Isolation

How can I ask anyone to love me
When all I do is beg to be left alone

Well I’m hard, too hard to know

Pictures by Ann Woo,

lyrics by Fiona Apple

Happy Wound

You didn’t see my valentine
I sent it via pantomime
While you were watching someone else
I stared at you and cut myself
That’s all I’ll do cause I’m not free
A fugitive too dull to flee

Blades

If I’m butter, if I’m butter
If I’m butter then he’s a hot knife

An idle, a wheel

I’m going to do whatever I do, and if I don’t do this and can’t find something else and lose all of my money and become broke, then I’m going to have some hard times. There will be new people that I’ll meet, and I’m to be excited about that. I know that I’ll be having new experiences and traveling to places.

That is how Fiona Apple sees the future and it is refreshing and reassuring and I’d love to be able to feel like that all the time too.

 

Ipsis Litteris

Every single night
I endure the fight
of little wings of white-flamed
Butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine
percolate the mind
trickle down the spine
swarm the belly, swelling to blaze

The new album is  out on June 19th.

Little boy

Baby said he couldn’t stay
Wouldn’t put his lips to mine
And a fail to kiss is a fail to cope

And I said: honey, I don’t feel so good
Don’t feel justified
Come on put a little love here in my void

He said: it’s all in your head
And I said: so it’s everything
But he didn’t get it

I thought he was a man

But he was just a little boy

Lyrics by Fiona Apple,  picture via East Village Boys

Navigate

I’m undecided about you again
Mightn’t be right that you’re not here

Everything good I deem too good to be true
Everything else is just a bore
Everything I have to look forward to
Has a pretty painful and very imposing before

What’id you do that for?
Saying there’s nothing to it
Then letting it go by the boards

Bravery & Cowardice

I had to break the window

It just had to be, it was in my way

Better that I break the window

Than miss what I should see

Words by Fiona Apple, works by Baptiste Debombourg

Lesson

Though dreams can be deceiving

Like faces are to hearts

They serve for sweet relieving

Words by Fiona Apple

Works by Alexander Joly, Jake Pauls; photo by Maurizio Fiorino

Crazy again today

I’m officially crazy.

I cannot believe the tricks my mind and ideas play on me. Why can’t I just relax and take people as they come?

A song comes to mind:

I’ve got to fold because these hands are too shaky to hold

Lucky us

This is one of those weeks when I feel I need an extra push to get through to the weekend (yet another busy one, I can foresee).

So expectations play an important part in my selection of musical solace for today. What I mean is, my real favorite artists – the ones who speak right to my heart – are supposed to release new records in the near future. The list:

1. PJ Harvey. Her new album will be released sometime in 2011 along with fresh new concerts in European capitals.

2. Fiona Apple. Some of the new material has leaked onto Youtube and the like, along with rumors that a new record will see the light of day in the next Spring.

3. Ladyhawke. The Kiwi singer with the smartest keyboards on the planet is working on new material to be released very very soon.

4. Björk. The long hiatus will see an end as her much worked on new music is put out hopefully sometime next year. It hurts me to say it, but I do hope it will leave up to my expectations after the mostly disappointing Volta.

5. Lykke Li. Her sweet voice and heartfelt songs will fill our dreams as she releases her new album in the near future. Meanwhile, she has come out with a single that is both mischievous and down-to-the-bones honest, Get Some:

How redundant is it to say that I cannot wait to get all of these?

PS: Yes, I love female singers.

UK, US, UK

Too quick to die

Success needs killing

Let me know the way before there’s hell to pay

Give me room to lay the law and let me go

I am yours now

I’ve been found out

Where would I be

NYC week

When this post gets published, I’ll already be strolling down the streets of New York.

To celebrate my lovely trip to the Big Apple, I prepared a special series of posts about American artists I admire from all fields of the art world.

Since music is the art that appeals the most to me (it’s a visceral thing), I must start with it.

The American singer/musician/songwriter who has and will always have my utmost admiration is Fiona Apple

She’s as talented as can be and doesn’t even worry about success. She only makes music when she wants to and has a very interesting posture about the arts.

Unparalleled.

Tidal

I’ve never mentioned it here before, but the singer/songwriter/musician whom I most admire in the entire world is Fiona Apple.

Every once in a while I look for information on her on the internet, just so I know I’m keeping in touch with her art in a any way.

To my surprise, I found an interview she gave some time ago about her career, fame and the process of making music. Once again, I was amazed on how sensitive and how wonderfully creative and astonishingly insightful she is when writing her lyrics.

Fiona‘s process of writing is very similar to mine in a way. Sometimes, she said, the whole idea for a song comes from a single word she finds fascinating or intriguing in any sense. The way it sounds or its meaning sort inspires her to create a story – a song – about something that she’s feeling at the time.

I love that one thought, that one sole word can give way to a whole universe of meanings and expressions. I cannot express how beautiful and that is to me.

As a tribute to Fiona Apple‘s genius, here’s a video for one of my (many) favorite songs of hers:

Fast As You Can (click to watch it on YouTube)

Taken from her second album, When the Pawn…, it so represents what I feel when I’m in a relationship that it becomes like an inside view of myself.

And although I’m also very sensitive to rhythm, melodies and beats, good lyrics speak straight to my heart.

Lyrics, people, lyrics.