Scar tissue that I wish you saw

I suppose at the moment, I'm figuring I'm more likely to share my lonely view with the birds rather than a mate or a community to belong to. Ah, but that's mostly just the depression talking, and a good way to take the edge off that old bug is...

Music...because music rocks.

Let's start it up with:
1. Scar Tissue - Red Hot Chilli Peppers from their classic album Blood Sugar Sex Magic. A delicate song, with immense feeling, but a gentle acceptance. It well captures that sad but understanding attitude of being alone, not by anyone's fault but just by circumstance. The lyrics sketch a picture of a man striving to end that loneliness with romance, but accepting his current failure and looking a bit gloomily at his continued efforts. Then there's that guitar rift that cuts in the middle right into your soul. It's the signal that this reluctant acceptance doesn't come without a passionate protest, but the rift never bursts into an electronic fury as it seems tempted to at times, as the acceptance wins out, but is intertwined with sorrow that the man cannot shake, and which lingers in your heart long after the song has ceased in your ears.

And here's the AMV from the good folks at FLCL. The hyper-energy of FLCL somewhat clashes with the meditative song, but FLCL's combination of humor and darkness, joy and pain, psuedo-philosophy and psuedo-pop matches well the sweet and bitter strains, that look at the birds as brothers, if only to express an alienation from the rest of the world.

But don't let that alienation get you down, because even with that you can still be singing...

2. Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, a great song with a marvelous simplicity in its energy and sentiment (the lyrics too to a degree), but also a marvelous complexity its multiple competing parts and different voices and different tones and...

DUDE: I GET KNOCKED DOWN AND I GET UP AGAIN YOU AIN'T NEVER GOING TO KEEP ME DOWN

You can't stop the music when it hits you that true and strong. Especially when it goes well with a lovely anime called Love Hina. While this anime may not be the best in the harem anime genre, it is a quintessential example, with a hero with a never-say-die attitude and an always-say-die luck which matches the song as well (plus Love Hina has plenty of examples of people drinking heavily which also hits the bells of the tubthumping way (oh I could explain to you what tubthumping means, but I'm not going to))

But to mix it up a bit, as I am inclined to, let's take the energy of the second and the bittersweet of the first and we end up with something close to...

3. Lovefool by the Cardigans - The essential sentiment of the artist in love, rejected but so broken by the lost that she's willing to cling to any thing her love can give her... Well, it's a classic. The tone switches amazingly seemlessly between honestly distraught and flippant to a degree where you can't tell whether you're being too cool for love or too in love to be cool, all you know is you're out of sorts and you don't know what to do and if only you could just have the illusion of love...well, that touches a bit too close honestly. Let's move along...

4. That's right Move Along by the All-American Rejects. This song has a decent deal of lyrical/musical complexity, but not a huge amount. It's biggest claim is the driving push of its energy. And then there's the sentiment, and then there's just the way the voice and music mixes excellently with the sentiment, because it is the loser yelp and the semi-emo, sort-of-punk rock jangle, yeah, these are the All-American Rejects, but isn't being a reject part of being an American? And isn't it glorious?

This AMV might not hit all the right notes. Sometimes the images are a little too spot on, sometimes they're just cool images without the right sentiment, but what the video editor got here is the need for an immense variation of imagery and colors to hit that energy flow perfectly. Plus the characters, like all good heroes, got a nice loser-y look from some angles, and you gotta love a loser...

Because losers are the ones who know how to rock.

I think that's the sentiment to end the night on, and if the loneliness ever gets too hard, just remember music is awesome. It won't take away the pain, but meh, pains not so bad and music, as stated before, is awesome.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Here's your holiday, hope you enjoy it this time (but that song's not here)

I usually feel guilty about not putting up enough text onto the web. But I've done several long texty sessions so I thought it might be time to change things up (because I can't stay still or the clown will eat me), and I'm going to do some of the music thang, as a way of making up to the world for using the word thang.

1.Creep by Radiohead - From the album Pablo Honey - After doing a session explicating this song in reference to my own life, it seemed like a good time to put this out there. Superb song in capturing a ghost of an unnamable emotion that carries so many connotations to it. I could write a session explicating it, and I did, but I could write another session explicating it in reference to general human emotions instead of to myself, but I'm not going to because that would be overly long, probably boring, and probably lame (lame like yo mamma! I'm sorry I'm sure your mother is a very nice lady, I should have said, lame like your face!). Instead let me point out some of the prominent currents of the song. There is a current of praise, which can be interpreted even as love, but there is a massive element of self-hatred in the song. And there is an undercurrent of anger, something I didn't touch upon in my previous session too much, largely because as I explained there I first listened to the radio edit version.

Lyrics

(I'd just like to say that I'm switching to Lyrics Freak as my lyrics site, before I was bouncing around between several different services, but I think some of those sites contained spyware, so I wanted to settle down. The nice thing about Lyrics Freak and the reason I chose it, is because it has a nice, clean presentation, and while the ads are obnoxious, they are less obnoxious than they are on other lyrics sites. Of course, if the lyrics are hard to decipher I'll probably check multiple sites, but for now I'm good with Lyrics Freak.)

Radiohead's video - an simple video that just lets the emotion shine through with some light tricks and cutting to complement it, quite a contrast to the AMV I'm posting for the song, not that the AMV's bad, I'm just saying that Radiohead's video is different but good as well.

Creep AMV - anime - Elfen Lied - This AMV IS NOT FOR THE WEAK OF STOMACH. I'm a guy who saw the movie Seven in middle school and I still found this gory. Still, the goriness complements the darkness and disturbing nature of this song. The song is about a man who hates himself intensely to the point of rage. This anime fits well with that. As to the anime itself, I've only seen a couple episodes and I'm not sure if I can recommend it. It has a pretty good reputation for what that's worth, but it combines cuteness and gore in a mix I can't help but find a little disturbing.

2.Highway to Hell by AC/DC - From the album Highway to Hell - As a devout Christian, I'm not planning to go on a highway to hell. And quite frankly I plan on encouraging others to avoid it as well. But that's not really what this song is about. This song is about the sheer arrogance and joy of living free of society's rules and restrictions. Of course, doing actual wrong and throwing away society's rules are two concepts that are easy to confuse. But one is a matter of throwing away your moral compass and one is a matter of being your own ultimate moral compass (of course the exactitudes of this matter including the role of church, religious leaders, and religious philosophy go far beyond this matter, but I think I should wrap up this philosophical discussion because this song is so damn fun!).

Lyics - "Living easy, living free," usually it's one or the other, but God bless them, AC/DC want both

A live concert of AC/DC - AC/DC, while they probably made some music videos were producing songs in those days before music videos, a whole 30 years ago. Man, I wanted that to sound sarcastic, but 30 years is a decent amount of time.

Highway to Hell AMV - anime - Akira - Now does this AMV glorify violence? Yeah, probably. But it is an awesome AMV, capturing all the energy and power of the song, and it matches in feel even if it shows a darker side to throwing away all of society's rules. Ultimately I watch a lot of stuff I don't totally agree with when it's quality material, because well, quality material sends a message of about the beauty of existence itself. Besides, this AMV doesn't take itself too seriously. But for all of those who might be confused by my stance, no I don't encourage violence (I'll probably elaborate on that sentence in a future session.).

3.You Know You're Right by Nirvana - From the album Nirvana - Kurt Cobain's last hit. I'm not sure if I can describe what this song's about, or really why this song is of the highest quality. But it is. I hope you're doing alright, Kurt, now that you've passed from this world.

Lyrics

Nirvana's Video - I'm not sure how to treat this since my status as a Nirvana fan tints my judgment, but it is good to see all those pictures of the band.

You Know You're Right AMV - anime - FLCL - I've used Fooly Cooly a lot in the AMV's I've posted up, but that's A. because of the prominence of Fooly Cooly among the makers of AMV's, and B. because Fooly Cooly is visually amazing (more impressive than it is, say plot-wise). But perhaps the best reason for using this AMV is that it is one of those rare AMV's that captures the pain and frustration both in the song and the anime.

4.Breaking the Habit by Linkin' Park - From the album Meteora - Screw those who dismiss nu metal this song and Linkin' Park in general are awesome. But on a more pertinent note, there are two ways to interpret this song, one is in a positive light as the singer is breaking the habit of antagonism and depression, that's how I viewed it at first, but after looking at the Wikipedia article which suggested suicide in the video, I can see that as being in the lyrics too, as the singer breaks his habit of his problems by killing himself. That's probably more accurate, but I tend to still see the song in the more positive light. But terms of quality are always key and in that the song has enough to make it here.

Lyrics

Linkin' Park's video - here you see what a music video can really do in terms of being creative while still accenting the song.

Breaking the Habit AMV - anime - Rurouni Kenshin OVA - The idea of Kenshin, a man trapped in the violence of his life, trying desperately to adopt non-killing despite a legacy that returns to haunt him, goes well with this song. But throwing that aside if you haven't seen any of the anime or even heard of it (it also goes by the name Samurai X), the energy and sadness of the video work well with the song, making its quality independent of your knowledge of the anime, as all AMV's should do.

5. Snow (Hey Oh) by the Red Hot Chili Peppers - From the album Stadium Arcadium - I thought I'd clear out the heaviness with this song. It contains that lightness to it that almost makes it seem fragile despite the presence of drums, guitar, etc. What's it about? Can't say. But I'd say the answer lies in part in the lightness.

Lyrics

(Alright, despite my above comment this isn't from Lyrics Freak, it's from another service which I find more obnoxious but apparently Lyrics Freak didn't have this song, weird.)

Red Hot Chili Pepper's video - a sweet understated video which summons emotions as fragile as the song itself.

Snow (Hey Oh) AMV - anime - Gundam Wing - Endless Waltz - I found this was a nice video that mixed with the song but provided some nice contrast as well. But I am concerned about the video quality. I mean it's a well put-together AMV, and given the age of the anime, weak resolution is somewhat expectable, but still it is disappointing, given that it could be so much better if the resolution was better. But perhaps that's just the attitude of a man who's gotten used to ultra-clear resolution and has forgotten that this sort of resolution was extraordinary just a little while ago.

So that's about with that. And so I must depart. But I'll always be in here (which is to say my room (at least until I leave my room)).

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!