I STILL BELIEVE IN SUMMER DAYS
THE SEASONS ALWAYS CHANGE
AND LIFE WILL FIND A WAY.

is love alive?

– Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

The weather’s changing drastically in my town and winter is slowly approaching. I just found this to be one of the most melodic songs with great harmony and I thought I would like to share it. A friend shared it with me by creating the most precious holiday mixed cd, which included this song, therefore I’d like to share it with all of you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. December never felt so wrong, ’cause you’re not where you belong inside my arms.

Can’t stop listening to this song. I love, love, love the cello.

“So You Think You Can Dance” gripped my heart tonight.  My eyes fixated on the screen.  I crumpled inside.  I ached with each debilitating, overwhelming act that pushed her to the ground. I re-lived the echo: you’re everything I think I need, you touched me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.  The chains came crushing down. Biting into my skin.  Reverberating lies instead of truth.  Yet, here I stand.  On the other side.  Set free. Not going back. I won’t back down. Throwing myself on my beloved.  Wrapping myself in Him.  Living here on my knees for Him.  He touches me for a little while, then I am strong.  He frees me from my chains.  And here I am, and I stand, so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be.  Standing with Him, falling into His gravity.

ht: watch this: Addicted

Weezer & Sara Bareilles – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You to) I Want You To

Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat – Lucky

Rihanna & Maron 5 – If I Never See Your Face Again

Shakira & Alejandro Sanz – La Tortura

James Morrison & Nelly Furtado – Broken Strings

Confira também o Top 5 – Duetos Musicais 1

Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet" is the epitome of a girly love song

PREVIEW: STREAM Michael Bublé’s “Haven’t Met You Yet“

It’s been sort of a rough week for me, and I was in desperate need for some really girly, melt-your-heart kind of music. And when I feel like that, there is really only one person I can turn to: Michael Bublé.

His smooth, sexy voice and adorably sappy music videos make me want to get up and dance on even the worse days. He’s kind of a male Sara Bareilles with his melodic lyrics about love that you just can’t help but sing along to.

I’ve probably listened to his song “Haven’t Met You Yet” off of his new album Crazy Love (released in October) about 100 times in the past two days alone. And while I’m almost ashamed to admit it, I love his cheesy everything-is-going-to-work-out attitude, and I find it a hard to listen to him without becoming a bit more hopeful. So if you’re feeling crappy, go ahead and have a listen. I promise I won’t tell.

– Kelsey Bennett, Copy Editor

A lovely, upbeat new tune from Weezer and Sara Bareilles.

(If You’re Wondering if I want you to) I Want You To:

Love the song. Love the lights. Enjoy!

On a whim I recorded Sara Bareilles live show on Palladia (cool channel, btw).  I knew the one song on the radio “Love Song” which I was kinda tired of, but a friend (Barry) recommended her music so I listened.  Wow, talented girl.  She write a lot of love and relationship, mostly broken versions of both.  So the lyrics are pretty deep, music, rhythms, melodies, harmonies all amazing, but mostly I think I’m most impressed by her passion for her music.  Anyways, there was a particular song that I really like and that I think has a particular poignant parallel to a truth in Christianity.

Here are the lyrics for the song “Fairytales”:

Cinderella’s on her bedroom floor
She’s got a crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here
Sleeping Beauty’s in a foul mood
For shame she says
None for you dear prince, i’m tired today
I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming

Cause i don’t care for you fairytales
You’re so worried bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing

Snow White is doing dishes again cause
What else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and calls up a friend
Says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says
Would have cut it myself if i knew men could climb hair
I’ll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows

Cause i don’t care for you fairytales
You’re so worried bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that i should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight
But i don’t want the next best thing
So i sing and hold my head down and i break these walls round me
Can’t take no more of your fairytale love

Cause i don’t care for you fairytales
You’re so worried bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing
I don’t care
I don’t care
Worry bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting spent the whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb
Appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
Cause i don’t want the next best thing
No no i don’t want the next best thing

Listen to the song on youtube.  The truth in the song is that so often in this life we accept the best that there is for right now, that’s available through our own means, as crappy as it might be and we miss out on the fullness of life that’s available through the mercy and forgiveness of Christ.

If we would base our self-worth and life mission on Christ instead of things temporary, like our abilities, our possessions and even our relationships we would find that even when these things fail us we will still be filled with a sense of purpose and hope and feel a sense of completion.  Not that everything will be easy to take or that bad things won’t ever get us down, but the “joy that surpasses all understanding” will be present with us, even in the bowels of despair that we are so good at getting ourselves into.

Okay, so I am a sucker for a beautiful piano ballad.  So sue me.  I am, after all, a piano player with a treasure trove of my own ballads that I play.

This week’s Video of the Week is actually a two for one deal.  I have two videos to offer up this time.    Both of them center around a very quiet little piano ballad.   It is a song from fellow pianist/singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles.  This is a gorgeous track off of her debut album “Little Voice”, and it is called “Gravity”.

I cannot stop loving this song.  It is incredibly stunning as a musical piece, and Sara’s vocal delivery within it is tender, subtle, and delicately sad.  The high falsetto note she hits in the end is about as good as it gets.

The song doesn’t come with a lot of bangs and beats, but what it does deliver is a few stanzas packed with powerful and understated emotion.  Gosh, this is one of those songs I wish I had written.  I might actually cover it someday.

The first video is the official music video for this song.  I think it is more than appropriate for all of you to see the talented person who delivers the quiet force of nature that this song is.

The second video continues on from last week’s love of the show “So You Think You Can Dance”.   Last season, two contestants performed a gut-wrenching and heartbreaking performance to this very song.

So, here they are.  Special thanks to Sara Bareilles for writing this little masterpiece .  .  .

Hope you enjoy these.

-g

Full disclosure: I usually find concert jazz dance to be indulgent, obvious and desperate. Although I’ve taken my fair share of classes in the style, it’s not one that resonates with my temperament. It’s a relief, then, that Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago doesn’t take a purist’s approach to the form — watching MOVE!, the company’s fall program at the Harris, is welcoming enough to skeptics like myself, even if there’s still not enough meat on the bone to sate my hunger for something that smacks of authenticity.

Cesar Salinas and Meredith Schultz in "A Ritual Dynamic." Photo by Cheryl Mann.

Of MOVE!’s six acts, three merit discussion. Jon Lehrer, whose work I’ve seen before, is one of this genre’s brighter lights. Opening the program was “A Ritual Dynamic” (2007), a full-throttle ensemble work in which the Giordano dancers are all stars. The motif of a pretzel-legged crouch is snapped into through all sorts of impossible-looking operations, and bursts of acrobatics are integrated and unique enough not to devolve into gymnastics. More than once I was reminded of Brian Enos’ “Dipthong” — “Dynamic” exists in the same tense, sexy, North African pop realm, only turbocharged. Although Lehrer often fills his stage with bodies, unison is barely touched upon — like a spinning rock skipping across a lake’s surface, most of the composition is airborne and ever-shifting. If anything, it’s too much — there’s often far more to look at than one viewer can catch. A slow duet plays out in the stage’s corner, but the ensemble in the “background” is so busy the two dancers have ended their union by the time one realizes they’ve met. Side-to-side hops look like an Olympic skier on moguls; small cages made with hands connected at the fingertips hold some kind of invisible fuel. Unlike most of the program, “Dynamic” succeeded at being as fun as it tries to be.

GJDC dancers Ashley Lauren Smith, Meghan McDermott and Lindsey Leduc Brenner. Photo by Cheryl Mann.

Former GJDC dancer Autumn Eckman’s “commonthread,” another world premiere, had an open-hearted genuineness and varied vocabulary demonstrative of the breadth of her experiences as a performer (she’s been a member of Luna Negra, Hubbard Street and Lucky Plush in Chicago, in addition to a principal with Santa Barbara’s State Street Ballet). Dan Myers plays the electric violin part of his and John Ovnik’s original score live on the stage apron while a quintet of dancers (Brenner, with Zachary Heller, Maeghan McHale, Cesar Salinas and Martin Ortiz Tapia) whip each other through gummy encounters. Its men’s trio was especially transfixing, as was a duet to filtered pizzicato. An idiosyncratic use of shoulders pinned to cheeks provided visual relief for the evening’s splayed openness and an upward focus was handled with care, suggesting religiosity without broadcasting the theme. Countering it were walks in grand plié that dialed up gravity. Branimira Ivanova’s costumes, in olive, brown, brick and eggplant with accents of electric blue, were flattering and chic.

MOVE!’s big draw, a world premiere by Rennie Harris, had a winning casualness but felt oddly unfinished. “I Want You” is a couple of episodes of swaggering hip-hop-infused dancing in black-and-white suspendered pants and knee socks (again by Ivanova) that point closely back to Run-D.M.C. and a little further to the 40s. Scored by fellow Philadelphian Vikter Duplaix and James Brown’s 1971 single “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved,” Harris inserts flirtatious vignettes into tricky spatial patterns. The vocabulary has an improvisational feel that masks its intricacy, and the ensemble heartily lunges at its slinky cockiness. It’s all over too soon, though, never feeling like it went anywhere.

“Many the Miles”

By “Sara Bareilles”

There’s too many things that i haven’t done yet
Too many sunsets
I haven’t seen
You can’t waste the day wishing it’d slow down
You would’ve thought by now
I’d have learned something

I made up my mind when i was a young girl
I’ve been given this one world
I won’t worry it away
But now and again i lose sight of the good life
I get stuck in a low light
But then Love comes in

How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
But send me the miles and i’ll be happy to follow you Love

I do what i can wherever i end up
To keep giving my good love
And spreading it around
Cause i’ve had my fiar share of take care and goodbyes
I’ve learned how to cry
And i’m better for that

Sing how far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Send me the miles and i’ll be happy to
Follow you Love

Red letter day and i’m in a blue mood
Wishing that blue would just carry me away
I’ve been talking to God don’t know
If it’s helping or not
But surely something has got to got to got to give
Cause i can’t keep waiting to live

How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
But send me the miles and i’ll be happy to yeah
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
Been talking to God don’t know if it’s helping or not
Many the miles
Many the miles
How far do i have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles
Oh send me the miles and i’ll be happy to
Follow you Love

There’s too many things i haven’t done yet
Too many sunsets i haven’t seen

… … …

Just the song for bumming around… haha… (0.o)

Verse of the Day:
“I call to God;
God will help me.
At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh
deep sighs—he hears, he rescues. ”
~Ps 55:16

Video of the Day:
One of my all-time favorite songs

Lyrics of the Day:
“My stupid mouth
Has got me in trouble
I said too much again
…
I’m never speaking up again
It only hurts me
I’d rather be a mystery
Than she desert me”
~ “My Stupid Mouth” by John Mayer

currently watching “The Office”