost comic relief in comparison. It’s a song I associate with Sleepless in Seattle, a light romantic comedy, yet Barbra extracts every ounce of emotion from it. We’ve all been there: woken at two in the morning to an empty space in the big bed, and we’re alone with our thoughts. There’s a lovely Diana Krall piano solo to listen for. The two discs have slightly different lyrics, but you’ll have to listen closely to pick it.

The fourth track is the deepest. If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas) has some sorrowing lines, delivered absolutely right on target, and then Barbara drops into French. Delving into the history of this song, Ne me quitte pas was written after singer/songwriter Brel was thrown out of his mistress’s life after casting shame and sadness upon her. She was pregnant with Brel’s child and had an abortion after he refused fatherhood. Listening to the English lyrics, it’s clear that there’s a crisis on hand, Barbara seeing devastation if her lover leaves, and paradise if he stays. But just listen to the agony and promise in her voice!

Two more tracks caught my eye. The evergreen Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: as Barbra says, she’s heard it a thousand times before, but this time in singing it herself she’s found new meanings. To me it’s simple: lose love and cry. And finally, my favorite song on the album. Make Someone Happy.

Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Fame, if you win it,
Comes and goes in a minute.
Where’s the real stuff in life to cling to?
Love is the answer,
Someone to love is the answer.
Once you’ve found her,
Build your world around her.
Make someone happy.
Make just one someone happy
And you will be happy too.

I’d like to think that this is a good philosophy for life. Barbara’s fame certainly isn’t fleeting, but she’s got a lifetime of amazing talent to draw upon. And making other people happy certainly pays dividends in making yourself happy. I know that for a fact. I live for smiles. And ultimately, when it comes down to it all, one way or another, all the deep questions of human existence come down to four words: Love is the Answer.

Grl Sez Guy’s right, this isn’t the stuff of a 20 year olds romance, but it’s beginning to grow on me! Not something I would put on my ipod, but if I wanted a romantic atmosphere on a date, this is definitely something I would play. Softly, in the background, over dinner with candles and flowers. In the hopes that it would go further…

Track listing:
1. Here’s To Life
2. In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning
3. Gentle Rain
4. If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)
5. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
6. Make Someone Happy
7. Where Do You Start?
8. A Time For Love
9. Here’s That Rainy Day
10. Love Dance
11. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
12. Some Other Time
13. You Must Believe In Spring

Why Sister Hazel rocks!

grlsezual — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:14:49 +0000

Sister Hazel's latest

Why Sister Hazel rocks!

Everyone knows I’m a huge Hazelnut (well everyone who’s read my Hot Seat!), but I’m quite serious when say they are one of the greatest bands around. And why, you might ask, dear reader. Because they have a song for almost any occasion (well for love anyway, which let’s be honest, is what life is about!). Every time something’s happened in my love life (so not very often :p), I’ve found a Sister Hazel song that speaks to me about where I am.

Songs for hooking up:

Hello, It’s Me (Absolutely)
Everything Else Disappears (Absolutely)

Absolutely

Songs for being madly in love:

Beautiful Thing (Fortress)
Everybody (Chasing Daylight)
In The Moment (Lift)
Let Your Love Flow
Mandolin Moon (Absolutely)
One Love (Chasing Daylight)
See Me Beautiful (Release)
This Kind Of Love (Absolutely)
Vacation Rain (Release)

Songs about love:

See Me Beautiful (Release)

Fortress

Hopeless (Chasing Daylight)
Strange Cup Of Tea (Fortress)

Songs for breaking up:

Tear By Tear (Absolutely) (not really about breaking up, but if I need a good cry its a good one to get me going)
Best I’ll Ever Be (Chasing Daylight)
Take A Bow (Release)
Take It Back (Release)
Shame (Absolutely)
Where Do You Go (Absolutely)
Truth Is (Absolutely)
Killing Me Too (Chasing Daylight)

Chasing Daylight

Songs for when you’re starting to get over them:

Life Got In The Way (Chasing Daylight)
Meet Me In The Memory (Absolutely)
Wanted It To Be (…Somewhere More Familiar)

Personal favorites of mine:
Everything Else Disappears – I love the shyness of this song, the unsureness of the singer, the potential of something amazing happening, the romance, “and we sat on your car while the light from the stars poked holes in the sky.” And the happy ending!

Let Your Love Flow – (Written by the Bellamy Brothers) What I
love about this song is that it makes love seem so natural – which it is – by likening it to natural things “Just let your love fly, like a bird on a wing, and let your love bind you, to all living things.” I also love this line “must be that season when that love light shines all around us” – I know when I’m in love it feels exactly like there’s light shining out of me, all around me, surrounding everything.

Lift

This Kind Of Love – I mostly love this one for its slow, methodic beat, making the song sound extremely simple, just like love… And the lyrics just ignite something in me – they get the feeling so right!

Best I’ll Ever Be – Oozes disappointment that it didn’t work out. I just love the bit at the end of the song, just random household noises, but they sound so poignant, still oozing disappointment…
– Grl Sez

Guy Sez: Grl put me onto Sister Hazel, and since then I’ve become nutty as well. Not sure that I’d say they were one of the best bands in the world, but yes, they rock! My own few personal favorites:

...Somewhere More Familiar

One Love – This is just a fantastic song for being in love. It sums up what it’s like to have a lover who is the real thing.

This Kind Of Love – More of the same – it’s a great song to play at a wedding.

Run for the Hills – I love this song. It’s got spinning wheels and people grabbing their lover and running for the hills as the tide rises, hard rain comes down and fire and brimstone bubbles up. We’ve all had days like that.

See Me Beautiful – I’d like to be the person others see me as, without my private doubts or vices. It’s something I strive towards, and this work is its own reward.

My personal ambition – one of many – is to find the time to attend a Sister Hazel concert with Grl, and rock along in the audience. We’ve come close a few times, missed out by a day or so in Orlando and St Louis. We’ll get there one day.
– Guy Sez

“For Today” by Netherworld Dancing Toys

guysezual — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:44:29 +0000

An odd name for a group. Netherworld Dancing Toys. You just know that this lot won’t be playing chamber music or dirging on about the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking.

The band was formed in 1982 in Dunedin, New Zealand, and was popular amongst students at the University of Otago. Boisterous and fun-loving, their work dealt with themes popular amongst young adults, and this 1985 song, about smiles and relationships, is a cherished favorite of mine. It also won several awards and has been used in advertising campaigns, most notably by New Zealand Post.

The vocalist talks about preferring his own company, but realising that ”there’s a hole in my well-being so big you could drive a truck right through,” he tells the listener, “I think you should know, that you are the one who could probably fill it for good.”

Isn’t this the very heart of love? Another human being makes you complete. Without them, you are empty. No satisfaction, no pleasure, nothing compares to the company of your lover. Together, you are one, you are Yin and Yang, you fill each other up completely.

And overflow. There is a sweet excess about lovers. You hold hands, kiss, gaze into each other’s eyes, and onlookers smile in recollection of their own loves. Perhaps they head to the post office to whip off a hot letter to a past flame.

“For today, I remember your smile.” That line, repeated over and over, is the chorus, the core, the couer of the song. Love is pleasure, laughter, shared joy, smiles and happiness. That’s what distinguishes love from sex. Without love, sex is merely the friction of parts; a mechanical satisfaction as routine as consuming a hamburger.

Love is the sauce, love is the spice, love is everything that makes the mundane into magic. Without love, we are just going through the motions. With love, the stars themselves twinkle for our personal pleasure, the birds sing, the world revolves and people smile at us. All is good.

“For today, I remember your smile,” the song continues on and on. There’s a yearning there. The lovers are apart, memories of past smiles the only solace. Until that joyous moment when the arms open, the lovers embrace, the lips meet and the smiles return.

“All I want to do is be with you, and everything else seems unimportant compared.”

There are other, more famous love songs, but for me, this bright smiling song sums up everything in love. I hear it, I think of the joyful face of my lover, and I smile in happy memory.

And, when at last we are in each other’s arms again, nothing else matters. Not even the best love song in the world.

–Guysezual