ThinkEdem Blog

Last contest entry for my failed challenge.

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwKTJSasMQs…

…or watch it here ▼

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_lbcZ7k6NQ…

…or watch it here ▼

This song is the third longest Pink Floyd song (after Atom Heart Mother Suite, 23:44, and the combined Shine On You Crazy Diamonds, 26:01), and also a very diverse one – which is not surprising, since all four band members had contributed to it.

I’ve just too many memories and feelings connected to this song. Like, the Keep Floyding concert held underground in an unfinished metro station. (I’ve written about it in hungarian, here.)  I’ve linked their cover of the song, which was recorded on that very concert… They’re terrific!

Also, it fills me with a borrowed memory. I can see myself sitting in an armchair on a porch on an August sunset, far in the future, looking back to goals unreached, promises unkept, and dreams forgotten. But in that unreal memory, I’m contended, and made my peace. I don’t want to save the world anymore, and I don’t want to be someone better. I’m just satisfied being myself, even if I’m not accepted by others.

I could go on, but actually I couldn’t. There are so many other things which I can’t describe, only feel while listening to this song.

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.
(more…)

Contest entry for August 29th, 2009. Because at least I’ll get through this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntm1YfehK7U…

…or watch it here ▼

Yes, Pink Floyd again. For me they are the greatest band ever – they have a song for each of my feelings. Well, at least for those I feel often. Funny thing is, they have a couple of popular songs, but they usually aren’t the best songs on their albums. For example, Money got a fame (a hungarian financial TV program used to have it as theme song), but on The Dark Side Of The Moon all the other songs are much better. Time is one of the best there. Right now I feel like it’s about me. I feel useless, I feel being left behind, and I know it’s all my fault, but I just can’t do against it. Even if I try, I fail. Like tonight.

(A not-so-well-known fact: the last verse, starting with “Home, home again” is actually not part of the song Time, it’s Breathe Reprise, it’s just they’re always played together…)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
(more…)

Contest entry for August 28th, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKSrS8vJyI…

…or watch it here ▼

“Best,
You’ve got to be the best
You’ve got to change the world
And you use this chance to be heard
Your time is now”

The first Muse song I’ve heard was linked by Xavier, it was Interlude/Hysteria. He linked it to show me what a kaos pad is, but I kinda fell in with the music, and hunted down other songs as well. I can’t say I know every lines of each of their songs, but I do have a couple of favourites. This song is one of my top 3, next to Stockholm Syndrome and Hysteria. Many times I feel pointless, as the regular reader already knows. Most of those times this song helps me to stand up and keep going. Not always though, but it helps a bit even then.

It only tells me that everything’s in my hand to change my life. Sometimes I can believe that for a little while.

“Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called
(more…)

Contest entry for August 27th, 2009. Rules… but it doesn’t matter really. Who cares anyways?!

Have you ever felt that everything you say, no matter how delicate you shape your words, is misunderstood? When you try to say something nice, she feels as you’re scolding her. When you try to be funny, they think you’re sulking and lashing at them. It’s like you’re speaking two different languages, which shares the word but has different meanings. After a while, you stop trying. You suddenly just feel too old to be careful with your words. You stop trying to connect with others. You stop trying to be nice. You become sour, you become sarcastic, you become cynical. Your jokes are to annoy people.

One day you wake up and realise you lost hope. And that is the day when you realise you lost everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZSi02uccrc…

…or watch it here ▼

The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me ’till I’m sane.
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

And there are the days when everything’s fine. The bus comes just when you arrive at the stop. You get to be first in the line. You find a seat at your favourite table. You find out a way to make your usual routine easier. You see someone smiling at you the way you love it.

All that you touch
and all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.

And all that you love
and all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.

And all that you give
and all that you deal
and all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal.

All you create
and all you destroy
and all that you do
and all that you say.

and all that you eat
and everyone you meet
and all that you slight
and everyone you fight

and all that is now
and all that is gone
and all that’s to come
and everything under the Sun is in tune
but the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon…

And right then you realise it’s all meaningless and futile. Everything’s fine, but you just can’t see why are you there. You don’t do a difference. Everything would be the same without you. A bit different, but at the core, the same. And those days hurt you even more. Those are the days when you really want to quit.

And yet, you won’t. You’re afraid to. You’re afraid to face the fact that it wouldn’t really matter. Of course you wouldn’t admit this, and you tell yourself it’s because you don’t want to hurt others – but deep inside you know it isn’t so, and when you’re alone at night with the darkness of your own thoughts, you hear yourself screaming in the corner.

Now tell me, how did you like to go down the rabbit hole?

There’s no dark side of the Moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.

Contest entry for August 26th, 2009. Rules: http://blog.thinkedem.hu/2009/08/22-i-challenge-thee/

Well, seems like noone else will go through with the challenge, but that doesn’t mean I will stop too – on the contrary, that’s a very good reason for me to get to the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q-wDCMm_EE…

…or watch it here ▼

Today’s song is a hungarian one from Ákos. He was the singer of Bonanza Banzai, which we usually called the “hungarian Depeche Mode”, and then went solo. His choices are questionable, but his talent isn’t.

This song (Keresd meg a lányt – Go, find that girl) is about lost chances. It’s about someone reminding his friend about good old times, when the old friends were still together, and a girl fell for his friend, then he tells his friend to go and find that girl, because she’s still waiting for you. Of course this is just a rough translation, the original wording is much more lyrical.

I missed a lot of chances. On lonely days I cuddle myself with the thought that there are girls out there who are just waiting for my call. I don’t know if it’s true – it might be -, but I dare not to find out it isn’t so. I just couldn’t withstand such a disappointment – as I whined and ranted many times over on this blog.

Whenever I listen to this song, I get sad and hopeful at the same time. Sad, because I remember most of those opportunities I didn’t take, those sentences I never said, those calls I never made. I can’t be sure that any of those would get me closer to anyone, but not making them surely didn’t. Still, those were my choices, and that’s something I’d never trade for anything.

Emlékszel még, ugye, a kamasz éveinkre,
Ahogy együtt volt az a néhány jó barát?
De nosztalgikus a nóta, mert szétszéledt azóta
Az a szépreményű, jó kis társaság.
És emlékszel, ugye, a lányra, aki oly sokáig várta,
Hogy beleszeressen végre valaki?
S hogy a valaki Te lettél, arról nem is igen tehettél,
De azért nem kellett neked kétszer mondani.
(more…)

I wanted to write about Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Hallelujah, but I’ve already wrote about it here, and I didn’t want to recycle. So…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYywXhixVW0…

…or watch it here ▼

“We’re the sugar cubes, one lump or two,
In the black coffee”

First I heard about Norah Jones was in Est magazin, which is a Hungarian free cultural infozine. Well, probably it has a different official definition of cathegory, but basically it’s just a weekly release of movie reviews, theatre programmes, concerts and cultural activities. Also, it has album reviews, and that’s where I read about her first. They wrote about her third album (Not Too Late), and it made me curious, so I looked up. When I came across this song on youtube, I immediately fell in love with three things: the song, her voice, and the video’s style. I’m not really good with genres, but the video has a certain atmosphere which reminds me of american pubs near the world wars. That’s an atmosphere I kinda love, and sometimes I wish I lived there and then. (I also believe that if I lived then, I’d wished I would be living sometime and someplace else…)

The funny twist in the story: after I listened to the other albums, I realised I knew one of her songs (“Sunrise”) already, I just didn’t know it was hers…

We’re an oyster cracker on the stew,
And the honey in the tea,
We’re the sugar cubes, one lump or two,
In the black coffee,
The golden crust on an apple pie,
That shines in the sun at noon,
We’re a wheel of cheese high in the sky,
But we’re gonna be sinkin’ soon. (more…)

Contest entry for August 24, 2009. Rules: http://blog.thinkedem.hu/2009/08/22-i-challenge-thee/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb-Nacm-pKc…

…or watch it here ▼

“Can’t keep my eyes, from the circling sky,
Tongue-tied and twisted,
Just an earth-bound misfit, I”

This is the very first Pink Floyd song I’ve heard. It’s a funny story, because for many years I haven’t realised it’s their song, because I didn’t learn the band name (I’ve seen it on MTV when they still aired music), and my love of Pink Floyd only came a couple of years later. All I remembered of this song was the unusual video about the young indian, who sees an aeroplane and decides to learn to fly. I really love this song because of its meaning (or, its meaning to me):it tells me about growing old and distant, about leaving behind the bad things – and the good ones too, to detach from the ground, from the Earth. But it’s dangerous, for if you learn to fly, you might end up in outer space. If you learn to distance yourself, you might end up so lost you can’t find your way back, and noone can help you either. You become a misfit, like I was some years ago.

This is still one of the songs that can help me relax and detach, to fly away from trouble and mind bogging problems – and also this is the song which reminds me not to go too far away.

“Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction holding me fast
How can I escape this irresistible grasp
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I (more…)