My Head Sounds Like That

All I want to do is sleep. Usually I don't particularly enjoy sleeping because I see it as a bit of a waste of time, because I can get so much done through the night if I choose work over sleep. But these days I fall asleep so easily and comfortably. So much so that when I'm awake I just wish I could go back to sleep. I've had a busy couple of weeks which isn't normal for me. I think it's catching up on me because I'm starting to feel quite rundown.

Zzzz.

So far I've spent today finding 1GB of music to put on my iPod when I go home tomorrow. I have 86GB free, so I have no problem adding to it every time I go back, which isn't often anyway. I found some old live Gabriel era Genesis performances of the Lamb, some Patti Smith, Bracket, CocoRosie and lots of others. I love spending the day listening to bits of things, even if it means never really finishing a song.

This week has been fantastic. On Saturday I went to York with my friend to see Emma Pollock at the Duchess. We spent the day eating and playing on musical instruments in shops. On Sunday I got up early and got the train to London to see my Rachel and Holly. We went for lunch and then saw Patti smith at the Union Chapel at night. Patrick Wolf played violin for her, which was a nice surprise. Both gigs I saw were brilliant. Yesterday I spent the day with my longest and closest Hull friend Heather. Tomorrow I am going back to my parents' house in the morning. I get to spend the whole day with my mum, so we're going to go for lunch :) Then on Saturday, fuck me, we're going to see Peter Gabriel in London. This will be the first time I have seen him live and I can't even begin to explain my excitement. He's like Tori in the way that he has always been in my life because my parents listened to him a lot when I was young.

There is a gap when it comes to art. A big gap, and it almost makes me with that I didn't rely on it so much sometimes. Think of a song- it is complete and it feels like a moment and it sounds like the person singing the song is feeling that moment too, and the musicians are playing with their eyes closed. It sounds like they are feeling as lost in the music as you are, but they're not. And it bugs me, but there isn't really any way round it, not even performing live, really. The writer will experience something, they will feel it and they will write it, then the music will happen however that happens, whether they write it or whether their band does it. Then they will decide to record it, they will do it layer by layer, take after take, and spend hours mixing and editing until it sounds like the song you end up hearing. The romance is taken out of it, and so is the impulse, the moment and the spark that made the artist write the song in the first place. Just like with a poem- it is edited, proof read, approved, published blah blah blah. The whole process of recording and publication takes away any initial drama and turns the work into something completely different. Processed. Not natural. This is a very pessimistic way of looking at it because it means that when we 'go' to music to share its power, we aren't anywhere near to the root of what it actually means.

Original Sinsuality- Tori Amos
Signal To Noise- Peter Gabriel
My Body Is A Cage- Peter Gabriel
I Can't See New York- Tori Amos
Another Girl's Paradise- Tori Amos
Apres Moi- Regina Spektor
The Drop- Peter Gabriel
After The Ordeal- Genesis
Here Comes The Flood- Peter Gabriel
In Your Eyes- Peter Gabriel
Mercy Street- Peter Gabriel
Sky Blue- Peter Gabriel
Red Rain- Peter Gabriel

I can't see myself getting sick of this list in the near future. When I make playlists I completely hammer them until I have exhausted every possible combination on shuffle, every time of day to listen, every way to listen, every emotion to feel. This playlist would fit anything. Two of the songs, I Can't See New York and Signal To Noise, are major disappearing songs. I used to love lying on the floor with Heather in my Washington Street bedroom in the dark listening to I Can't See New York as loud as we could before the speakers would start to crackle with all the bass. That impact is beautiful. I get that with the Gabriel song too- from the strings and the despair that pours from it.

It's 1am and I am tired. I am eating parma violets and drinking cherryade like a child. I'm not homesick or wishing to be anywhere different because I feel wrapped up and loved and content. I have been reading A Flame in the Mearns: Lewis Grassic Gibbon A Centenary Celebration which was given to me by Margery Palmer McCulloch who actually edited the book. She signed it too but I forgot to photograph it for the signed book entry. I am ready to get completely absorbed in LGG and his work because, if all goes to plan, I will be writing a hell of a lot about him over the next few years.

I was going to write a blog based on this earlier but my computer died and I lost all my thoughts on the matter:

'In the Republic Plato famously complained that one reason why poetry often has such a bad moral influence on people is that it appeals to their emotions rather to their reason, the 'highest' part of the soul.'

I can't even remember the last poem I wrote.

Get sick,

When I was young I used to love being at home. I always made excuses to go home early when I was supposed to be out playing with my friends. I just wanted to get my dinner, have my bath and get my pyjamas on and cuddle Splash (my seal) until I fell asleep. I didn’t really want friends; I just wanted to be on my own or with my parents. Whenever I would go and stay at a friend’s house I would probably make an excuse to go home early, regardless of whether this was in the middle of the night or not, I just had to go. I had to have my own bed and be around my mum and dad so that I felt safe. When we moved to England it got worse because I didn’t know who my friends were, apart from one, because everyone took the piss out of my accent. I didn’t know who I could talk to properly without being laughed at- so I didn’t talk to many people at all. I hid away at home and read books, drew pictures and wrote poems.

Now things aren’t so different, to be honest. Apart from the bit about not wanting to have friends, because there are a few amazing people in my life and I feel truly grateful to have them there. Anyway, I moved out when I had just turned 18, and now I’m almost 22. I don’t really know what I’m talking about anymore, so I’ll leave it there.

Being a literature student, I’m a bit of an emotional fag. I worry about everything, read too much into everything, overlook obvious things and spend hours trying to disappear into books to where I can see what other people feel, but can’t really get to grips with myself. Thank God the people around me are either: a) the same or b) very patient. But sometimes I wish I used the other half of my brain more than this wishy-washy confusingly indulgent side. It would be comforting, but maybe a bit cold, to live by facts and logic and rationality. I know people with interests in science are still people who feel and fuck up. But literature is a very vicarious discipline, in the way that we live through all the shit the characters go through, as well as all the shit we go through ourselves. This is why I read New Scientist and National Geographic when I get the chance; because sometimes it’s refreshing to NOT try to explain life through ifs and buts, but to read a lot of jargon you don’t understand and feel somewhat amazed that there are people who devote their lives to studying viruses and chemicals and don’t stop until they have a real answer that is tangible to them and doesn’t change depending on how much sleep they’ve had or whether they’ve had an argument with their wife or not.

For Heather, best wishes.

I should explain. I know Zadie Smith didn't write Bleak House (even though she told me that she did), but it was the only book I had in my school bag. I haven't met Ted Hughes and I didn't buy that signed book. I just have it. And I haven't met Margaret Atwood- the book was a present.

Automatic #4

Wrapped up like the ugliest present ever given for Easter but with no way to take it back just smash it up instead because it is so fucking horrible it turns your stomach. It was small once, when it wasn't fully made, but then it kept growing and the ugliness jutted out and everyone thought it was a monster and everyone started to hate it even though you loved it but now you hate it too.

Shuffle.

Mrs Bartolozzi- Kate Bush
The Moon- Cat Power
Morning Bell/ Amnesiac- Radiohead
Sad Professor- R.E.M.
Yes, Anastasia- Tori Amos
Virginia- Tori Amos
Straight Thin Line- Frida Hyvönen
If The World Ends- Guillemots
See How I Came Into Town- Frida Hyvönen
This Woman's Work- Kate Bush
The Kick Inside- Kate Bush
Frozen- Madonna
First Orgasm- Dresden Dolls



You're not the type they can capture
you flit like a fly catcher
they can't pin you down
can't pin you down

...


Your heart is way beyond capture
flitting like a fly catcher
they can't pin you down
they can't pin you down

Idiot, slow down, slow down.

I drove home slowly last night. Usually when I drive late at night I drive according to my mood, which is usually fairly upbeat because I'm not at work anymore, so that means that I drive fast(ish) with my music loud. For the past week I've been listening to Emma Pollock's Law of Large Numbers when I'm driving both to and from work. The album has now been reduced to just one song, The Child In Me, which is, for now, my favourite. It's also the first song she plays in the video I posted a few days ago. Anyway, I was relaxed last night. Maybe sluggish, slow and definitely more aware of everything around me. Sometimes it's nice to look. Driving the same back and forth journey all week becomes repetitive and blurry. Nothing is ever different, so auto-pilot kicks in. But last night I strolled and watched and went a different way home. Mainly because I needed petrol, which I also took my time over but didn't necessarily enjoy. £32.88. Argh. I wanted to keep driving. I wanted to go down to the river Humber and watch it for a while, but sadly I've heard that it's a bit of a 'hot spot' for various reasons other than midnight river-watching.

I've been driving for almost three years, but I don't think I've ever just gone 'for a drive'.

Automatic #3

Checking checking it's all about the all sorts and getting them all back safe by the fire and turning it right up so their clothes start to melt. We're all made of plastic and the tin cans will always be tin cans. Funny how everything changes in the evenings when the grass can grow in secret and the owls don't have to flap their wings for anyone.

Automatic #2

Deep breaths with music and coastliners taking people far away then bringing them back to where they wanted to get away from in the first place. They were chased away. bright and bushy once but ground down like pea beans in the farms and bowls of cereal the French people say the hate. There is far far far too much grass here, get a fucking grip and stop worrying. Where do you think she's gone? I can't believe everyone left and took the flower pots with them, what am I going to water now when the stars aren't out the the delete button falls off the wall?

Emma Pollock

This woman is one of my favourites. She was one of the singers, alongside Alun Woodward (Lord Cut-Glass), in The Delgados. They split up after a few incredible albums. Luckily I got to see them live twice in Leeds and Sheffield.

Automatic.

Nothing is outside so maybe we could all go outside and be the only things moving and not concrete. Maybe there will be puddles we can play in, but it's likely that the ladders will be in the way and the dragons will be drinking the world down by the gallon. I want to mean the world to you. I think being higher up is the way and then maybe we could be the sky and see the rivers as being pointless and we'd understand why it matters so much when it rains and doesn't matter so much when it stops raining. They'd tell us the weather and from our balloon and we would be the weather.

2010

Imogen Heap- Manchester
Hole- London
Emma Pollock- York
Patti Smith- London
Peter Gabriel- London
Melissa Auf der Maur- London- Cancelled.
Hole- Manchester + Birmingham
Sia- London
Tori Amos- Bruges, Zurich, Dublin, Finland, Moscow.
Imogen Heap- London


:)