"A little bit of this. A little bit of that. A pot, a pan, a broom, a hat. . ."—Anatevka, "Fiddler on the Roof."
This is a blog about everything and nothing. A little parenting, a little humor, some poetry, news, essays, a lot of music. I don't want to waste your time, just send positive vibes into the blogosphere.
Oh, yeah, my name is Sarah Torribio. Enough about me, how are you?
I'm so happy. I just found another Bombay Bicycle Club song I really love. It's called "Is It Real" and it's off Everything Has Gone Wrong, an album released in January. (I'm a little slow to catch on to the new music at times.)
This band, which formed in 2005, is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Their catalogue is a capacious treasure chest. I've seen them live and they were awesome. I wanna seem 'em again.
Some days I have to listen to Alkaline Trio on repeat and that's just how it is. Years ago I taught a college-level poetry class and I played this song for my students: "Queen of Pain" by Alkaline Trio.
My aim was to demonstrate the heavy use of imagery and metaphor in the lyrics. (I also just really wanted to listen to the song and force others to do so because I'm a militant music evangelist. I also because I consider songs to be lyrics to be indistinguishable from poetry or prose.
(Morrissey's voice now comes to me, unbidden, with his words to Smiths song 'Cemetery Gates.": "If you must write prose/poems, the words you use should be your own. Don't plagiarize or "take on loan.') Songs teach you about rhythm and phrasing and on how to make words tongue-trippingly pleasant or cathartic to say.
I consider the following phrase from "Queen of Pain" to be as well-wrought as any in rock music history.The sound of the words pace and sing with a sensuous momentum: "The stars at night are big and bright deep in your eyes, Ms. Vincent. You told me once I made you smile. We both know damn well I didn't. I'm not much of a jester, but I'd test poison food for you. Your majesty you're royal blue, I'm loyal to my king of pain."
I also played "Walking Barefoot" by "Ash," [metaphor and allusion (Apollo)]; the Police's "King of Pain" in the classroom (extended metaphor and list poem, with the soul described countless ways); "Down By the River" by Bruce Springsteen (ballad). I was a DJ, had control of the stereo and it was awesome.
By the way, for someone who loves music so much and even, on joyful occasion, makes music, I have a bit of a tin ear. When I used to do club reviews years ago for "Music Connection," I would have to walk right up to the stage, close my eyes and really strive to untangle the bass from the guitar and to identify whether the singer was a bass or baritone.
It took me years to figure out who was singing on which Beatle's song. I finally learned that despite his jolly face, Paul McCartney has the deeper voice with an occasional rock 'n roll edge. John Lennon's voice is higher, more cerebral and—when it comes to his searing solo work—more emotionally jagged and vulnerable.
In Alkaline Trio, Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano trade off on lead vocals and I'm only just getting it. Dan's voice is lower, rougher, raspier with more than a touch of hard whiskey. With his pitch and vibrato, his voice kind of sounds like Danny Elfman's if you rubbed his vocal chords for a couple hours with a Brillo pad. You can hear it to good effect in the skippingly romantic "Every Thug Needs a Lady."
Matt Skiba's voice is—weird word for someone who has sung so much about blood—pretty and dulcet and as palatable as a plate of flan or bowl of Jello (depending on your preference).
This song just popped into my head and I'm going with it. Who remembers when Speak for Yourself, a solo album by Imogen Heap of Frou Frou fame, came out in 2005. I was 31 and going through a breakup, and this album was part of my playlist.
I suspect more women than you would imagine have car-sung to "Hide and Seek," as well as the delightful "Say Goodnight and Go."
So on a recent music-drenched drive, one of the songs I came across while flipping through radio stations "I Remember You" by Skid Row.
The whole glam rock thing is hard for me to take seriously. The hair. The clothes. Sebastian Bach being so handsome it's almost unattractive, if that makes sense. But I'll tell you, Sebastian has a pair of pipes that won't quit.
I heard this song on the radio last night as I took a long drive. I was reminded that I actually really like Incubus. The lyrics are better than you would expect from guys who were in their early 20s at the time:
"I dig my toes into the sand The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds Strewn across a blue blanket I lean against the wind Pretend that I am weightless And in this moment I am happy, happy
I wish you were here"
I lay my head onto the sand The sky resembles a back-lit canopy With holes punched in it I'm counting UFOs I signal them with my lighter And in this moment I am happy, happy . . ."
It's also got those wandering, melancholy minor-chord melodies (Tool/Deftones light?) partnered with that catchy record scratching, which was pretty fresh in 2001.
That's what I like about taking a long drive, or part of it. I flip through the radio and listen to all the new music's that been going on while I've been busy and old music I forgot about and yet somehow still know all the words to. —Sarah Torribio
Don't mind me, I'm just your average wife and mother, up at 3 a.m. watching illuminati conspiracy videos. It's all about symbolism, man. That shit be everywhere!
Sometimes, absolutely nothing will cure what ails me but "Corduroy" by Pearl Jam.
I embrace my advancing age and the fact that I graduated from high school in 1992, where I ran headlong into super-fandom of Hole, Smashing Pumpkins (might set up a GoFundMe account so I can purchase the double album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness") , Counting Crows, etc.
I read "Blubber" many times as a kid and I felt very ambivalent. I kind of liked it—or at least wanted to like it. But it was weird to me that the protagonist was a villain of sorts, a relentless bully who gets her comeuppance. I also read many times but didn't quite bond with "It's Not The End of the World." Maybe it's because my parent's weren't divorced.
I also read "Then Again, Maybe I Won't" many times. (I was a read on repeat kind of kid, just as I'm a play on repeat person when it comes to music.) Still, the book always felt foreign to me because it's protagonist was a boy, one who REALLY liked girls. So I was interested in "Then Again, Maybe I Won't," but I didn't love it.
I read "Deenie" too, many times, but again, it felt weird to me. It was a book about a girl who was coming of age and having a nervous breakdown. Too close to home, perhaps.
My favorite Judy Blume books were "Are You There God," "It's Me, Margaret," "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" and "Super Fudge" and, most of all, the wistful Tiger Eyes.
Later, as an adult, I read, "Just As Long As We're Together," a later girls' book. I liked it quite a bit and it might have even made my top 5 list if I'd encountered it as a kid.
I read "Forever" in fourth or fifth grade and got some of the information wrong, because I didn't totally understand it. It's like the theme song for "The Facts of Life." "So you hear them from you brother, better clear it with your mother—better get it right. Call her late at night."
Then, I read "Summer Sisters" in a drunken book club as a young adult. I guess it brought out some of my purdery, because I found it rather cringeworthy.
