"freeze the atlantic" - cable

these lyrics are pretty incoherent - i usually just mumble the right sort of sounds and hope for the best


i've just been out for a walk through the city. i needed to buy a mother's day card, my feelings on which i dealt with on my old blog but which this year was further complicated for the first time by trying to find a card that expresses what i think my baby would want to express to my wife on mother's day. wandering back from an unrewarding chore at the card shop eating a far more rewarding sub (with extra jalapenos) there are loads of people lying around on the ground in patches of sunshine as if it were summer already. for no real reason it reminds me of the dreadful sprite advert that this great song soundtracked which was nothing at all like this really. just summery.

"cure" - metallica

"everyone's got to have the sickness cos everyone seems to need the cure"


one of my internal battles - what's the best metallica album? without question the answer is master of puppets. which metallica album would i most want to listen to? load. not that ive listened to metallica much for quite some time. or ever really cared that much when i did.

i waited in the doctor's waiting room with a grumpy baby with a cold for over an hour. it was one of the most soul-destroyingly boring things i have ever done.

"the sidewinder sleeps tonight" - r.e.m.

"call me when you try to wake her"


at various times i have been convinced this fairly unintelligible lyric has been many things. ive known people convinced it was much stupider things ("i need a caterer" for example), but strangely for a song so prone to mondegreens it doesnt have an entry on kiss this guy . i'm not really that keen on this song - or anything on automatic for the people really since monster is a far superior album.


i was walking round the park on a chilly winters morning with my baby strapped to my chest, looking at the woodpeckers and squirrels (shouldnt they be hibernating?) humming this song for no real reason. we also saw one of those grey dogs that freak me out because they look like theyre made out of felt. there was one in the video for blue monday. dont pretend you dont know what im talking about.
[later addition - apparently its a weimaraner]

"st thomas" - sonny rollins

my baby girl loves st thomas. ive known it turn her from a screaming ball of grumpiness into a giggling tiny dancer. it might not be specific for this tune - it could just be a good example of an upbeat, accessable tune with interesting rhythms - but i like to think shes developing good taste at her very young age. im probably fooling myself - but to those of you who are doubting (not unlike st thomas himself) i would ask you to give her the benefit of your doubt until she is proved to just be responding to my enthusiasm or some other theory

"why can't you behave" - from the musical kiss me kate

"after all the things you told me and the promises you gave, oh why can't you behave"


i don't care how much credibility this loses me - i love kiss me kate. there is no doubt cole porter was a giant of songwriting. i love the campy 50s movie version with its ridiculous brightly coloured costumes. i have fond memories of pit-banding a school performance. i'm pretty certain its my favourite musical (though hedwig is great, and theres probably some others that come close).


in the context of the show this song is pleading and desperate - even in that painfully old-fashioned way that ann miller sings it. in the context of an earworm it appeared while i was desperately trying to make my baby daughter stop crying, which is stupid in a lot of ways. firstly because pretty much all the song's lyrics except the title were irrelevant or inappropriate to the situation. but mostly, i think, because she is far too small to know that she is misbehaving - she was just trying to express whatever was making her upset in the only way she knew how. sometimes i really feel like screaming about my hassles too. usually i just write about them