Tuesday 18 November 2008

One Saturday

Work should be made unlawful on Saturdays.

It wasn’t (no edict, no provisions in the Penal Code, nothing in the Employment Act) so I was pretty much stuck without any mood to do anything one such Saturday.

Even if it was only freelance writing.

I did the next best thing when you’re gung ho about doing nothing: research, but it wasn’t something Ted (my freelance contractor) would probably have approved of: I went “YouTubing” for songs from my yesteryears.

It sure felt great (awesome? Ouch!) to still enjoy those “oldies” courtesy of fans who took time to upload the videos.

One of the many songs I looked up was Lisa Stansfield’s “This is the right time” from her 1989 debut Affection, and end up enjoying another single I had completely forgotten about: “All Woman” (1992, Real Love).

Lisa Stansfield
The song tugged my heartstring, but the music video was, in a word, crap.

And I'm sure the lyrics would loose much of its relevance these days of women’s liberation and working parents unless there is some deeper meaning which I did not catch.

Still, I went through the song over and over again as the melody was simply magical (is that violin in the background?) and the last bit did get me melodramatic vis a vis how things are with my better half.

Another song I enjoyed that came with a crappy video was Ronnie James Dio’s “Holy Diver” (Holy Diver, 1983).

Holy Diver!
My friend and I used to love doing that horned devil thingy. We were young, foolish and anti authority (mainly the much disliked dorm Ustaz - one from three, really; the others being cool dudes in my book for their psyche-the-student-instead-of-reprimand them approach).

Incidentally, I heard “Holy Diver” again sometime ago on the radio; probably KLFM’s retro segment. That made me look up the song again.

A much better, and braver, music video on something so touchy a subject – faith – would be R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion" (Out of time, 1991).

Songfacts.com says the video was based on one Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel titled "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings".

Losing My Religion
The novel apparently told of an angel whom people made money from by displaying as a freak show after he fell down from heaven.

If that’s not brave, I don’t know what is.

Don’t really know if the song was ever aired here, though.

There were others I managed to look up; far too many to really list here, but the one that got me singing along was Rick Astley’s “It would take a strong, strong man” (Whenever You Need Somebody, 1987).

I have a soft spot for guitar solos, and in “..strong, strong..” it was a good one. Not the best, but quite there all the same.

Some trivia:
Ronnie James Dio was born Ronald James Padavona in 1942. Lisa Jane Stansfield and Richard Paul Astley are both 42 this year having been born in 1966.

All much older than me. Wonder what songs they listen to during their Saturdays?

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