“Bee of the Bird of the Moth” is a track from They Might Be Giants’ twelfth album “The Else” released in 2007. I didn’t listen to it until very recently, only because I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to listen to the album or not. It was released during the period when the band had developed their children’s music albums, with “Here Come the ABCs” preceding it, and the two other “Here Comes…” coming afterward, so I had my doubts on whether the sound of the ‘adult’ album would appeal to me.
I was wrong to doubt. “This Might Be a Wiki”, the information centre dedicated to the band allows its members to rate their songs out of 10, and out of 84 ratings it has an average of 8.83/10 which isn’t band considering it’s above songs like “You Probably Get That a Lot” and “Weep Day” which are just examples of two other songs that I like. I’m thinking that that’s the actual reason why I listened to the song in the first place. It has a high rating in the TMBW song list. That sounds quite bad 😦
I don’t regret it though. If I hadn’t done that, then there’s the possibility that I may not have given “The Else” a chance. “The Else” is a great album. I’m biased though ’cause They Might Be Giants are one of my favourite artists, but it’s proudly in my iTunes library where I can listen to the songs everyday.
In John Linnell’s words: “This is a song about a hummingbird moth, which imitates another creature, which imitates yet another creature. It’s completely fucked up and can only be explained in song!”
How’s the new look? Do you like it? The whole blue and white thing was alright. But the ‘simple’ template was much more better than the ‘dynamic’ one. I hope you think it’s cool. Now you can see the posts I’ve done before, all in the two or three clicks with a mouse.
Sorry I didn’t do a post yesterday. I’ve done that about three times now. I’m on holiday, as you may or may not know. Finished exams and all that stuff. Yesterday I just went out bowling and chilled out at my friend’s house for a while. It was nice. I realised I suck at bowling without the barriers on the side to stop the ball from going into the gutter. Yesterday was the first time I’d actually done ten-pin bowling without those barriers. I came last in one game. But I did come third in the final one we did. It was all fine in the end.
OK. So, this is the first post for today. Another one will come up, this counts as yesterday’s one.
2009 was an alright year. I was in Year 9, and so really I still didn’t have any important things going on academic wise. That was the final year of Key Stage 3 before GCSE work started the next year. 2009 was also the year Eminem came back into our lives after a four year absence. Sure, he featured on “Smack That” by Akon and released the compilation album “The Re-Up” in 2006, but of course that didn’t count. That was more of a collaboration album with artists on Shady Records. The last we really heard from Eminem was in 2005, when he released “When I’m Gone” in a period when I remember that a lot of people thought he was retiring, and that was his “goodbye” song.
That all changed when he finally returned, firstly with “Crack a Bottle” and then ‘officially’ (you could say) with the single “We Made You” – the single which received the most airplay from “Relapse”, and in typical fashion he was here with his wacky Slim Shady persona, making fun out of Lindsay Lohan, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Winehouse, and all with funny accents too.
I will tell you another tale of my friends about my friends and I from school. If you read my last post you may get this. These are different friends this time, but me and two of my friends really liked Eminem and we were really happy when “Relapse” came out. Now, most people think that Relapse isn’t that great of an album. Eminem describes it himself as “Ehhhh”. But then, it was Eminem, it was Marshall, it was Slim Shady, it was a big deal. No one would have dared to say that it was bad.
It was one of those two friends who told me about “Beautiful”. I hadn’t heard the song. “Relapse” hadn’t been released yet. But somehow my friend went on all these music websites where the latest R&B and hip-hop music was uploaded. He went on about how ‘sick’ it was, and how I should listen to it and memorise the first verse with the sample so we could sing it when we weren’t paying attention in class. “Sick” is another way of saying amazing, if you don’t slang.
So I went home. Listened to it. And it was sick. It is really serious stuff. “Relapse” isn’t a very serious album at all, with lines such as “I was born with a dick in my brain, yeah fucked in the head” and “Bodies laying all over the floor, I don’t remember how they got there but I guess I must have killed ’em”. But “Beautiful” is a very introspective Eminem song. It’s quite depressing. It’s got a good message though, basically saying “Fuck whoever says you’re not worth shit. Just be yourself.” It was released as a single, as you can see the music video is above. The actual song is about 6:30 minutes, but the video cuts out a few sections for some reason.
I don’t have “Relapse”. I don’t really want it. “Beautiful” is good enough.
The Music in My Ears 