Les Chansons d'Amour

Over the weekend I had a classic "crazy" moment and ended up renting about a hundred different movies (okay, not a hundred, but more like seven). I then proceeded to spend hours watching them, even after squeezing in a night of crazy clubbing on Saturday, and reached Sunday evening in a state of bliss. Don't you love insane weekends like that?

One of the movies I rented (alongside more staple Hollywood fare like Be Kind, Rewind)is a French production from last year titled Les Chansons d'Amour (or literally, Love Songs). Directed by Christophe Honoré, who is reputed to be one of the great new hopes for French cinema, and with music by Alex Beaupain, this movie is a new all-time favourite. With fantastic cinematography, crisp dialogue and also incredible mind-blowing music, its something I've already ordered on Amazon, and have also bought the soundtrack on iTunes - in fact, I'm listening to "J'ai cru entendre" right now.

So I'll leave you with the lyrics to a beautiful song As-tu déjà aimé....

As-tu déjà aimé
Pour la beauté du geste?
As-tu déjà croqué
La pomme à pleine dent?
Pour la saveur du fruit
Sa douceur et son zeste
T'es tu perdu souvent?

Oui j'ai déjà aimé
Pour la beauté du geste
Mais la pomme était dure.
Je m'y suis cassé les dents.
Ces passions immatures,
Ces amours indigestes
M'ont écoeuré souvent.

Les amours qui durent
Font des amants exsangues,
Et leurs baisers trop mûrs
Nous pourrissent la langue.

Les amour passagères
Ont des futiles fièvres,
Et leur baiser trop verts
Nous écorchent les lèvres.

Car a vouloir s'aimer
Pour la beauté du geste,
Le ver dans la pomme
Nous glisse entre les dents.
Il nous ronge le coeur,
Le cerveau et le reste,
Nous vide lentement.

Mais lorsqu'on ose s'aimer
Pour la beauté du geste,
Ce ver dans la pomme
Qui glisse entre les dents,
Nous embaume le coeur,
Le cerveau et nous laisse
Son parfum au dedans.

Les amours passagères
Font de futils efforts.
Leurs caresses ephémères
Nous faitguent le corps.

Les amours qui durent
Font les amants moins beaux.
Leurs caresses, à l'usure,
Ont raison de nos peaux.

(Music - and lyrics? - by Alex Beaupain)

Blood on my lips, holy red wine

It is dark outside, and I am lost in my own private purgatory.

The rain shatters against the thin glass of the window; the tiny droplets slapping against the clear panes before trickling down in tiny rivulets while the lightning paints silver zigzags against the dull grey of the overcast sky. I am lost in my own musings, wondering about life in general. The brightness of the giant screen in front of me flickers, it seems in tandem with the jagged lightning and occasional thunder that makes its way through the thick glass, the city laid out behind my back in amber puddles and silver glass.

You are close enough to tantalise me with a taste of your fullness; the acrid bite of your soft sweat tickles my nostrils, while the ripe perfume of your hair fills me with longing and desire. I can see a glimpse of crisp hair in the corner of my eye, and so too can I see your gently sashaying walk as I turn my head to get an eyeful of you. But you, wilful, cunning, seductive and purely a beautiful fantasy in my own head, are not even in the same room, building, city. I seek you everywhere I go, looking for you in the hordes that pack the trendy clubs all over Chelsea and Greenwich Village, Mayfair and King’s Road. I have travelled continents, gone to cities that I would never have imagined, and only occasionally have I found you, your presence lingering in a dark and seedy bar, luring me in with the idea of your symmetry, and leaving just before I get there. I clutch at straws, the barman sadly telling me of all the tricks he’s seen walk through his doors, before pausing long enough to hand me my standard gin and tonic, Rick-like, his warm and sweaty hand lingering too long over mine as he takes his payment. “Don’t wait for the love of your life,” he says heavily, the curly hair of his chest curling with droplets of sweat that show through the open checks of his undone shirt, “they never stay long enough to cause you anything more than pain”.

And so he leaves me, as always, in the darkness of my barstool, the bland bitterness of the Gordon’s biting into the back of my tongue, and I am left to contemplate the brutality of human emotion, of the sentiments that drive us to seek ever more meaning in our diurnal ellipsis of life. The snake always swallows its own tail, I muse, swigging ever-increasing gulps of my drink as my jaded eyes scan the dark solitude thrown up by the shadows in this, a bar like many other bars. Where and when you will be is a question that I can never answer, but it is one that I seek to find eternal responses to each night that I go out on the hunt. Perhaps the irony of it all is that the only immutable part of our petty and insignificant lives is in our hunt for immortality, that never-ending quest for love, longing, fulfilment and completeness. The snake will swallow its own tail, but only because that tail is no longer part of the same snake when it makes contact with its lips.

Is that then the bitter poignancy, the arid desperation of our lives? That we go out hunting for ourselves each night, condemning ourselves to failure because if we cannot find the person we were five minutes ago, how can we find someone else? That the snake swallows its tail, not out of any other reason but a desperate urge to find something, and only through this wilful act of self-destruction is it possible to find itself, to consume itself, its own essence, its complete being? Is that the ultimate aphrodisiac? I cannot have you, but I can consume myself, so that I am a giant star imploding in on itself, gorging myself on the sweet succulence of my own flesh, tasting the veracity and feral tanginess of my own life fluids in my mouth? Could I drink a case of you?

A Case of You
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Wheres that at?
If you want me Ill be in the bar.

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
And your face sketched on it twice...

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I'd still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that aint afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
And still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed

Oh but you are in my blood youre my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet

(Lyrics by Joni Mitchell)

It´s a Barcelona moment...

So I´m writing this post from the Sala Gaudi at Barcelona airport. Two nights and one day of great fun, good food and intelligent company. The trip out here was spontaneous, unplanned and, perhaps for that reason, all that much more enjoyable. Friday night was spent at various locations, but most notably the gloriously gaudy (Gaudi) jazz bar at the Hotel Casa Fuster, and the Zelig bar in downtown Barcelona (I think its in the Raval). And then yesterday was a Gracia day, walking around small placas and whiling away the time with friends in so many small cafes.

So now its back to London, for a lazy Sunday, reading the Sunday Times and chilling at the Prince Edward - a tiny little pub looking onto a small Notting Hill garden square, before catching up with some more friends for dinner. And its about one hour till my flight boards, so I´m checking emails and Facebook, with my iPod, and I´m listening to a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young classic:

Helpless
There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
and in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there,

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes

(I´ve got the k.d.lang and neil young versions)

An Indian summer....

It's October in London, but after a miserably wet summer, a dawns bright and cheerful. There is a nip in the air, but once the fog & rain have been burnt back, the days are pleasantly sunny. Riding in Hyde Park is a pleasure, with the horses walking with a spring in their step.

Saturday has dawned cheerfully. The tall church spire that my bedroom window looks out over is dappled in a warm yellow glow as the sun nips back and forth from behind the clouds. My t-shirt is covered in fine white hair, left there by Seamus the funny little horse when he threw his head back and brushed my front with his mane. And I'm listening to what could be a melancholy song, but actually it feels so right...


I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,
the minor fall, the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof,
you saw her bathing on the roof,
her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you.

She tied you to a kitchen chair,
she broke your throne, she cut your hair,
and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah

Maybe I have been here before,
I know this room; I have walked this floor,
I used to live alone before I knew you

I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
love is not a victory march,
it's a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah

There was a time you let me know
whats really going on below,
but now you never show it to me, do you? (and)

Remember when I moved in you;
the holy dark was moving too,
and every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah

Maybe there's a God above,
and all I ever learned from love
was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

And its not a cry you can hear at night,
its not somebody who's seen the light,
its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelu----jah....

Lyrics by ?
(I've got the Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright & K.D. Lang versions...)

Lost in the ashes of time....

Another late night, the moon barely perceptible behind low clouds... Autumn is here, and despite the horrors of a hellish commutes thanks to Tube staff on strike, I can't help but smile as I look out onto the city that has become a home of sorts.

So I sit in my flat, doing nothing but reading Evelyn Waugh and listening...



Here I am, lost in the light of the moon that comes through my window
Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses
It's you and the roses

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way when I see your eyes
Now I'm living in your afterglow

Here I am, lost in the ashes of time, but who wants tomorrow?
In between the longing to hold you again
I'm caught in your shadow, I'm losing control
My mind drifts away, we only have today

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way
I will sacrifice 'til the blinding day when I see your eyes
Now I'm living in your afterglow

When the veils are gone as I let you go, as I let you go

Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way, I will sacrifice
Now I'm living in your afterglow

Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses
It's you who is closest


Lyrics by INXS, "Afterglow"

Don't Try to Bleed Me...

Long days, late nights... lots to do, things to plan, events to manage, deals to execute, friends to meet, passions to fulfil....lives to live.

One small life, with too much to fit in. Where is there room to let up? I'm alive, but sinking in the living of it...

And so its late on Thursday night, or really early on Friday morning, I got back from work a little while back, and all I can think of is about a black-winged bird ...

When I think of heaven (Deliver me in a black-winged bird)
I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers
and all other instruments of faith and sex and God
In the belly of a black-winged bird
Don't try to feed me
I've been here before and I deserve a little more

I belong in the service of the Queen I belong anywhere but in between
She's been crying I've been thinking And I am the Rain King

Mama, why am I so alone?
I can't go outside
I'm scared I might not make it home
I'm alive but I'm sinking in
If there's anyone at home at your place
Why don't you invite me in
Don't try to bleed me
I've been there before and I deserve a little more

I belong in the service of the Queen
I belong anywhere but in between
She's been lying
I've been sinking
And I am the Rain King

Hey, I only want the same as anyone
Henderson is waiting for the sun
Oh, it seems night endlessly begins and ends
After all the dreaming I come home again...

When I think of heaven (Deliver me in a black-winged bird)
I think of dying Lay me down in a field of flame and heather
Render up my body into the burning heart of God in the belly of a black-winged bird
Don't try to bleed me
I've been here before and I deserve a little more

I belong in the service of the Queen
I belong anywhere but in between
She's been dying
I been drinking and I am the Rain King.

Lyrics by Counting Crows

What I'm Listening To...

I've gone through yet another period of being terrible at updates - but I blame work, really! One really good development is that I've now figured out that I can access online streaming music websites from work, so I can carry out all that corporate financiering with the strains of the latest Hindi music blasting away!

A recent discovery, and likely to be promoted to the category of "all time favourite" is the song Maula Mere from the film Anwar.

Normally I don't post a lot of videos on this blog, but this one just had to come in...I love the visuals in this clip as well - you can almost feel the dust in the air, the heat of a warm day in a small Northern India town...

What I'm Listening To...

A brilliantly cold Christmas Day - it's early in the morning, and after an evening of watching Lord of the Rings, drinking wine & sitting by a fire with the Christmas tree in the corner, I'm up early today to enjoy the sounds of the church bells tolling in the distance...

America
Lyrics by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America
Kathy, I said as we boarded a greyhound in Pittsburgh
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said be careful his bow tie is really a camera

Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I dont know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
All gone to look for America

Merry Christmas!

What I'm Listening To

Another favourite - though this is of the "I just broke up with you and I will never find true love again" ilk. Listen to it at your own risk...

Snow Come Down

I think you feel, the way I feel
Though you don't want to say
I think you feel, the way I feel
Though it's not the easy way

Wouldn't you like to be with me
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow....

I don't want to cause you any pain
I just want to love you
I don't want to fuck up anything
I just want to love you
And, I know you think I'm kinda strange
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you

Everytime I see your face
I can hardly breathe
Everytime I see your face
I feel stupid and happy

Wouldn't you like to be with me
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow....

I don't want to cause you any pain
I just want to love you
I don't want to fuck up anything
I just want to love you
And, I know you think I'm kinda strange
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you

I'd sure like to be with you
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow....

I don't want to cause you any pain
I'd give you the world
I don't want to fuck up anything
I wanna be your girl
And, I know you think I'm kinda strange
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you
I just want to love you....

Ahhh---Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow come down
Watching the snow...

Lyrics by Lori Carson

What I'm listening to

Another Leonard Cohen classic - I'm always amazed by how he manages to convey this despondency in his songs. There's a pathos that I think most people can immediately connect to at a totally primeval level. Anyway, another beautiful piece...

Take This Longing

Many men have loved the bells
you fastened to the rein,
and everyone who wanted you
they found what they will always want again.
Your beauty lost to you yourself
just as it was lost to them.
Oh take this longing from my tongue,
whatever useless things these hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one you love.

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
how near you sleep to me

Just take this longing from my tongue
all the lonely things my hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one your love.

Hungry as an archway
through which the troops have passed,
I stand in ruins behind you,
with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.
I love to see you naked over there
especially from the back.

Oh take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
untie for me your hired blue gown,
like you would do for one that you love.

You're faithful to the better man,
I'm afraid that he left.
So let me judge your love affair
in this very room where I have sentenced
mine to death.
I'll even wear these old laurel leaves
that he's shaken from his head.

Just take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
let me see your beauty broken down,
like you would do for one you love.

Like you would do for one you love.

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

What I'm listening to...

Normally I'm not a big listener of French music - other than Edith Piaf & Cheb Mami, there aren't too many singers I tend to like. Khaled, of course, is high on my list of singers. I still remember the first time I heard Didi. We were in Africa, and the song had just topped the UK top ten and was being played by South African cable TV. I was in awe of a man who could come up with such a cool beat.

Anyway, this song is another Khaled classic. There's an English version that was sung by Outlandish, but actually I like the French original better since its got less of an R&B feel...

Aicha

Comme si je n'existais pas
Elle est passee a cote de moi
Sans un regard, Reine de Sabbat
J'ai dit, Aicha, prends, tout est pour toi

Voici, les perles, les bijoux
Aussi, l'or autour de ton cou
Les fruits, bien murs au gout de miel
Ma vie, Aicha si tu m'aimes
J'irai a ton souffle nous mene
Dans les pays d'ivoire et d'ebene
J'effacerai tes larmes, tes peines
Rien n'est trop beau pour une si belle

Aicha, Aicha, ecoute-moi
Aicha, Aicha, t'en vas pas
Aicha, Aicha, regarde-moi
Aicha, Aicha, reponds-moi

Je dirai les mots des poemes
Je jouerai les musiques du ciel
Je prendrai les rayons du soleil
Pour eclairer tes yeux de reine

Aicha, Aicha, ecoute-moi
Aicha, Aicha, t'en vas pas
Aicha, Aicha, regarde-moi
Aicha, Aicha, reponds-moi

Elle a dit, garde tes tresors
Moi, je vaux mieux que tout ca
Des barreaux forts, des barreaux meme en or
Je veux les memes droits que toi
Et du respect pour chaque jour
Moi je ne veux que de l'amour

Nbrik Aicha ou nmout allik [Je te veux Aicha et je meurs pour toi]
'Hhadi kisat hayaty oua habbi [Ceci est l'histoire de ma vie et de mon amour]
Inti omri oua inti hayati [Tu es ma respiration et ma vie]
Tmanit niich maake ghir inti [J'ai envie de vivre avec toi et rien qu'avec toi]

(Lyrics by Khaled)

What I'm listening to...

I found my old CD of Leonard Cohen songs. This is after I heard the song Hallelujah in a movie recently - it was a different cover from Cohen, but it brought my old CD to mind. If I don't listen to him, I can forget what a great songwriter that man is.

Anyway, here are the lyrics to another favorite. There are a whole pile of urban legends around this song - some say the singer he talks about is Janis Joplin.

Chelsea Hotel #2

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.

Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.

And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said,
"Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

(Lyrics by Leonard Cohen)

Wings...

At night we crossed the border
following a Black robe
to the edge of the reservation
to Cataldo Mission
where the saints and all the martyrs look down on dying converts
what makes the water holy she says is that that it’s the closest thing to rain

I stole a mule from Anthony
I helped Anne up upon it
and we rode to Coeur d’Alene
through Harrison and Wallace
they were blasting out the tunnels
making way for the light of learning
when Jesus comes a’calling she said he’s coming round the mountain on a train

It’s my home—last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing

We floated on to Hanford
on a lumber boat up river
past the fisheries and the milltowns like a stretch of future graveyards
she was driven to distraction
said I wonder what will happen
when they find out they’re mistaken
the land is too changed to ever change

We waded through the marketplace
someone’s ship had come in
there was silver and begonias
dynamite and cattle
there were hearts as big as apples and apples in the shape of Mary’s heart
I said inside this gilded cage a songbird always looks so plain

It’s my home—last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing.

And so they came with cameras
breaking through the morning mist
press and businessmen—tycoons—Episcopal philanthropists
lost in their appraisal of the body of a woman
but all we saw were lowlands
clouds clung to mountains without strings

and at last we saw some people...
and at last we saw some people...

and at last we saw some people
huddled up against the rain that was descending
like railroad spikes and hammers
they were headed for the border
walking and then running
and then they were gone into the fog but Anne said underneath their jackets she saw wings

Lyrics by Josh Ritter