By: Elysia

To be found in the ‘Just Can’t Keep Still’ aisle

Given the apparent heatwave enveloping the UK currently, it seemed appropriate to choose something summery. I defy anyone to listen to this song without unconsciously twitching at least one part of their body. It makes you want to drink cocktails and dance barefoot on a beach. And, of course, the genius that is Tim Burton used it in the final scenes of Beetlejuice. All round delicious.

By: Hugin

Wow.  Six words that have haunted me since I read them a year ago.  This was the extent of Hemingway’s short story, but there isn’t much more you can say.  I’ve spent hours trying to think of if there could possibly be a happy story behind this (baby has so many shoes and these ones got accidentally jammed behind the sofa after a particularly bountiful Christmas – only to be found when the child was too big for them?!) but it’s pretty much indisputable that this is a story jam-packed with pain.  I have tried numerous times to come up with a story this short and this powerful, but fail every time.  I’ve never read any of Hemingway’s other works, but in this I have seen his true genius.  And he agreed with me!

By: Elysia

We’ve all watched films where, just the memory of them, sets us off in fits of giggles. ‘Hot Fuzz’ is one of those films for me. Apart from the fact that Simon Pegg is just delicious (that’s right folks, he is – I’ve liked him since the genius that is ‘Spaced’), the film just tickles me in all the right places (in a humour-inducing sense). There are some great one-liners, and all the parts are acted to perfection. Plus, I went to see this at the cinema with a close friend and it actually took her a week – a week! – to get the line: ‘You want to be a big cop in a small town? Fuck off up the model village.’

I would continue with further explanations of why the film is one of the best ever (even if it does scare me; yes, I know – I’m useless) but I’ve just set myself off laughing again.

‘My, my, here come the Fuzz…’

By: Elysia

Ok, I’m going to choose a Dylan Thomas poem for the first ‘Turn of Phrase’; a poem (and more specifically a phrase) which, if I can see into the future in the manner in which I suspect I can, will be the subject of a Musing in the days to come.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Google it and read the whole thing. Now.

By: Elysia

To be found in the ‘Real and Honest’ aisle

This song, like just about every song on the Soundtrack to ‘Once’, always has that effect of catching me, whatever I’m doing, and just holding me for a moment. It’s painfully honest, it’s sung perfectly and the build-up with the guitar and piano is spot on, all the way through to the raw crescendo – and then it just drops down and leaves you feeling like you’ve run an emotional marathon. It’s perfect. Music doesn’t get more real than this.

By: Elysia

To be found in the ‘Just Can’t Keep Still’ aisle

This entry isn’t just about Mr Brightside; it’s about ‘No Tomorrow’ by Orson, it’s about ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga, it’s about any song which, when it comes on in a club, means me and my girls will, every time without fail, head for the nearest dancefloor and shout the songs at each other at the top of our voices while gyrating away. These songs represent friendship, laughter, good times and each tune has so many memories attached. And dancing together to them will always be the ultimate pick-me-up.

By: Elysia

To be found in the ‘Just Let Go’ aisle

There are those songs which you know, deep inside (if you care to admit it), describe aspects of yourself that you don’t let most people see. Perhaps they represent things from your past, or things you’ve overcome but still need to take out of their box once in a while to think about, before you bundle them back in for several more months or years. Perhaps even, eventually, forever.

I don’t think it’s any big secret that we all have these facets to our personalities, these depths to our characters. I would worry about anyone who said they didn’t. And I don’t think it’s bad that some of us are so keen to tackle them personally and keep them hidden, perhaps only letting a privileged few in, if we think we can trust them (and privileged they are, though they might not realise it at the time). That’s human (or, at least, my) nature. I would always much rather be happiness distilled for the majority of my life and whisper with my own demons in my own time.

It doesn’t mean I’m hiding anything, not really. It just means that I choose to not let certain things dictate the person I am. Apart from, of course, in those exceptionally rare times where something or someone pushes you somewhere you didn’t expect.

One such song which will always be one of those which represent aspects of my personality so few people will ever see, has to be R.E.M.’s ‘Bang and Blame’. I don’t mean the lyrics fit perfectly throughout (though there are a handful of sentences that might as well have been written for me), but I don’t think lyrics alone are what it takes for someone to identify with a song as a whole.

It catches that feeling when you really do ‘let go’, and tremble on the edge of a path that you know you really don’t want to go down. And then, hopefully, you close the box, and it’s all locked away again, far from the prying eyes and memory of (nearly all) the world.

By: Elysia

Last week I considered those works you discover as a child which help form the adult you become. Following this theme, I’d like to mention a poem that I’ve known as long as I can remember and which I can still recite parts of today.

Edward Lear’s ‘The Jumblies’ is one of those poems that sticks in your head and, when you read it aloud, you can’t help but create the characters: you do cry ‘you’ll all be drowned!’ and you make your voice all drawn out and spooky on the ‘far and few, far and few…’ Or is that just me?

Ah well, read it in any case.

By: Elysia

I always think it’s strange how literary works form a person. When we’re older, we notice when a book has a significant effect on us, but when we’re younger we either don’t always notice or we forget during the years that follow. We can’t remember what life was like before we read that book, or perhaps had it read to us. There are many texts I could list here that have had a significant effect on me since childhood, but I’ve chosen what is, in my opinion, the finest of Beatrix Potter’s creations.

A perfect pocket-sized classic, and one of two books which sparked in me a temporary ambition to be a tailor.

No more twist!

Beautiful stuff

By: Elysia

As I’ve mentioned before, some things stick with you for years, stay with you for life. Over years, as you grow older, the language you use may become more refined and you may choose to read different types of texts, get lost in other kinds of worlds: but, however old you are, there are always those times when you want to go back to those non-pretentious, simpler words which were just perfect when you were that young little thing.

“‘If I gave you a gift – something rare and special, something so priceless and beyond compare that it was unique, something that you could never lose, something that was to be yours for ever – and if, when I gave you this gift, I had placed it in a casket to make it look more important… Which would value the most? The gift or the casket?’”