How can it even be that the race for US president is this close? As I type this, Biden is about 3.5 million up in the popular vote (71.6 million) but Trump has 68 million of the votes and I’m thinking: after four years of his disastrous presidency, how can 68 million people still think it’s OK to vote for this narcissistic man who is a proven liar and a racist?
My son was up with me until 4 am our time on election night, looking at first results come in, and was disappointed with me that this wasn’t turning into a clear landslide victory for Biden. Then yesterday evening my daughter came home from her side job and heard that Trump and his supporters were calling to stop the count in the states where they are still in the lead. Mini-me laughed out loud at how ridiculous that is. She said, “It’s like when I play football and my team scores and then immediately says, ‘OK, we’ve won, let’s leave now.'” Yes, it’s exactly like that! How come a 16 year old girl can see how ridiculous this is and 68 million grown up Americans can’t? One candidate respects the democratic process, the other candidate doesn’t (yet again) and still people support him?
Results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina have not been called yet as the race is so close (Biden only needs Nevada to win) but how is this election not a landslide for Biden? I can almost understand that someone is fooled by Trump and would vote for him the first time around but after his record these past four years, how can anyone who is not an extremist still vote for him (again)? It really baffles me. It’s as if someone you thought was your friend turns out to be a jerk after all and the disappointment is huge. I felt that disappointment after the UK voted for Brexit, thinking “but… I thought we were friends!” and I feel that disappointment again now, maybe even more acutely after the disappointment I felt when Hillary lost four years ago.
I thought America could learn from the Trump years and reject authoritarian almost-dictators, but I guess America is not as freedom loving and caring as I had hoped. 68 million Americans tell me that.
Two people in comments on either my blog or other blogs have mentioned the David Bowie song “This is not America” to me and for the past two days that song has been running through my head. “A little piece of you, a little piece in me will die,” he sings…
Things are looking favourable for Biden and I will be ecstatic if he wins, but this election leaves me with a very bitter taste in my mouth. America is not what I thought it was.
I came across this which was apparently broadcast yesterday. I used to love this song and seeing it again, performed by the beautiful Tracy Chapman, gave me goosebumps.
I also came across this from 5 years ago which I found beautiful…
And this from a few years ago feels topical…
Can’t ignore Bowie…
And to cheer myself up, there’s this…
Off to doing nice things this evening. Have a good one!
Richard says: The Beatles – ‘Yesterday’. Pretty song, always reminds me of my older sister who sometimes used to sing the word “Yesterday” to me when calling me (my name Esther is hidden in that word). My own answer to this question is David Bowie’s Rock ‘n Roll Suicide.
I love the slow build up of the song and the weird ass lyrics. The song meant a lot to me at a certain time in my life (more about that below).
The first song I remember hearing
Richard says: Grease – ‘Summer Nights’. Yeah, no. I mean the song is fine but I never loved it, it was never really a part of my life either and I was never very fond of Grease when it later did reach my consciousness. For this one I think I’ll say Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens (as he was called at the time). I remember my mom loving that song and that it was sung at the christening of my baby brother when I was around 4 (one of my earliest memories).
The first album I owned
Richard says: The Magic Roundabout – ‘Dougal and the Blue Cat’. This show wasn’t part of my youth at all, so I can’t really say anything about that. My first album that I adored was an album of English language nursery rhymes that I loved to listen to and I remembered it drove my family crazy when I wanted it to be played over and over again (we only had the one record player in the house). I just did a quick image search on google with the words: “nursery rhymes album panda” (I remembered a panda on the cover) and sure enough I found pictures!
I can distinctly remember the man on the record saying “Hello boys and girls” and then talking and singing those nursery rhymes. I think I may even still have the LP if I look through the records we still have tucked away in the attic.
The first album I think I ever purchased for myself was the album Felicita by the Italian duo Al Bano & Romina Power (on cassette!) when I was about 12 or 13. Even then it was not cool for youngsters to like them but I just loved Romina (who is the daughter of Hollywood actor Tryone Power) and I loved them in secret for quite a while. My taste developed into quite a different direction after that.
The first gig I went to
Richard says: Tina Turner in Vienna, 2009. Really? 2009? When he was 38 and based in London? I’m sure he must have been to other gigs as well before that. Now, I may be a late starter myself going to big concerts like that but never as late as that. I never had the funds as a teen to go to bigger concerts, so it wasn’t until I was 19 or 20 that I started going to a few concerts. I know I sawThe Clash and Bruce Springsteen (my sister was a fan) around that time but the first one that really stuck with me was seeing David Bowie in the summer of 1990 in Nijmegen during his Sound and Vision tour. We weren’t too far from the stage and I was in heaven.
The song that reminds me of home
Richard says: ABBA – ‘Happy New Year’. Ah, ABBA – I think they were my first favourite band when I was around 10 years old (I used to tape their songs from the radio on my cassette recorder), so those songs can also take me back. What really reminds me of home, however, is every time I hear some well known Israeli song, like Hava Nagila orHevenu Shalom Aleichem or Siman Tov! Mazel Tov! For my answer to this question I’ll pick the 1979 Israeli Eurovision winning song Hallelujah by Milk and Honey (lyrics and what they mean can be found here).
The song was huge in Israel and I remember singing an English version in school several times. This song can always bring me back to my childhood home and watching Eurovision together with my family.
The song I can no longer listen to
Richard says: Lonnie Donegan – ‘Nobody’s Child’. I didn’t know that song, so it’s new to me and I don’t really have an opinion on that one. For me the first song that comes to mind is I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. I adored that song when it came out in 2010, listened to it all the time, danced around the house to it (with the kids, who were about 9 and 6 at the time, and without the kids). I also loved the Oprah flash mob to that song and then at some point I just over-listened and suddenly completely had enough of it. Here’s the Oprah flash mob video that I just this evening watched again for the first time in eons. I still like the flash mob part but I think I’m still overdosed on the song…
The song that changed my life
Richard says: The Eurythmics – ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’. I always liked that song but it didn’t have that great of an impact on me. For me, I’ll pick the same song I answered to the first question here, David Bowie’s Rock ‘n Roll Suicide. It really pulled me through some dark times when I had no clue what to do with my life when I was around 20 and Bowie yelling “Oh no love, you’re not alone!” really gave me hope and helped me reach out to others to find a way. When I saw a handwritten transcript of the lyrics of that song in the “David Bowie Is” exhibition back in 2016 (just 11 days before Bowie died!), I took a quick clandestine picture of it and actually wiped away a tear. This song just means a lot to me.
The song I want played at my funeral
Richard says: Kool & the Gang – ‘Celebration’. That feels like a bit of a cop-out answer to me somehow. I am all for celebrating life but I also think it’s important to allow contemplation and some pain in when you lose someone. (Modified to add that on re-reading this the term ‘cop-out’ may have been too strong a word and reaction to this song choice of Richard’s. It’s just that somehow this choice doesn’t seem as genuine to me as the other choices mentioned, but then that’s probably all in my head and has nothing to do with Richard.) For my own funeral, I really wouldn’t know which song I’d like! I was going to pick a poem instead by W.H. Auden, as so brilliantly performed in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but that’s a cop-out too. And then I remembered one of the very, very few Dutch songs that I like. This one was played quite a lot around the time my father was deteriorating and I have this image of me driving away from my dad’s nursing home in his final days while it played on the radio. It’s a very sweet song and I think I wouldn’t mind having that played at my funeral. It’s called Mag Ik Dan Bij Jou (literally translates to “Can I then with you”) by a Dutch singer and comedian called Claudia de Breij. It’s about finding shelter with a loved one and the song completely captures my heart…
The song I listen to before performing
Richard says: Imogen Heap – ‘Hide and Seek’. Yeah, not really my music. I’m not a performer, so not sure what would be a good one for me. But if it’s about getting keyed up, then maybe a Muse song? These lines from Knights of Cydonia (at around 4 minutes into the video below) feel very apt for the time we live in now.
“Come ride with me, Through the veins of history, I’ll show you a God, Falls asleep on the job. And how can we win, When fools can be kings? Don’t waste your time, Or time will waste you.”
The song I do at karaoke
Richard says: Queen – ‘Radio Gaga’. Sounds fun enough. As for me, I don’t do karaoke. Ever. If I really had to, I could maybe do an ABBA song or something else really easy. The lower range of Chris de Burgh’s voice suits mine quite well, so I could maybe do Patricia The Stripper but then maybe some stripping action would be required with that as well, so better not. Somehow You Are My Sunshine springs to mind. Not that I particularly love it but it’s easy and nice enough. Here it is in the Johnny Cash version, his voice makes the song more interesting.
The song I discovered during lockdown
Richard says: Daði Freyr – ‘Think About Things’. That really is a fun one, especially that video! I haven’t really had any big music discoveries while in lockdown (I don’t think) until recently. The Lucifer tv show has some really great music that is completely new to me. I was looking for something different to listen to the other week, decided to search for some of those songs and I found a whole Lucifer themed playlist on Spotify. Some of these songs are a real revelation and I love that I am discovering a whole lot of great new music this way. Let me share a few of my discoveries…
I could go on but these are already five songs instead of one. So, here is the Spotify playlist I used, should anyone else be interested as well. I’ve only been listening to these for the past week or two, so I am still traveling on my road to discovery.
That’s it, my answers to the NME questions. Thanks for the inspiration NME, Richard, Michele and Sue. Anyone else interested in playing along?
Today would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday. I’m not the world’s biggest Beatles/Lennon fan but I have always really liked them/him.
I came across this video today, a tribute to Lennon by David Bowie from 1983 (they were friends and wrote Bowie’s hit song Fame together), and I just wanted to share it in the memory of these two great men…
It’s awful that John Lennon’s life was cut short, the world has really missed out by losing him so early. I love this little scene in the movie Yesterday where it is explored what he could have been like had he chosen another life and never become famous…
I wish he had gotten to 78, like in this clip, or to the age of at least 80, like he would have been today. “Imagine all the people, living life in peace” – I wish that would happen too. Your memory lives on, John.
It’s 19 years ago today since the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened in New York. I think everyone knew where they were when they became aware of what was happening. I was still on maternity leave, visiting my parents with my two month old baby son. My mother and I had entered a shop with junior asleep in his stroller and we heard the breaking news on the radio there. We thought they were talking about a movie plot at first, but the shop attendant said that he thought this was really happening. We rushed back to my parents’ flat where my father was glued to CNN, telling us in complete shock (I can still see him sitting there in my mind’s eye) that a second plane had just hit. The rest of the day was very surreal and we were glued to the TV screen. Even now, when I see images again, it still feels shocking to me. It was an event that had a huge impact on the world.
In October 2001 there was a charity concert for New York City after these horrible terrorist attacks. David Bowie opened the concert with two songs, the first a touching cover of the Simon & Garfunkel song America and the second his awesome own song Heroes. I came across his performance again today and I found especially the America song still very touching, so I decided to share here…
My hope remains that love will always win out over hatred.
