FIVER: songs that changed our lives

March 03, 2014 by littleredswell@gmail.com in fill up

Is there any better feeling than a million memories (or a single memory that's better than all the others) rushing back when you're transported through music? During our last LRW meeting, we slipped into a tangent about hearing songs that changed our lives. How you can listen to those songs on repeat and never get sick of them. We thought we would share them here:

1. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse: If Allie had to pick her top 3 favorite artists of all time, Amy is one of them. She will never forget the first time she heard Rehab, when she was in college. This album and this song in particular remind Allie of the transition from college to the "real world."

2. Sadie, Joanna Newsom: Allie's best friend Gill put this song on a mix for her senior year of college. A little background- Allie's family pet growing up was a golden retriever named Sadie. When Gill handed her the CD, she told Allie to listen to the lyrics of this song. "I think it's about a dog," she said. When Allie's family had to put Sadie down, she listened to this song on repeat for weeks. To this day, whenever she needs a good cry, it's her go to.

3. Flume, Bon Iver: Ohhhh man, this song. The very first time Raven and Allie had a sleepover, she went to his apartment (mid August 2010) and he made her dinner (vegetable risotto and a salad with candied walnuts, pears and gorgonzola). A few days before, he told her that he thought she would really enjoy this band, so he put on the CD while cooking dinner. That's the moment she fell in love with him- listening to the first song of this album, as the sun was setting, in his kitchen in Williamsburg.

4. Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell: She was eighteen years old when Court heard this iconic song for the first time. First semester at college. A changing landscape of friendships and relationships. A new identity. This song was instructions to the adult life. You're going to believe one thing and, sooner or later, the world will turn you on your head. It stayed on repeat for most of the semester.

5. Blackbird, The Beatles: Everyone has that one song that they identify with moving to New York. Court's was Blackbird, again a classic that she had no business not discovering until her 20s. If Both Sides Now was her growing up song, Blackbird was her growing into song. It's melancholy, hopeful, earnest, delicate. And those chord changes. Ouch. Court heard this song at a time when the lyrics take these broken wings and learn to fly meant figuring it out, being exposed, making a break for her dreams. It is an anthem.

the art of The Art of Letting Go, or, why Mariah Carey is back

December 10, 2013 by littleredswell@gmail.com in fill up

Remember the 1990s? Remember how Mariah Carey was our soulful savior - taking us through our first school dances and first heartbreaks with style, vocal dexterity, and heart? It may be an overstatement, but I’m drunk on the music and don’t care: she’s outdone herself.

I spent an entire day with her newest single, The Art of Letting Go, on repeat trying to figure out why, in my book, it ranks higher than Hero and One Sweet Day, and (although nothing could entirely beat it) gives Always Be My Baby a run for its money.

It begins with a crackle, a brokenness. Static that makes the audio alive with the implied weight of years. Couple that with the smoothness of strings that make me KNOW something truly dramatic is up, and I’m hooked. Granted, for a musical theatre nerd, this is not a huge surprise. But it gets better.

Almost as fast as it comes in with one mood, it breaks the smoothness with the “tss tss tss” of the drum and the gentle drop of piano chords on every other downbeat - adding a pulse to the song at the same time Mariah’s smokey, sassy, vibrato filled voice sings, “I’m making a statement of my own opinion. Just a brief little reminder to help myself remember I no longer live in your dominion.”

What are those lyrics? A run-on sentence? The word dominion? At first I’m completely taken out of the song thinking “oh no, please let the words live up to the melody,” but as she continues to build on that thesis with both flavorful pedestrian and oddly scholastic words, I become completely enthralled with the unsteadiness I feel. She’s starting a speech. And like the beginning of most speeches whose subjects are freedom and loss, it’s eloquent in its discomfort. Even if they seem silly to me from time to time, the lyrics seem truthful to her and that is enough for me to get it.

At this point, she brings me into the true meat of her song: her chorus. As unsteady as that first verse feels, the chorus brings us to an unfaltering knowing. As she begins, the strings tremble for a few counts, leave, tremble, leave. She’s working up the courage to say the truth. This is the point in her speech where she graduates from timid, vulnerable Mariah to grown up, powerhouse Ms. Carey. The smooth, legato strings come back and with it a voice that carries the weight of the past 20 years.

But the moment that you need to listen to on repeat just to catch its brilliance is her trill of the word “down.” She sings, “Letting go ain’t easy, oh it’s just exceedingly hurtful. Somebody you used to know is flinging your world around and they watch as you’re falling down.” You know when a leaf falls off a tree and it doesn’t just smack right onto the ground? It kind of wavers in the air, at one point you think it might lift off and fly away, but gradually, it finds its way to its gentle, final resting place on the ground? She does this with her voice. Her riff descends, floats, picks up, falls away, and lands. She paints a world on the word “down.”

The Motownesque, bluesy, heartache cry of this song continues. She makes the case in this speech of hers. We come to the bridge where she sings a small, stripped down version of “Baby, letting go ain’t easy.” It’s almost like she’s smirking now, whispering to her listener that this is the way of the world and she finds it (almost) comical.

All this and then she rips into that last Take Me Home chorus that Mariah does like no one else. Belting out with crystal clear heartbreak and gutsy grit, she’s on her last leg and it feels like she almost doesn’t need the listener anymore. It’s not about the person she’s speaking to, or even the paying audience, it’s about her release. Releasing that voice at the top of her belt, shrugging off every last piece of control. She hurls out her last “down” on the strongest, straightest tone she’s got until finally letting it ripple to the bottom. All I can visualize is a skydiver flinging himself into the empty air and the feeling of utter commitment and abandon with which he has to jump.

Call me a child of the 90s, call me a sucker for a catchy melody, call me an unsophisticated pop music whore. It doesn’t matter. I won’t be able to hear you. I’ll be dancing down the streets of New York City with Mariah in my ear.

your (six hour) thanksgiving roadtrip playlist

November 27, 2013 by littleredswell@gmail.com in fill up, get home

Road trips. Airplanes. Mass transit. Rental cars. Yep, you heard right - it’s officially the holiday season. Craig and I live equidistant between Massachusetts (his family) and Pennsylvania (my family), so we’ve got a solid three to four hour trip each time we want some pumpkin pie and mommy hugs.

It’s always the first and most important question of the trip: what should we listen to? So here, I’ve compiled six hours of what I think is a great playlist for the road, and given you a few guidelines for how these songs should be enjoyed. Feel free to follow me on Spotify, put this bad boy on shuffle, and before you know it, your mom will be mixing you a holiday cocktail and stuffing you with turkey.

For your first few miles...