Culture: Petty Into the Great Wide Open

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I'll refrain from trying to match the wonderful tributes to Tom Petty being posted around the world today after his death at the age of just 66.  But, I do have to question one thing:  Why have none of the audio salutes I've heard ended with--or even featured--Into the Great Wide Open, which seems to me the ultimate encapsulation and closing tribute to his impact on society?

Culture: Viva Forever and the 17-Year Rule

TORONTO, ONTARIO - About a year ago, this blog mentioned The Imbayakunas, an Andean-Canadian group that was performing near the base of the CN Tower in Toronto. They've been back on a number of dates this year, and when I take the volunteer post in the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre at the foot of the 6213 steam locomotive on one of those days, they can be heard playing in the background.

While most of their repertoire is classic Andean music or at least in some way related to it (Simon and Garfinkel's "El Condor Pasa" was, in fact, derived from a Andean folk song), the group includes some popular music. I'd grown used to them playing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and The Eagles' "Hotel California." This past weekend, though, I heard a new melody coming from the pan flutes, rondador, drums, and other instruments--"Viva Forever" by the Spice Girls.

I have to admit that as much as I've been somewhat dismissive of the semi-manufactured Spice Girls, I've always thought "Viva Forever" was actually a pretty good pop ballad. A collaboration between the group and producers Matthew Rowe and Richard Stannard, it has a catchy melody and the lyrics mixing Spanish and English are reasonably creative. I happened to be in Europe when it was at the peak of its popularity there in late summer 1998, so there was no way I could miss it--unlike in the US, where the single was never even released (though it was part of the "Spiceworld" album). It's the only Spice Girls song that has ever made any of my personal play lists. Apparently Pavarotti thought it was worthy too, since he did a collboration with the group and included it on one of his own albums.

I've noticed in my lifetime that many songs tend to come back with a cover version that is in some way musically superior to the original. To cite two examples off my lifetime top-10 list, the 1986 Crowded House hit "Don't Dream It's Over" returned seventeen years later in 2003 with a Sixpence None The Richer cover, and the 1988 Roxette single "Listen to Your Heart" returned seventeen years later in 2005 with a dance version but also an amazing unplugged version from D.H.T.

My prediction is obvious: In the summer of 2015, seventeen years after its original release, some group is going to do a cover of "Viva Forever" that will blow the Spice Girls away. Maybe they'll even include instrumentals from the Imbayakunas.

Culture: Canadians Can't Sing, Either

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Examples of poor performances of the national anthem in the United States, the Star Spangled Banner, are quite common. This is hardly surprising; the melody is derived from a drinking song ("The Anacreontic Song" which was used to determine sobriety--if one could still sing it properly, one was sober) and is notoriously difficult to sing--just about everyone decides they should have started to sing it lower. Get the lyrics right, and few will complain if one misses a note.

Up here in Canada, with a national anthem having a melody that is not exceptionally difficult, a song specifically commissioned as a patriotic song, one would think there wouldn't be any problem singing "O Canada." However, that apparently is not the case. A recent study from the University of Victoria has found that only 67% of high school choral students made it through the song with two or fewer errors, and just 46% made it through without melodic errors. Lest the fact that the song was originally written in French and translated into English be blamed for the lyrical deficiency, the lowest level of proficiency was actually found in Quebec, where the original lyrics were being performed.

The lyrics of "O Canada" are a little strange. The CBC Comedy Factory brilliantly satirized some of these points in a recent podcast (skip to the last three minutes). Do hearts really glow? More significantly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper (a Conservative, no less) suggested after [those games in Vancouver] that perhaps "thy son's command" might be a sexist lyric, but a public outcry against that idea ended any initiative to change it earlier this year.

I think Jian Ghomeshi may have been onto something with his monologue on CBC Radio One's Q today; the fact that choral students were tested may have actually skewed the results more poorly than they would have been otherwise. Likely, in choirs, most of the focus is on things that are more difficult to sing than "O Canada." Students likely spend more time trying to get the "Star Spangled Banner" right, and aren't normally practicing their own anthem.

Still, this study is a wake-up call for Canadians. It wouldn't hurt for all Canadian students, not just choir students, to sing the national anthem more often and learn it correctly. I figure that I sang the US national anthem less a dozen times in high school, so likely Canadians sing it similarly few times. Find an excuse to do it once a week, and I wouldn't be surprised if proficiency improved significantly.

Culture: Gee, Andy Rooney Sounds Like Me

TORONTO, ONTARIO - For some reason, Andy Rooney's commentary this week on 60 Minutes seems to be getting a lot of attention. Rooney, who has made a career out of curmudgeonly commentary on the legendary newsmagazine program, has appeared at the end of the show since 1978. Considering the long list of everyday annoyances that Rooney has taken on over the years, it wouldn't seem that a commentary on modern popular music would draw much attention.

Yet, the video has apparently gone viral. I don't why the Millennial generation finds it amusing that Rooney pronounces Lady Gaga as "Gah-guh" instead of "Gah-gah"; most 91 year-olds, no matter how cool, don't pronounce all modern things accurately. My now-deceased grandfather of the same generation insisted on contracting cellular phones as "cella" phones instead of "cell" phones. Everyone knew what he meant, and everyone knew Rooney was talking about the performer born as Stefani Germanotta.

Most ironic to me, his commentary read almost like the very first commentary I ever did. Clearly, the topic is low-hanging fruit; I wrote mine at age 13, not 91. Rather than claiming that I was the typical American kid--I always knew better than that--I instead made the case that my increasing lack of familiarity with popular music meant that I was "gradually becoming out of style." However, this still puts me in the realm of Rooney--did I really think I was ever in style, and did he ever really think he was an average guy? We both went on to express utter estrangement with the most popular music artists of the day.

So what does this all mean? Did it take Andy Rooney 91 years to reach the same degree of cultural alienation that took me only 13? Did he have so much more good material in his head that it took him 78 years before he was down to the topics that I had to start with? Is life really all a matter of symmetry, and my (or anyone else's) earlier writings would be expected to mirror Rooney's (or anyone that lives that long's) later writings? Or am I just jealous that Rooney's commentary went viral and my similar commentary never saw the light of air?

One thing is for certain. When I wrote by hand my expression of disaffection with popular music and recorded it on an analog cassette tape on a snowy New Year's Day as a teenager, the last thing I ever imagined is that someday I would be typing out on a globally-accessible forum how a major television personality had expressed the same sentiment I had that morning. I can only imagine how different Rooney's first writings may have been!

Culture: When Songs Become Culture

TORONTO, ONTARIO - There are moments when one realizes that a song has become not just a pop hit, but a part of the culture of the times. When then-presidential candidate General Wesley Clark claimed to listen to OutKast, "Hey Ya" moved from crossover break-out to cultural icon of the time. When U2 performed "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of" in the secretive post-September 11th concert in 2001, despite the fact that it was actually about suicide, it became the song symbolic of the time after the terrorist attack, more important than its modest commercial success would imply.

I take more stock of more casual moments to realize that a song has "made it" beyond the radio. Once, in spring 2003, while riding a local train near Zurich, Switzerland, a pair of teenage girls boarded the train, started horsing around, and one exclaimed, "Chihuahua!" At that point, I knew the hit by Swiss German rapper DJ BoBo (from whom, I oddly have only two degrees of separation) used in a Coca-Cola campaign had become at least a Swiss cultural phenomenon. (It never made it in North America outside of the owners of that breed.) When I was walking down Dundas Street West in Toronto in the summer of 2006 and heard Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" coming out of two different car radios not in simulcast, I knew that song had become the symbolic song of that summer and the World Cup soccer tournament ongoing at the time, as each car was flying a flag of their favored national team.

I had another of those moments yesterday. While walking down a very low-traffic street in my neighbourhood, returning after a Jane's Walk, I passed a family playing in their front yard. As two children circled after one another, seemingly chasing one another, the mother sang out loudly, "When I get older..." Immediately recognizing the tune, I sang back, "I will be stronger..." and then one of the children completed the phrase "They'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag" before breaking up in giggles while rolling on the lawn.

These, of course are the opening lyrics of K'naan's "Wavin' Flag", which had long-since became a global phenomenon when it was selected as the song for the 2010 World Cup, as discussed last week. Yet, in my mind, that moment yesterday will be the moment that the song became something more than pop music, a cultural touchstone of 2010.

Culture: Rap Gets Bad Rap

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The World Cup visited Toronto today as part of its 83-nation tour leading up to the next football (that's soccer on this continent) championship in South Africa later this year. Probably most significant to local culture, the World Cup tour also brought the artist K'naan back to his second home of Toronto.

K'naan has achieved worldwide fame after the selection of his song "Wavin' Flag" as the anthem for the World Cup. Undoubtedly, the song was chosen for its own merits--the catchy melody and lyrics quite appropriate to a worldwide tournament--but quite possibly the more important selection was of K'naan the artist, K'naan the human being. Could a life story of growing up through the civil war in Somalia and then immigrating to Canada and using the spoken word and music to tell the story not be a more potent symbol for the hope of international sport, indeed the hope of the world?

Far from the gangsterism and misogyny that normally dominates rap, K'naan's lyrics can be amazingly poignant and mature. Take the chorus from the song "Take a Minute":

And any man who knows a thing knows
He knows not a damn, damn thing at all
And every time I felt the hurt
And I felt the givin' gettin' me up off the wall

His life story permeates his work; the lyrics to "Fatima" might seem a bit strange until it is realized that he is telling the story of his girlfriend murdered in Mogadishu, and then they become bone-chilling:

Fatima,
What did the Young Man say
Before he stole you away
On that fateful day Fatima
Fatima,
Did he know your name
Or the plans we made,
To go to New York City, Fatima

Some artists have talent and showmanship that contribute to the world, but have private lives that fall far short of their public image. K'naan is not one of those artists. When looking back to their coverage of ethnic tension in schools of Toronto's Rexdale neighbourhood, the CBC found footage of a younger K'naan trying to mediate between groups. This guy is the genuine article, and it shows in almost every interview. He'll admit to not being fully comfortable with the dance interpretation of "Wavin' Flag" used in Latin America, or that he will need to reflect when the World Cup tour is over. (Could a World Cup tour be any more appropriate for a man whose given name, Keinan, means "traveler"?)

K'naan himself may have unsurprisingly best summarized what he does, in "Take a Minute":

And that's the reason why, I could never play for me
Tell 'em the truth is what my dead homies told me
Ooh yeah, I take inspiration from the most heinous of situations
Creating medication out of my own tribulations

If all rap were like that done by K'naan, the genre would have a completely different reputation. Hopefully, it doesn't take the chaos of Somalia to create an artist like K'naan, because the world could use more of them.

Margin Notes: Snow, Roundabouts, Media

The Ed Hendler ("Cable") Bridge between Kennewick and Pasco, Washington was observed as snow started to fall again on 31-December-2009

KENNEWICK, WASHINGTON - It may be winter, but I'm running into more snow than I really expected in my travels. Snow is not uncommon in the Tri-Cities, but I wasn't expecting to have to shovel the walk here three times in as many days. Rain has now washed the snow away (as would have been expected after the first snowfall), ending the winter wonderland but making everything a lot easier here, almost like a different world.

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When people say that eastern Washington state is a different world than western Washington, they are usually referring to the climate or the Perot-style politics of this side of the mountains. They could, however, be talking about transportation infrastructure. There are a lot more roundabouts in Kennewick than even in New England, and the biggest surprise to me was that two roundabouts have replaced a clover-leaf interchange at the junction between SR 240 and US 395, arguably the busiest location in Kennewick next to the Blue Bridge. Somehow, I have a hard time believing this is really an improvement, even at rush hour.

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Certainly not an improvement is the state of Tri-City Herald, the local paper here. Back in May, I blogged about the healthy state of the paper. By all accounts, it is still financially healthy and I have no complaints about the quality of its local coverage, but it's now a tiny paper. I've been here for two Sunday papers now, and I read both of them in less than twenty minutes, even taking time going through the employment ads. I guess that's better than no paper at all, but one almost has to buy a New York Times or go on-line to keep well-informed.

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Those who are well-informed probably pay little attention to my weekly pick of a quality radio program, but in compiling the year-end summary, I was surprised to find a four-way tie at four for number of picks in 2009 for CBC's The Sunday Edition, CBC's As It Happens, Wisconsin Public Radio's To The Best of Our Knowledge, and CBC's Age of Persuasion. That's right, a specialty show on advertising that ran for less than half the year tied for first place. The Age of Persuasion is back for another season, and the first show, on the impact of HIV on advertising, may well be the first pick of 2010. Check it out at 11:30 local time on Monday in Canada if you can; the audio file is not yet on the web site.

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A year-end feature that won't appear this year is my ranking of new popular music from the year. 2009 marked the year in which a combination of being inundated with programming podcasts and a lack of budget for purchasing new music led to complete neglect of popular music for the year. No wonder the music industry is reeling--I just don't have time for them anymore, even when unemployed!

Culture: Small Town Music

PLACERVILLE, CALIFORNIA - I've been quite critical of the individualistic culture of the United States, which in most large cities leads to very selfish, each person for him or herself attitude that makes it almost impossible to build communities of any consequence, sometimes even in church congregations. Money seems to be at the root of the difficulties--if it doesn't make money, it doesn't last if it comes into existence at all. In smaller towns (read: "Red America"), though, exceptions to this pattern seem to be far more common. Sometimes it's good to see community-building and "just for fun" activities taking place.

I had such an opportunity this evening. My "cousin" Jimmy and I had gone out to one of his favorite dinner locations only to find that the steak deal had been canceled because of the recent storm. However, his friend Randy showed up and invited us to travel a few miles farther down the road to Folsom to watch him perform at an open Blues jam session. We followed him down to the historic center of Folsom, and found a bar at street level in a "haunted" hotel, the Old Folsom Hotel.

The only thing haunted on this night was the music. The anchor act was Fire and Wheels, a group that will soon be traveling to Memphis for a major Blues competition, and it was easy to see why. These guys were talented musicians, and their use of synthesizers to make an electric guitar sound like a variety of other instruments was remarkable.

What made the evening, though, was the open jam. A parade of different local musicians joined portions of the group to make even more music, and the quality was still quite high. Furthermore, everyone just mixed through the crowd, talking musicianship, music technology, food, and beer. And, while the event was clearly good for the bar's business, this really wasn't about money. There was no cover charge (though there could have been), there was no food for sale (people were buying pizzas at a nearby location and bringing them in to share), and the owner of hotel was mixing with the crowd, clearly enjoying the music.

There should be more scenes like this in North America.

Margin Notes: Moose, Dogs, and Leaves

A Ronald McDonald moose was found outside the McDonald's Canadian headquarters near the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto, Ontario on 15-October-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - In 2000, Toronto launched a "Moose in the City" project (its web site still exists) that placed 326 moose decorated by artists throughout the city. Surprisingly few of them still exist nine years later, but I stumbled onto one outside the McDonald's Canadian headquarters building this week. Personally I found it a bit disturbing to find Ronald McDonald with four legs.

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A resident was noted to have placed a water dish for the canines in the neighbourhood near Jane and Annette in Toronto, Ontario on 6-October-2009

It turns out that St. Paul, Minnesota does not have a monopoly on providing its four-legged friends with water. Earlier this month, a water dish for dogs appeared in my own neighbourhood on Annette Street. So far, I have yet to see it patronized by any local canines.

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Perhaps it's getting too cold for dogs as it did freeze in the past week, but one thing I have not understood is that as soon as the temperature dropped to 10 C, a significant number of women started appearing in downtown Toronto with winter boots and sunglasses on. There was no snow on the ground or in the forecast, there were clouds in the sky blocking the sun, and frankly it wasn't even cold enough yet for me to wear a winter jacket. I don't understand the fashion statement. This morning, though, I wouldn't have questioned the look at all--the sun was out and shining brightly, but it was close to freezing. I guess they were just weeks early.

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Canadian Pacific "Expressway" train #122 to Montreal crossed the Humber River in Toronto, Ontario on 18-October-2009

The autumn colors are not early in Toronto. While the leaves are starting to turn, the scene along the Humber River has yet to reach peak color, as demonstrated by the shot above of a Canadian Pacific trailer train crossing the river earlier today.

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The Canadian Pacific has announced its Holiday Train schedule for 2009. Tuesday, December 1st looks like the big day in Toronto, as both the US and Canadian trains pass through town.

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Another railroad seems to be doing a good job of reaching me in advertising. BNSF (which doesn't stand for Burlington Northern Santa Fe anymore) is now an underwriter of the PBS NewsHour. They were already on my good side for their reasonableness in allowing steam operations and other special events, but they moved up another notch by supporting about the only decent television news program in the United States.

Margin Notes: Wasps, Cold, Music, Bicycles

A wasp nest was located on an electrical meter along Marlborough Place in Toronto, Ontario on 22-August-2009, a sign of "wasp summer"

TORONTO, ONTARIO - There has been a lot of talk in Toronto this summer about wasps, replacing fruit flies as the most common insect conversation around town. The mild winter apparently led to an increase in survivors that have multiplied this summer. Indeed, I've noticed wasps hanging around my front door and even flying around the construction site at Roundhouse Park. What I hadn't seen were any of their nests, until I discovered a really obvious one (pictured above) on an electrical meter on a house on Marlborough Place during a Heritage Toronto walk on Saturday.

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Derek Boles, the Toronto Railway Heritage Association's historian, spoke about the Canadian Pacific North Toronto station (in the background) during a Heritage Toronto walk on 22-August-2009

That Heritage Toronto Walk was the "Marlborough to Summerhill" walk led by Ed Freeman and Derek Boles. A major highlight of the route is the former Canadian Pacific North Toronto station, now known as Canada's largest liquor store, the Summerhill LCBO. Boles has literally written a book on the structure, so it was quite informative to hear him speaking about the building. More pictures from this Heritage Toronto walk will be forthcoming on my photo site in a few weeks.

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The Summerhill LCBO does sell Coors Light, but probably not many Torontonians are eager to buy that beer this week. The company has just pulled a series of billboards in British Columbia proclaiming that its beer is "Colder Than Most People From Toronto." If people from Toronto are cold, then what are people from Boston and New York? Approaching absolute zero?

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Zero seems to be the number of songs standing out as classic "summer songs" this year. The role played by the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" in 1966, OMC's "How Bizarre" in 1997 or Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" as recently as 2006 seems to be still up for grabs this year. At least, that's what Maura Johnston told NPR's All Things Considered today, and I have to agree. Johnston notes that a key aspect is how the song sounds coming out of a car passing by, which rules out several candidates and led her to believe that Michael Jackson may even deserve the honor for this year posthumously.

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A whole family of six rode a set of connected human-powered wheeled vehicles down Queen's Quay in Toronto, Ontario on 21-August-2009

Cars do not seem to be the classic transportation in Toronto this summer; I've been pleasantly surprised at the number of bicycles noted. It's still not Amsterdam or even Portland, Oregon, but my impression is that there are a few more, and one this week rather shocked me. I've seen tandem bicycles for two people before, sometimes with a trailer for a child, but I had never seen a family of six moving with a single human-powered wheeled vehicle before as I did on the Toronto waterfront this Friday, shown above. I suspect this took considerable customization to achieve.

Philosophy: On Music

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I had the experience tonight of hearing octogenarian Elsa Denzey play the piano. After this event, part of the "All and Everything" Conference taking place here in Toronto, she answered audience questions, and while one of her answers was intended to be about the specific pieces she had played, it seems to apply in a much broader context: (This may be partially paraphrased, rather than her exact words, as I am writing from memory.)

I think the most important thing is to listen to the vibrations in the music... Every person listens differently. Some hear more, others hear less. People can say that that this part should be played this way or that other parts need to be done another way, but it doesn't matter. We have to play the music the way we feel it. It's always an individual experience. Even if we play it exactly the way we feel it, people still hear it differently than we do. We all just have to be honest about what we hear and feel.

This unexpected moment of wisdom, a jewel following what had already been an enjoyable session, reminded me of a time in high school when I was covering the 1997 Bellevue Jazz Festival (in Washington state) for our internal television station and intended for airing on a local cable access channel. I was probably the worst choice in the world to host the program, as I knew nothing about jazz. (For that matter, I still know very little.) After a solo by a student from Mercer Island High School that received the loudest applause of the night, there was no question that I was going to interview the soloist for the show.

The tape has apparently been lost to history, but I wish I had it. I asked the most banal, Larry King-style question that even at the time I knew was ignorant, something to the effect of, "how do you know you to do that?" but as sometimes happens with such questions, it elicited a beautiful response. After perhaps two seconds in which the soloist (whose name I also do not recall) got over the shock of the stupid question, he launched into probably the best elucidation of the process of playing jazz that I have heard to date. The impact of his now-lost words were at least as powerful as the Denzey quote above in the context of jazz. I was a fool for not immediately getting a copy of the show, just to be able to review his response--and all the more reason to write this blog entry to preserve Denzey's words for posterity.

Music: BNL as a Spiritual Band

BNL performed at the CBC's Sounds of the Season fundraiser in Toronto, Ontario on 5-December-2008

TORONTO, ONTARIO - On Wednesday, BNL founders Ed Robertson and Steven Page announced that lead singer Page would be leaving the band to pursue a solo career and perhaps acting, and the band would continue without him. In light of the rough year that the band has had, the news could not be called a complete surprise, but the announcement still was widely reported throughout Canada. The band, known for its playful lyrics and performances, remains clearly beloved in its native land.

Like many North Americans, I was first introduced to BNL in 1997 as their hit "The Old Apartment" rose in the charts. Their songs have made a significant contribution to my life, with two songs ("Pinch Me" and "It's All Been Done") in my my lifetime top 25, a feat matched only by Billy Joel.

What drew me so strongly to the band was not their playfulness, though, but the fact that many of their lyrics seem to be straight out of the "spiritual world", which is rare in popular music. As discussed here before, the "spiritual world" is one of four identified worlds in the Meridian Flexibility System, focused on energy, harmony with the world, prone to suffering, and with a "timeless" perspective (as opposed to future, past, or present-focused). The vast majority of popular music comes from the "emotional" world, though I have highlighted at least one artist from the "physical" world.

Perhaps the most obvious example comes from the song "It's All Been Done". The very title implies that life is just repeating itself. The group sings:

I knew you before the west was won
And I heard you say the past
was much more fun
You go your way, I go mine
But I'll see you next time

and

Alone and bored on a thirtieth-century night
Will I see you on The Price Is Right?

Could lyrics possibly be more "timeless"?

Yet, just about every BNL song has at least one "spiritual" element. "If I Had A 1,000,000 Dollars" has this line:

If I had a 1,000,000
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner
(But we would!)

Most types would give up macaroni and cheese (that's Kraft dinner if you're not Canadian) given a chance; only those with a suffering element of the "spiritual" would continue to delight in it.

Even the hit "One Week" which on the surface seems like a present-focused "physical" number has a spiritual line:

Five days since I laughed at you and said
"You just did just what I thought you were gonna do"

Is that not be straight out of the "pericardium" (a "spiritual" type) playbook of wisdom and laughing at self-destructive behavior?

There also seems to be a real theme of having a "physical"-type partner to deal with, the expected partner of a "spiritual" type, running not only through "One Week" but many BNL songs. Take this passage from "Call and Answer":

But I'm warning you, don't ever do
Those crazy, messed up things that you do
If you ever do
I promise you I'll be the first to crucify you

"Crazy, messed up" is a common description of "physicals" by "spirituals"--and judging them is a common "spiritual" practice.

The apparently-bad news at BNL could a boon for those enjoying "spiritual" lyrics. Both BNL and Page could separately now create such songs with such themes; this seemed to happen with Page's previous side venture, The Vanity Project in 2005. I look forward to more lyrics like this low-energy gem from "Pinch Me":

I could leave but I'll just stay
All my stuff's here anyway.

Music: Bedingfield Third Again

TORONTO, ONTARIO - While traveling through the Pacific Northwest in September 2005, I was introduced to a British singer that I had never heard before. Natasha Bedingfield at the time had a single out called These Words. The song was noticeable because the lyrics clearly came from the "physical world."

Most music, by its very nature, features "emotional world" lyrics, focusing on feelings, what other people think, lamenting about the past, and occasionally even focusing on money, all things centered in the "emotional world" in traditional Chinese medicine. While examples of lyrics from the other three worlds certainly exist, even in pop music, there is little question that the "emotional world" dominates the charts.

Yet, Bedingfield's song was clearly "physical world" in perspective. Her time sense was on the present, not the past. While she did sing about expressing her feelings, the premise of the song was that she was having trouble doing so--and physical types are often known for having difficulty with vocabulary and preferring to express themselves with their bodies, not verbal language. This section is typical:

I tried to focus my attention
But I feel so A.D.D.
I need some help some inspiration
Whoa...But its not coming easily

As a "spiritual" type, I am usually drawn to things from the "physical world," and this song was no exception. Despite being handicapped by having only four months to work its way up my iTunes play count, it rapidly shot toward the top. By year's end, "These Words" was third in my play count for 2005 with 22 plays, trailing only Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia's "Shiver" (which I had first heard in May) at 25 plays and D.H.T.'s cover of "Listen to Your Heart" at 23 (the Roxette original stands as one of the most significant songs in my life).

Bedingfield had started to get attention from that hit, but she shot to the top of the charts in the United States in early 2006 with her next single, "Unwritten". This song bordered on a "physical world" anthem, clearly focused on the physical experience of life with refrain lyrics like:

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else no one else can
Speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest, is still unwritten

This song spent all of 2006 near the top of my iTunes play count. At the end of the year, though, it again finished third, with 19 plays. Ahead were Aqualung's "Brighter Than Sunshine", also advantaged by getting its first play in January, at 20 plays, and Missy Higgin's "Scar" the clear leader at 28 plays.

By 2007, I was inclined to seek out new music by Bedingfield, and when her joint effort with Sean Kingston, "Love Like This" was released in October ahead of her next album, I soon discovered it. Yet, by virtue of entering the playlist toward the end of the year, it again finished--you guessed it--in the third position, with 13 plays. Ahead of it were breakout hits "LDN" by Lily Allen at 14 plays, and "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John at 15.

In 2008, Bedingfield's new album "Pocketful of Sunshine" came out, and the title track made my iTunes playlist. In a lackluster year for music in my opinion, it amazingly ended up third on my year-end playlist at 11 plays, behind new artist Yael Naïm with "New Soul" at 12 plays and my choice for artist of the year, Leona Lewis and "Bleeding Love" at 17 plays.

So, the big question for 2009 is: Can Natasha Bedingfield make it five years in a row, and place a song at THIRD place on my annual iTunes play count? It seems unlikely, but I wouldn't have guessed that it would have happened three years in a row, much less four.

Music: Help with Best of 2008

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As the end of the year approaches, I was surprised to look on my personal copy of iTunes and discover that my playlist for the year 2008 contains only nine songs. Over the course of any given year, I create a playlist that contains the songs that represent the soundtrack of my year. These aren't necessarily my favorite songs of the year--though those do show up on the list and tend to have a higher play count. They are the songs that to me define a year--a song that I didn't particularly like but was playing all the time while I took a significant trip (say, Lionel Richie's "Just for You" which was popular in Europe in 2004) or that became significant politically (say, Fleetwood Mac's "Peacekeeper" in 2003) will be placed on the list, unless I really don't want to hear it again (like Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" this year--it's hard to deny its significance, but I'll be happy if I don't hear it again).

Normally, I end up with about twenty songs on the list for any given year, sometimes a few more. This decade, the shortest list had been 18 in 2000, with the longest being 24 in 2002. However, the list was only 15 songs long in 2007. I passed that off at the time as being a function of that year being a relatively light travel year for me, and often it is when traveling, when I break routines, that I am mostly likely to encounter new music--and remember it. Besides, statistically speaking, 15 wasn't all that much shorter than the previously-shortest list.

That explanation won't work in 2008. While far from the heaviest travel year of my life, it certainly hasn't been my lightest--blog readers will note that Minnesota and California have appeared in the dateline in less than three months since the inception of the blog, and Washington state will be added shortly.

A more plausible explanation is that I'm having a harder time finding new music these days. Once, I would rely on listening to commercial radio stations for introductions to new music. That ended with the rise of the podcast starting in 2005, as suddenly I had something to listen to at times when no interesting programs were on public or talk radio locally. Yet, that didn't stop me from finding new music. By checking the playlists of certain radio station sites (WXRV near Boston, better known as 92.5 The River, KLLC San Francisco, better known as Alice@97.3, and WTMX Chicago, better known as The Mix are three favorites) and the iTunes list of most popular downloads, I seemed to find about as many interesting songs as I ever had.

However, some of the stations I used to pay attention to, like 92.9 WBOS in Boston, no longer exist, and others, like KPLZ "Star" 101.5 in Seattle, have gotten considerably less adventurous in their playlists to the point that they don't even seem to be worth looking at anymore. There seem to be fewer editorial voices to turn to for guidance.

The same problem of fewer reputable editorial voices, of course, plagues the mainstream news media. As newspapers and newsrooms shut down or get their stories from central services like the New York Times, the Associated Press, or Fox News, it's harder to find interesting editorial voices--and the easier it is to just settle on one that is preferred, to the detriment of reading any other opinions.

So, I need the help of my readers. What new music has interested you in 2008 that I should check out? Please leave a comment to this post, and maybe I'll be able to expand my list to its more traditional size.

To get things started, the nine songs that I have placed on the list for 2008 so far are, in order of addition:

(1) "Sorry" by Buckcherry
(2) "Stop and Stare" by OneRepublic
(3) "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis
(4) "Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Bedingfield
(5) "Realize" by Colbie Caillat
(6) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
(7) "My Song" by Brandi Carlile
(8) "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz
(9) "Better in Time" by Leona Lewis

Since a number of readers have had difficulty posting comments, I have turned off moderation for now. If a blog like Blather Watch can exist without moderation, there's no reason this one can't. So, if you have a suggestion, please leave a comment. I have no intention of turning on moderation again unless a spam problem comes to exist.