Thursday, March 08, 2007:

a million miles from reality

I'd thought of doing a "trouble" mix some time back and abandoned it, thinking half the songs too obvious and the other half not good enough. And now I've landed myself a cold, days suffused with the taint of unreality, going from meal to bed to meal to bed to meal to bed, so here I am again. I hope you'll forgive me if these tunes aren't exactly new to you but for the moment it's back to comfort music, old friends, familiar joys.

Kings of Convenience -- Stay out of Trouble
The beauty of this song completely defies my attempts to describe it. Picture a Norwegian Simon and Garfunkel with syncopated violin, plucked strings, and acoustic bass. And it's just the mellowest thing you've heard, a warm blanket, shadows on the wall, light falling in from the hall golden and nostalgic. Feist guests on the album and is, as usual, excellent.
[Riot on an Empty Street ]

Bob Marley -- So Much Trouble in the World
I remember loaning someone this CD in 1993 and being utterly amazed that he couldn't get into it. This is Bob! backbeat! sweet melodies! fiery political lyrics! Mon Dieu.
[Rebel Music]

Cat Stevens -- Trouble
Surely one of the supreme editing achievements in film is Harold getting the news at the hospital and driving away angry, shocked, tearful, speeding, to Cat Stevens' plaintive lament. Surely one of the more deliciously perverse decisions in music was to leave this song "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" unavailable for thirteen years except on the film. (thanks, David!)
[Footsteps in the Dark: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2]

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Comments:
Today was spent unfruitfully trying to wrap my head around the need to insert form input into a database but also prevent violating the primary key's need for data uniqueness and hence failing the transaction: form input goes into an array, sure, fine, but does it then go into a FOR loop with items bumped into and out of the array depending on whether they're already in the table, or do you do a RIGHT join and report the duplicates and then do a LEFT join for the insertions?

Answer: I still don't know. I'm tired of blowing my nose. Back to bed.

Actually, 'Trouble' was an old song when used on 'Harold And Maude'. It's on 'Mona Bone Jakon'. The song that wasn't released for many years is 'If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out' - be nice if you could post that!

d'oh! You're completely right. Memory: fickle beast.

"Don't Be Shy" also wasn't available until Footsteps in the Dark was released. I learned this the hard way last year when, after buying a turntable, I got the urge to recreate the title sequence in H&M -- you know, Harold walking into a dark room and carefully dropping the needle, a few hisses and pops, and then the opening chords of "Don't Be Shy." Fortunately, it didn't take long to track down an overpriced vinyl copy of Footsteps here in town. Ashby had a knack for finding just the right music.

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