I. A few weeks ago, almost home, walking into the sun, everything hazy, Dido in my ears and all around ("Here With Me", or maybe "White Flag"?) - a moment.
II. Impossible to overstate how much Radiohead's music has meant to me ever since forever, and even when - as lately - I'm not particularly listening to them nor keeping up with new releases, it's too close and too large to see. So it was something to be reminded, twice in a week or so, of the piercing immediacy that their songs can have for me, the pure emotional response - the once through "High and Dry" over the closing montage of a Newsroom episode, the other via Jena Irene on Idol knocking "Creep" out of the park.
III. Also, of course, it's exactly the kind of thing to which I'm most susceptible, but Irene's "Can't Help Falling in Love" last night was my favourite performance by anyone on the show this year.
It's a prime example of the sort of 'American Idol' performance that I was fretting about damaging my musical sensibilities through the simplicity of how it evokes a response, but those concerns seem beside the point when the music itself just goes directly into my spine. (I think the Friday night timing helps too - my critical barriers having been thoroughly eroded by the week gone by.)
IV. For me, with all music, it's always in large part been about melody, and the classics of the pop songbook have probably never loomed larger than these days; in fact, that's another of the pleasures of American Idol - hearing contemporary versions of undeniably great songs.
V. Speaking of classics, and just as an aside, Willie Nelson's "Always On My Mind" has been on high rotation lately.
VI. The new year's resolution about running has stuck, despite some significant adversity with demanding new job etc (and the cold weather will be the next challenge). An incidental benefit: a new type of experience of music, including a few times on the pick-up as I round the bend along the path at the south-east corner of the Carlton Gardens (on a recent occasion, Asobi Seksu's "Thursday" - perfect). Also while lying on the ground stretching afterwards, again in the gardens and often at night, Bill Henson-esque scapes overhead. Change, continuity.
II. Impossible to overstate how much Radiohead's music has meant to me ever since forever, and even when - as lately - I'm not particularly listening to them nor keeping up with new releases, it's too close and too large to see. So it was something to be reminded, twice in a week or so, of the piercing immediacy that their songs can have for me, the pure emotional response - the once through "High and Dry" over the closing montage of a Newsroom episode, the other via Jena Irene on Idol knocking "Creep" out of the park.
III. Also, of course, it's exactly the kind of thing to which I'm most susceptible, but Irene's "Can't Help Falling in Love" last night was my favourite performance by anyone on the show this year.
It's a prime example of the sort of 'American Idol' performance that I was fretting about damaging my musical sensibilities through the simplicity of how it evokes a response, but those concerns seem beside the point when the music itself just goes directly into my spine. (I think the Friday night timing helps too - my critical barriers having been thoroughly eroded by the week gone by.)
IV. For me, with all music, it's always in large part been about melody, and the classics of the pop songbook have probably never loomed larger than these days; in fact, that's another of the pleasures of American Idol - hearing contemporary versions of undeniably great songs.
V. Speaking of classics, and just as an aside, Willie Nelson's "Always On My Mind" has been on high rotation lately.
VI. The new year's resolution about running has stuck, despite some significant adversity with demanding new job etc (and the cold weather will be the next challenge). An incidental benefit: a new type of experience of music, including a few times on the pick-up as I round the bend along the path at the south-east corner of the Carlton Gardens (on a recent occasion, Asobi Seksu's "Thursday" - perfect). Also while lying on the ground stretching afterwards, again in the gardens and often at night, Bill Henson-esque scapes overhead. Change, continuity.
