Funny how certain memories centre themselves around certain people. When you are a musician, you realise how possessive a singer can get about 'her' song. I've been pianist for so many people, and I've learned some beautiful songs this way. They always remind me of the person who sang it 'first', as it were.
Cry Me a River is not Ella Fitzgerald, Twist and Shout is not the Beatles, I Feel the Earth Move is not Carole King, There You'll Be is not Faith Hill. In fact, Joni Mitchell can never just be just a singer I like; even if I had not sung her and had the best solo time on stage I'd ever had!
I feel like I'm getting stuck these days; my cd player had too much jazz, borrowed from friends, and too much stuff of my own that keeps getting recycled over and over again. As usual, my older brother (Baba) is my source for new music. Much as it makes me the ickle pipsqueak, aka small fry, etc. I don't care, I got to get it somewhere! Being in music fulltime (or should I say halftime, since the other half is supposed to be literature) is tough, man! You snooze, you lose! Now that it's finally dawned on me that I'm no prodigy (no, the there's hope yet theory doesn't work here) it's upto me to LISTEN! You can only write what you know, right?
Eh he. I'm listening to the UK top ten singles off youtube.
This may not actually help with composing, but then I can cut myself some slack, eh?


P.S. Wow, talk about cross reference. I've been hearing Vinicius de Moraes sing lots of Bossa Nova on repeat on my winamp and now I found Ella Fitzgerald's Cry Me a River done in Bossa Nova style! I'm not uploading the link because it wasn't so great. There is also a french version, called Pleurer Des Rivières but, Francophile that I am, I wouldn't recommend it! I also found a Spanish song called Te Lloré Un Río which is listed on Wikipedia as a version of this song, but there's no connection, really; even the title translates "a river cries to you" (although I have less faith in Babelfish now that the "altavista" in the url is gone. It doesn't look the same now. I feel betrayed!)
P.P.S. No, I'm not embedding any videos for this arbit. post!