Cat Stevens - hard headed woman, 1970

"Mona Bone Jakon had been full of references to death, but Tea for the Tillerman was not about dying; it was about living in the modern world while rejecting it in favor of spiritual fulfillment. It began with a statement of purpose, "Where Do the Children Play?," in which Stevens questioned the value of technology and progress."

Belle And Sebastian - poor boy, 2018

"One of the characters in the Rear Window-inspired music video for Belle & Sebastian’s “Poor Boy” (2018) has a nice wall and boards. Her apartment is the left-most on the second floor."

Nightbus - ascension, 2025

"Manchester-based duo Nightbus have returned with their brand new single Ascension - the first to be taken from their forthcoming debut album Passenger, released 10th October on Melodic. Driven by surging electronic beats and hypnotic melodies, the track’s shadowy pop sensibility emerges in vivid detail. Hazy vocals and atmospheric soundscapes offer a nuanced, dreamlike glimpse into what’s to come."

Choir Of Young Believers - next summer, 2008

"Choir of Young Believers was the musical project of singer, writer and guitarist Jannis Noya Makrigiannis from Copenhagen, Denmark. The band, which consisted of Makrigiannis along with a rotating cast of supporting players, has had multiple No 1 hits in their home country of Denmark and was named the "Best New Act" at the 2009 Danish Music Awards. COYB’s music combines folk melodies, orchestral instrumentation, and dark lyrics."

The Clientele - i wonder who we are, 2009

"Burt Bacharach-style horns blare over a disco-tinged rhythm while guitarist/songwriter Alasdair MacLean lets fly with the "oohs" and the "buh-bah-da-das," adding lines like "Friday night and I don't have a clue" and "We're dreaming as we move." A few years ago, when MacLean looked to the past, he found doubt and disappointment, penning lyrics like, "I've got so much fear inside me/ Nothing's true." But now a backward glance just helps him to remember how much he loved the Monkees, whose sunshine-pop vibes are practically radiating off of "I Wonder Who We Are". This isn't the Clientele at their most profound or even at their best. But for the moment, feeling good is good enough."

Slowdive - brighter, 1991

“one of the lushest and most layered sounds of the shoegazer movement.”

James - waltzing along live, 2019

"Shortly after their last album release, James reached the end of their contract, and Tim Booth announced he was leaving the band to concentrate on other projects of his own. They played a farewell tour of the UK at the end of the year. Their final hometown gig, at the Manchester Evening News arena on 7 December, was recorded for a live CD and DVD, Getting Away With It... Live. Past members Larry Gott and Andy Diagram rejoined them for the tour, and Brian Eno also joined them onstage at London's Wembley Arena during the tour. The albums Gold Mother, Laid, and Whiplash (each containing bonus tracks) were re-released by Mercury Records the following year, as well as a B-sides compilation entitled B-Sides Ultra."

Mojave 3 - tomorrow's taken, 1995

"The band's name 'Mojave' was suggested by a friend who thought the music had "a wide-open, desert quality", but since there was already a German band called Mojave, they added the '3' in reference to the band being a trio."

Belle And Sebastian - everything is now part one, 2018

"The song begins with a brief instrumental opening, but it transitions quickly into vocals within the first 10-15 seconds, featuring Stuart Murdoch’s voice over a lush arrangement of strings, synths, and percussion."

Slowdive - forty days, 1993

"In the past I always skipped that song. I did not like this slightly out-of-tune intro and therefore only very rarely listened further into the song. But recently at their Hamburg gig I was blown away from that song. It was so dreamy yet so sad. For the rest of the past week I almost exclusively listened to that very song when I was listening to music. I delved into the meaning of the song and learned about its origins. It broke my heart to think about how painful it must have been for Rachel and Neil to have to constantly spend time together after their breakup. Somehow I've rarely felt so intense about a song. When I went through a bad breakup many years ago, I felt the exact same feelings that come back now when I listen to "40 Days." But strangely enough, I can't stop listening to this song."

James - i know what i'm here for live, 1999

"It's about the meaning of life. It's also about the nature of being in a band: the fulfilment of adolescent fantasies of endless drugs, drink and sex. But unless there's self-discipline, it can easily become a nightmare… Initially we did it almost as a blues song, but [producer] Brian Eno came up with the wacky, space-funk hookline. It became the album's first single, to make an announcement that we'e gone into a new musical area."

Ford Chastain - only you, 2025

"Romance lingers from start to finish in Ford Chastain’s new single, “Only You.” This calming slice of dream-pop is an ode to lovers and a celebration of having someone to care for. Chastain’s whispering, gravelly vocals add a relatable intimacy, while the melancholic guitar layers amplify the feeling of yearning."

Belle And Sebastian - the same star, 2018

"Sarah gets to front one song per EP, though in the latter two examples she gets a pretty heavy assist from Stuart, and that’s fine, because I love how these two play off of each other, with a lot of the songs they collaborate on feeling like two sides of a conversation."

Fait-divers by Einstein

"Wondering appears to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts already sufficiently fixed within us" (Einstein)

Fait-divers by Nancy Andreasen

"All human beings (and their brains) have to cope with the fact that their five senses gather more information than even the magnificent human brain is able to process. To put this another way: we need to be able to ignore a lot of what is happening around us — the smell of pizza baking, the sound of the cat meowing, or the sight of birds flying outside the window — if we are going to focus our attention and concentrate on what we are doing (in your case, for example, reading this book). Our ability to filter out unnecessary stimuli and focus our attention is mediated by brain mechanisms in regions known as the thalamus and the reticular activating system." (Nancy Andreasen)

Fait-divers on ambiguity

“If there’s any takeaway, it’s that we’re programmed to get rid of ambiguity, and yet if we engage with it we can make better decisions, we can be more creative, and we can even be a little more empathetic.”

Isobel Campbell And Mark Lanegan - cool water, 2010

"With Belle and Sebastian’s Isobel Campbell, he cut three albums that brilliantly inverted the paradigm set by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra decades earlier (“I write the songs and he’s the eye-candy,” Campbell told me. “Sometimes, we’ll be on stage, and he’s singing The Circus Is Leaving Town, and it sounds so sad, so true, I want to cry”). With longtime friend and kindred spirit Greg Dulli, he recorded a sublime album of soulful regret as the Gutter Twins. He worked alongside PJ Harvey and Slash, and undertook projects with lesser-known talents including Duke Garwood, Soulsavers and Joe Cardamone. His energy was fearsome, his approach fearless; his later albums embraced electronic music (2012’s Blues Funeral) and icy post-punk (2019’s Somebody’s Knocking), his final album, 2020’s Straight Songs of Sorrow, inspired by the experience of writing his memoir."

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” (Niels Bohr)

Fait-divers by Jung

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." (C. G. Jung)

Gorillaz - andromeda, 2017

"It was the only place in the whole of the town that played soul music, so there's a connection between the music I used to hear there and the feeling and spirit of the music I was trying to evoke."

The Coral - undercover of the night, 2018

"Now with a whimsical sense of melancholy and romantic melodies, The Coral return with their ninth studio album, ‘Move Through The Dawn’, a mix of big sounds that somehow manages to weave a perfectly crafted sense of innocence deep within each track."

Fait-divers by John Steinbeck on books

"It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing." John Steinbeck, The Pastures of Heaven

Fait-divers by Paul Kalanithi

"I woke up in pain, facing another day — no project beyond breakfast seemed tenable. I can’t go on, I thought, and immediately, its antiphon responded, completing Samuel Beckett’s seven words, words I had learned long ago as an undergraduate: I’ll go on. I got out of bed and took a step forward, repeating the phrase over and over: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” (Paul Kalanithi)

Slowdive - when the sun hits, 1993

"When the Sun Hits" is a complex and evocative song that captures the essence of the shoegaze sound. It's a song that rewards repeated listening and invites the listener to create their own interpretation of its meaning."

Belle And Sebastian - everything is now part two, 2018

"Two months after the December 2017 release of EP 1, we finally got the payoff promised by its (mostly) instrumental closing track. This time, we’ve got lyrics all the way through, and there’s a sort of satisfaction to finally filling in those blanks and finding out what sort of existential crisis the phrase “Everything is different now” (or alternatively, “Everything’s indifferent now”) was actually referring to. Calm and collected as this song is, Stuart actually seems to be trying to talk someone down from a ledge, where they’re feeling completely hopeless and hemmed in by a cruel fate, ready to call it quits on life altogether."

Fait-divers by Annie Dillard

"The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less." (Annie Dillard)

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” (Niels Bohr)

My Morning Jacket - it beats for you, 2005

"In 2004, a dreamy cover of "Rocket Man" concluded My Morning Jacket's first volume of rarities. Which was prescient, because it's Elton John that Jim James' songs for 2005's Z first bring to mind."

Fait-divers by Thomas Merton

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” (Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island)

Fait-divers by Richard Ford

“If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.” Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

Fait-divers on music and nature

"Our work indicates a consonance between patterns in music and in nature, but how to interpret this is more of a philosophical question"

Fait-divers by Tony Schwartz

"Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox." (Tony Schwartz)

Fait-divers by Kurt Vonnegut

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC” (Kurt Vonnegut)

Slowdive - some velvet morning cover, 1993

"Some Velvet Morning" is a song written by Lee Hazlewood and originally recorded by Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra in late 1967. It first appeared on Sinatra's album Movin' with Nancy, the soundtrack to her 1967 television special of the same name, which also featured a performance of the song. It was subsequently released as a single before appearing on the 1968 album Nancy & Lee."

Fait-divers on attention and awareness

The earlier you catch your bad mood, the easier it will be to do something about it.

Fait-divers by Wendell Berry

"A society wishing to endure must speak the language of care-taking, faith-keeping, kindness, neighborliness, and peace." (Wendell Berry)

Fait-divers by John Steinbeck

“Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.” (John Steinbeck)

Belle And Sebastian - the girl doesn't get it, 2018

"The band’s palette might be far broader than it was 20 years ago – the bouncing disco of The Girl Doesn’t Get It contrasting nicely with the stripped-back balladry of There Is an Everlasting Song."

Fait-divers by John Horton Conway

"That’s a curious thing about the nature of mathematical existence. This rule hasn’t physically existed in any sense in the world before a month ago, before I invented it, but it sort of intellectually existed forever. There is this abstract world which in some strange sense has existed throughout eternity. Imagine an uninhabited planet, full of interesting things. You land on it, and it existed for a million years, but no people have ever been there, no sentient beings. There are such places, I’m sure. Go to some remote star and there will be something. But you don’t have to go there. You can sit in this very chair and find something that has existed throughout all of eternity and be the first person to explore it." (John Horton Conway)

Fait-divers on black holes

"as a black hole radiates Hawking radiation, it slowly evaporates until it eventually vanishes. So what happens to all the information encoded on its horizon? Does it disappear, which would violate quantum mechanics? Or is it preserved, as quantum mechanics would predict? One theory is that the Hawking radiation contains all of that information. When the black hole evaporates and disappears, it has already preserved the information of everything that fell into it, radiating it out into the universe."

Fait-divers on storytelling

Stories are our user manuals for life.

Fait-divers by Susan Sontag

"Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcendence. Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the “real” everyday world to an imaginary world, the world of books. Books are much more. They are a way of being fully human." (Susan Sontag)

Moby - slipping away crier la vie, 2006

"Produced and remixed by MHC in London, "Slipping Away (Crier la vie)" is a dance version of "Slipping Away" adds French lyrics. On his blog on September 9, 2006, then in the December 16, 2006 edition of the French newspaper Le Parisien, Moby stated that Farmer came to his restaurant Teany in New York and suggested to him that they record a duet version of "Slipping Away", as she had heard the song on his best of and liked it. He explained that she wrote her lyrics in French and they worked together at a distance from each other (New York and Paris). The song was very regularly aired by all French radio stations, including Fun Radio which aired it several times every day. As the song was very successful, new remixes were made and a second CD maxi and vinyl were released on November 15."

Fait-divers by Vala Afshar

"Two things define us: 1) our patience when we have nothing, 2) our attitude when we have everything." (Vala Afshar)

Fait-divers

"I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells." (Dr. Seuss)

Fait-divers by Jung

"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." (C. G. Jung)

Fait-divers by Einstein

"I have no doubt that our thinking goes on for the most part without use of signs (words) and beyond that to a considerable degree unconsciously. For how, otherwise, should it happen that we sometimes “wonder” quite spontaneously about some experience? This “wondering” appears to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts already sufficiently fixed within us. Whenever such a conflict is experienced sharply and intensely it reacts back upon our world of thought in a decisive way. The development of this world of thought is in a certain sense a continuous flight from “wonder.” A wonder of this kind I experienced as a child of four or five years when my father showed me a compass. That this needle behaved in such a determined way did not at all fit in the kind of occurrences that could find a place in the unconscious world of concepts (efficacy produced by direct “touch”). I can still remember — or at least believe I can remember — that this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things." (Albert Einstein)

Fait-divers: Brandolini's law (or the bullshit asymmetry principle)

"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it." (Alberto Brandolini)

Fait-divers by Einstein

"There is, after all, something eternal that lies beyond the hand of fate and of all human delusions. And such eternals lie closer to an older person than to a younger one oscillating between fear and hope. For us, there remains the privilege of experiencing beauty and truth in their purest forms." (Albert Einstein)

Fleet Foxes - sunblind, 2020

"Throughout the track, frontman Robin Pecknold names off around nineteen artists that have both had an effect on Pecknold’s life and have passed away at a young age. Though the song deals with death, it never comes across as mournful, at least not in a traditional sense. Pecknold vows to carry on the legacy of Elliott Smith, Arthur Russell and a handful of others through his own music, celebrating and honoring by creating music under their influence. Instrumentally, “Sunblind” reflects the same idea, rising to a crescendo under sunny guitars and warm vocals."

Fait-divers by Thomas Merton

"Our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self." (Thomas Merton)

The Coral - distance inbetween, 2016

"The band wanted the sound to be minimal, direct and groove-based, with musical touchstones including Cypress Hill, Kool Keith, Portishead and Can. The album was also influenced by what Power referred to as "stuff that's happened," including the death of Alan Wills, the band's mentor and founder of Deltasonic Records, in a cycling accident. The band subsequently dedicated the album in memory of Wills."

Sintra, pôr do sol, ontem, 31 de julho de 2025

Fait-divers by Tolstoy

"For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite." (Leo Tolstoy)

Belle And Sebastian - play for today, 2015

"Belle & Sebastian’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance was released early in the year to little fanfare. Twenty years into their remarkable career, the Scottish septet doesn’t excite critics the way they used to. It’s a shame, because the record is solid start to finish, not the best thing they’ve ever recorded but better than pretty much everything else released in 2015. Guess that’s just shooting par for these guys. The 7-plus minute ‘Play For Today’ grabbed me immediately. Performed as a duet by B&S frontman Stuart Murdoch and Dee Dee Penny of the L.A.-based indie band Dum Dum Girls, the song uses theater as a metaphor for depression."

Fait-divers by Eugene Peterson

“Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.” (Eugene Peterson)

Fait-divers by Vala Afshar

Hard skills that require constant practice: 1 giving a sincere compliment, 2 listening with intent to learn, 3 talking less, but saying more. (Vala Afshar)

Fait-divers by Kafka

"People talk loud and long, in order to say as little as possible." (Franz Kafka)

Fait-divers on entanglement

"the emergence of classically connected spacetimes is intimately related to the quantum entanglement of degrees of freedom in a non-perturbative description of quantum gravity. Disentangling the degrees of freedom associated with two regions of spacetime results in these regions pulling apart and pinching off from each other in a way that can be quantified by standard measures of entanglement."

Slowdive - missing you, 1993

"Despite its members’ youthfulness – averaging 19 years of age when they signed to Creation Records in 1990 – Slowdive arrived late to the scene eventually referred to derisively in the British music press as shoegaze. In many ways, the five-piece outfit was victims of circumstance. Following the excesses of My Bloody Valentine’s monumental Loveless (1991), which nearly bankrupted Creation, perceptions of the still-nascent genre turned a corner and initial champions turned their backs on the mop-topped gloom rockers. As part of Creation’s stable of early ‘90s dream-poppers, Slowdive managed only two LPs and a handful of EPs as a full band before the critical pushback against shoegaze and fickle fans effectively killed any chances at longevity."

Damien Jurado - dear thomas wolfe, 2010

"A taciturn sensitive-lumberjack type with a voice like something heavy he’s carrying on his back, Jurado also winds brambly acoustic guitar lines through abstract poetic language, incanting the names of small towns and vast states, mysterious women and disreputable men."

Fait-divers on compassion and generosity

Compassion and generosity can combat the rising tide of inequality. True wealth is happiness which comes from giving.

Fait-divers by the Dalai Lama on gratitude

"When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others." (Dalai Lama)

Fait-divers on attitude

What we practice and repeat in life becomes more automatic.

Fait-divers on courage

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." Niels Bohr

Fait-divers on the universe

The universe and human beauty standards are both shaped by the interplay of art and science in creating order.

Belle And Sebastian - the ghost of rockschool, 2010

"For 15 years, Belle & Sebastian have been releasing albums chock full of literate, gorgeous pop music. They’ve recorded so many string-and-horn embellished soft rock songs that it’s hard to believe there’s a melody or a trumpet solo out there that they haven’t hit on yet. But in 2010 they did it again. Their latest album, Write About Love, features a handful of tracks as good as anything the band has put out over the past decade. Par for the course. My favorite of the new songs is ‘The Ghost of Rockschool,’ a Stuart Murdoch special that weaves in his trademark religious references and a trumpet performance by band member Mick Cooke that makes me want to weep or cheer. I think I could attribute about 45% of my adoration of Belle & Sebastian to Mick Cooke’s trumpet playing. Invariably my favorite songs of theirs feature his sublime work. Note to all bands, both established and up-and-coming: Get yourself a trumpet player!"

The Big Moon - why, 2020

"Their piano galumphs along, their vocal harmonies are rowdy and imposing yet their quirks are tamed by keen, oddball structures, and a rare balance of enveloping dreaminess and emphatic insistence. At their spikiest, as on Don’t Think or Holy Roller, they can recall the great 2000s indie band the Long Blondes."

Slowdive - country rain, 1993

"They've found a way to be quiet, moving, and aggressive simultaneously, mixing trance-like beauty with the deepest delayed guitar sounds around, a sound at once relaxing, soothing, and exciting, and most of all harshly beautiful."

Fait-divers on happiness

Happiness is a sense of clarity where you forget yourself, lose track of time, and feel like you’re part of something larger.

Lily And Madeleine - hourglass, 2015

“As I attempt to further discover who I am as an individual, the way society wants me to define myself is becoming clearer. It seems to me that young people are the same everywhere, regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic class. All young adults are in the same boat, trying to figure out what makes us individuals and trying to find our value in society.”

Tindersticks - how he entered, 2015

"They’re moments and entities once bustling with life, but which now exist as faded memories or shells of their former selves. And for so long as we pine to make them real again, there will be exquisite Tindersticks songs to help us fill the void."

Fait-divers by Alan Watts

"The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath." (Alan Watts)

Charlie Haden Family And Friends - spiritual live, 2008

"Joining Charlie and Josh on stage are two other members of the Haden family. Petra Haden on violin and Tanya Haden on ‘cello. Tanya, by the way, is married to Jack Black. The only musical family member missing from this ensemble that performed on the Letterman show was bassist/keyboardist Rachel Haden. Rachel, Tanya, and Petra are triplet daughters of Charlie Haden; Josh is their older brother."

Fait-divers by Einstein

"Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought." (Einstein)

Fait-divers on black holes

"Beyond the event horizon, black holes curve into one of the darkest mysteries in physics. Scientists can’t explain what happens when objects cross the event horizon and spiral toward the singularity. General relativity and quantum mechanics collide and Einstein’s equations explode into infinities. Black holes might even house gateways to other universes called wormholes and violent fountains of energy and matter called white holes, though it seems very unlikely that nature would allow these structures to exist. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction."

Fait-divers on dark matter

Dark matter helps make accurate predictions, but it could be epistemologically inaccessible. We know it works but we don't know how.

Fait-divers on the universe

To live in a universe that is largely inaccessible is to live in a realm of endless possibilities, for better or worse.

Fait-divers by Eleanor Brownn

"Letting go may sound so simple, but rarely is it a one-time thing. Just keep letting go, until one day it’s gone for good." (Eleanor Brownn)

Belle And Sebastian - write about love, 2010

"The song features some singing from Oscar-nominated actress Carey Mulligan (An Education)."

Nada Surf - love goes on cover, 2010

"There's something about a band recording an album of covers that sends up a red flag in the minds of many listeners, as if the musicians are acknowledging they've run out of ideas and must sift through other folks' material in order to pad out their repertoire. This might seem particularly troubling to fans of Nada Surf, since their continued existence after the flash-in-the-pan success of "Popular" in 1996 has had so much to do with their growing strength as idiosyncratic pop songwriters, but for whatever reason, the group has chosen to interpret the work of 12 other acts on their sixth studio album, If I Had a Hi-Fi, and they've done it in a way that avoids sounding like a holding action."

Fait-divers by Kathryn Schulz

"However disorienting, difficult, or humbling our mistakes might be, it is ultimately wrongness, not rightness, that can teach us who we are.” (Kathryn Schulz)

Fait-divers on silence

Every place of silence is invaded by noise. Everywhere we see the ravages of this on our thinking.

Fait-divers on fear

Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop.

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr on reality

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” (Niels Bohr)

Fait-diverson metaphors

Metaphors close gaps in understanding by linking new ideas to what is already known.

Fait-divers on the neutrinos

Neutrinos are everywhere. Every second, 100 trillion of them pass through your body unnoticed, hardly ever interacting.

Fait-divers

Stress creates activity, but it destroys creativity. It causes smart people to do stupid things.

Fait-divers by Matthieu Ricard on happiness

"To Ricard, the answer comes down to altruism. The reason is that, thinking about yourself and how to make things better for yourself all the time is exhausting and stressful, and it ultimately leads to unhappiness. "It's not the moral ground," Ricard says. "It's simply that me, me, me all day long is very stuffy. And it's quite miserable, because you instrumentalize the whole world as a threat, or as a potential sort of interest [to yourself]." If you want to be happy, Ricard says you should strive to be "benevolent," which will not only make you feel better but also make others like you more."

Fleet Foxes - lorelai, 2011

"So the deeper “Lorelai” gets into its story and starts adding instruments (some backwards), and harmonies, the further it gets away from its influences and comes out the other side being very much its own thing."

The Flaming Lips - evil will prevail, 1995

"this song was a key factor in Ronald Jones, who played guitar with the band at the time, leaving the band, as he perceived the message as a negative one, conflicting with his happy-clappy spiritual views. I think, although he was a wonderful guitarist and probably a lovely guy, that he missed the point. God only knows where the magic bullet and glowing mothership fit into all though..."

Nada Surf - whose authority, 2008

"An album as a whole that I love is Lucky by Nada Surf. "See These Bones," that to me is a person, and an album, and a song. My girlfriend, Courtney, is completely embodied in that album. Every time I listen to it, it's like she's there, and that's really helped me a lot. It's really strange to have an album be a person. It's the first time I've kind of thought about it in that way, but it's true, and that brings a comfort in itself. The music is super comforting because it's got amazing harmonies. The thing I love about Nada Surf is you don't give a shit what year it is, they still sound like 1995. They've done it on their new album (You Know Who You Are) as well. I love that band."

Slowdive - don't know why, 2017

"It’s strange to call Slowdive a comeback album, because it seems so sure of itself. Instead, it feels like a completely logical next step in their discography. The record fits snugly inside the band’s canon, so much so that it makes the 22 years since Pygmalion all the more difficult to believe. The band have delivered a fresh dream-pop sound that is still uniquely Slowdive. Perhaps they’re fortunate that their return does not follow their magnum opus, but Slowdive delivers nearly everything their fans desire in a return: familiarity, innovation, and vast atmospheres to get lost in."

Belle And Sebastian - i want the world to stop, 2010

"Mainly, though, what impresses about Write About Love is its consistency, both within the album itself and within Belle & Sebastian’s work at large. Song for song, it’s as strong as any of their records - if anything, these 11 songs are the tightest they have ever been - and Stuart Murdoch remains faithful to the aesthetic he essayed at the outset of his career, finding sustenance in the fine details, his obsessions carrying the weight of passion."

Slowdive - no longer making time, 2017

"There is the occasional moment when the mix seems a little off, most notably the tinny drums on "No Longer Making Time," but mostly the album delivers exactly what a Slowdive fan would want. Lots of songs to dream to (the ethereal, Cocteau Twins-sounding "Don't Know Why," the calming "Sugar for the Pill"), get lost in (the noisy "Go Get It"), and swoon along with (the positively dreamy pop song "Everyone Knows")."

Fait-divers by Kierkegaard on boredom

"Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse." (Kierkegaard)

Fait-divers on attitude

Give more than is expected, love more than seems wise, serve more than seems necessary, and help more than is asked.

Fait-divers on education and forgiveness

The two most powerful forces in the future are education and forgiveness.

Fait-divers by Thomas Merton

"What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forests, at night..." (Thomas Merton)

Fait-divers by Camus

"Nous finissons toujours par avoir le visage de nos vérités." (Albert Camus)

Neil Young - old man live at bst hyde park london, 2025

"There is a purity of intent to Neil Young that makes him seem, in this busy live summer of 2025, even more of an anachronism than ever. At Glastonbury, his ornery denial of current practice felt to some of us heroic - no pyro, no FX, no cabaret style troupe of special guests: the music and the pursuit of the sound was the spectacle. If cruise ship kitsch felt like the prerequisite for legend success at Glastonbury, Young seemed happier than ever to fail on his own terms."

Det Vackra Livet - kristallen, 2011

"Det Vackra Livet is the new band featuring brothers Philip and Henrik Ekström of The Mary Onettes. A perfectly eccentric and personal mix of The Cure, Ingmar Bergman, Claes Andersson's poetry and Arcade Fire!"

Belle And Sebastian - i love my car, 2001

"I Love My Car is a hilariously sweet ditty with insanely twee lyrics and that darn Uptown Shufflers om-pom-pom band that supported them on the last tour. You’ll either find it horrifying or endearing, as with the sleeve photos showing the band members holding various cute dogs."

Fait-divers

The only thing more powerful than knowing how to program the mind, is knowing how to deprogram it.

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr

"Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." (Niels Bohr)

Fait-divers by Leonard Nimoy

"The miracle is this: the more we share, the more we have." (Leonard Nimoy)

Slowdive - slomo, 2017

"The way they blurred the clear vocal and instrumental is intriguing. Sometimes I feel like dream pop is a way to echo your voice in the brain and repetitively make you believe whatever your brain says is your heart says. I think this song is quite a straightforward one, expressing the longing for love and seeking tenderness. The way Slomo addresses the universal emotions is nothing dramatically different but quite convincing."

Concorde - floating there, 2013

"The EP features synth-heavy, electro-pop arrangements with a melancholic yet danceable vibe, blending vintage synths and tropical guitar sounds."

Fait-divers by C. S. Lewis on humility

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." (C. S. Lewis)

Fait-divers on art

Writing is the art of finding the extraordinary and hiding it in a better place.

Fait-divers on strength

True strength is not a solitary fortress, standing rigid against the world, but a bridge (fragile yet enduring) built across the vast chasms of human suffering. It arises not from isolation, but from the willing choice to step into the pain of others, to let their struggles echo within us.

Fait-divers on pain and love

What we perceive to be a three-dimensional universe might just be the image of a two-dimensional one. The only reality: love and pain.

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - shift, 2014

"Shift" is a track from the 2014 album Neon by Letting Up Despite Great Faults, an American indie pop/dream pop band founded by Mike Lee in 2006. The song, with a runtime of 2:56, is the opening track of the 13-song album, released on August 12, 2014, and characterized by its dreamy, shoegaze-infused indie rock sound. Critics have noted Neon for its shimmering, danceable melodies and New Order-inspired basslines, with "Shift" setting the tone for the album's ethereal vibe."

The Smiths - cemetry gates, 1986

"Cemetry Gates" originated when Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was on a train; he recalled, "I was ... thinking, 'If you're so great, first thing in the morning sit down and write a great song.' I started with 'Cemetry Gates'; B minor to G change in open G." Marr was initially sceptical of using the song, believing that the guitar part was not interesting enough to be developed into a song. However, Smiths singer Morrissey liked Marr's performance of the song's music and convinced him it was worthy of release. Marr recalled "I did this in my kitchen with Morrissey. When I played it I wasn't sure about it – but that’s one example of how a partnership works. Because Morrissey loved it, and it came so effortlessly and easy. I was just about to bin it." Producer Stephen Street stated that "the vibe was just wonderful" while recording the song. Street later said of the song: "It's all the best elements of The Smiths. And what a wonderful vocal and lyric. It's a nice bit of blessed relief. It's delicate, but it's still got power".

Belle And Sebastian - the loneliness of a middle distance runner, 2001

"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe, published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same title. The work focuses on Smith, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a working class area, who has bleak prospects in life and few interests beyond petty crime. The boy experiences social alienation and turns to long-distance running as a method of both emotional and physical escape from his situation."

Fait-divers on happiness

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

Roger Waters - we shall overcome cover live, 2016

"In 1959, the song began to be associated with the civil rights movement as a protest song, when Guy Carawan stepped in with his and Seeger's version as song leader at Highlander, which was then focused on nonviolent civil rights activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide."

Fait-divers by Confucius

"Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without." (Confucius)

Fait-divers: hotel room in the early 20th century

Bruce Springsteen - i'm goin down, 1984

"A rock song, "I'm Goin' Down" is described by Uncut contributor John Lewis as having a country music influence, and "sound[ing] in places like Johnny Cash". For other critics, the song contains rockabilly elements."

Fait-divers by John Steinbeck

"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything." (John Steinbeck)

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr

"Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question." (Niels Bohr)

Fait-divers on gratitude

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." (William Arthur Ward)

Fait-divers on attitude and attention

Body language. Tone of voice. Monitor obsessively. Manage obsessively.

It's Immaterial - in the neighbourhood, 1990

"a sense of place is strong in every song. Each song is a story and the Liverpool-based Mancunians have set them firmly in the North of England."

Isobel Campbell And Mark Lanegan - something to believe, 2008

"Sunday at Devil Dirt is the second collaborative studio album by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, released 13 May 2008, through V2 Records. The album follows 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas. Unlike the previous album, Lanegan flew over to Glasgow to record his vocal parts."

Fait-divers by Einstein on solitude

"I have always loved solitude, a trait that tends to increase with age." (Einstein)

Fait-divers on mind

The mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work unless it's open!

Fait-divers by Vala Afshar on humility, kindness, thoughtfulness and approachability

"I am impressed when I meet smart people. But what I admire most is humility, kindness, thoughtfulness and approachability. Be that person." (Vala Afshar)

Fait-divers by the Dalai Lama on perspective

"Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open." (Dalai Lama)

The Smiths - bigmouth strikes again, 1986

"I would call it a parody if that sounded less like self-celebration, which it definitely wasn't. It was just a really funny song"

The Mountain Goats - the diaz brothers, 2012

"How many times have you heard “The Diaz Brothers?” If you have been a fan of the Mountain Goats to any degree for more than about ten years as of this writing, that number is probably very high. It’s just one of those songs that you can come back to again and again."

Fait-divers on robots

We're making it too easy for the robots to take over.

The Housemartins - five get over excited live, 1997

"The live version of "Five Get Over Excited" on Raise the Flag by The Housemartins was recorded at the Austin City Limits festival in Texas in 1987."

Belle And Sebastian - big john shaft, 2002

"Though some of the other songs, such as "I Don't Want to Play Football," are disappointingly short, more substantial songs like "Big John Shaft," the surprisingly upbeat "Scooby Driver," and the bouncy title track make the album worthwhile for die-hard Belle & Sebastian fans. The only real misstep is the inclusion of so much dialogue from the film -- it didn't work that well in the movie, and in this context it's especially distracting. In all, Storytelling is a frustrating release from Belle & Sebastian; it's not exactly a complete album, it's not as satisfying as their best EPs, and yet it displays enough of the group's charm that it's difficult to dismiss entirely."

Such a great song!

Fait-divers by the Dalai Lama on love and compassion

"I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion." (Dalai Lama)

Fait-divers on humour again

People used to complain that life was short and dangerous. So modern medicine made it long and boring so that they would complain even more.

Fait-divers on literature

The miracle of literature is that it can get you to understand, even a tiny bit, what it is like to be another human being.

Fait-divers on humour

We live in a world where everybody is busy writing something so that there's nobody left to read it.

Fait-divers by Thich Nhat Hanh on breathing

"Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment." (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Fait-divers by Thomas Merton meditation

“If you want to identify me, ask me not what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail” (Thomas Merton)

New Order - i'll stay with you, 2013

"For me its the best song on the album; much better (and cohesive) than Hellbent, a great opening shot for an LP that was unfortunately unable to sustain the quality, and a worthy inclusion on the 2016 remaster / reissue of Singles (even though it was never issued as a single, but then again neither was Turn). Opening with a cool (but brief) electronic intro, the song quickly morphs into what is effectively a classic New Order rock workout rich with melody, hooks, and sonic balance. Bernard does a really nice job with his vocal performance, particularly on his atypical scales in the choruses. The middle instrumental break is terrific; featuring all the key riffs and a great additional bridge into the final chorus. All in all its one of the top drawer New Order rock tracks of the period. That there was ever a possibility in those dark days that it might have been truly ‘lost’ would have been a great shame."

Jenny Hval - lions, 2019

"I wanted to have some kind of clarity in the sound, not to make things muddy and deep, but to have things very light and clear, almost like the element of the transcendental in trance. It's sort of an elevated state, a very receptive state, I find. I can write things that wouldn't happen with other sounds."

Chumbawamba - drip drip drip, 1997

"Larry Flick of Billboard magazine called the song, which he thought "oozes with a political subtext" and was "clever," though he felt the song didn't have what it took to be a hit and that the "instrumental energy doesn't always quite match the intensity of the vocals and chants."

Craig Armstrong - wake up in new york, 2002

"With his strings and zing well upfront, the vocalists are used as instruments but Evan Dando is on top form in the electronic hubbub of ‘Wake up in New York’"

Cold War Kids - first, 2014

"Philip Cosores of Paste called it a "clap-along anthem" and put it together with "All This Could Be Yours" and "Hot Coals" as "the strongest run the band has put together in its career." Heather Phares of AllMusic remarked the song being a highlight of the album due to its "anthemic power."

Fait-divers on attitude

It's amazing how people condemn each other, and even more amazing how quickly and without question they do it.

Posse - voices, 2016

"a deceptively minimalistic song entrenched in hazy guitar hooks and floating in Paul Wittmann-Todd and Sacha Maximʼs halcyon vocals."

Fait-divers on books

A good book makes you want to change your life. A great book makes you feel ok about yourself.

Fait-divers on taxes on disabled people

Lotteries are taxes on disabled people. Mathematicaly disabled people I mean.

Fait-divers on metaphors

The metaphor designer isn’t trying to make something beautiful but to change your view on things.

Fait-divers on emergence by David Chalmers

"We can say that a high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principle from truths in the low-level domain. Strong emergence is the notion of emergence that is most common in philosophical discussion of emergence, and is the notion invoked by the "British emergentists" of the 1920s. We can say that a high-level phenomenon is weakly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when truths concerning that phenomenon are unexpected given the principles governing the low-level domain. Weak emergence is the notion of emergence that is most common in recent scientific discussion of emergence, and is the notion that is typically invoked by proponents of emergence in complex systems theory." (David J. Chalmers)

Earth Wind And Fire - september, 1978

"I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was. And there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates. So ... sorry!"

Fait-divers by Thomas Merton on peace

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. (Thomas Merton)

James - curse curse, 2014

"a dance-electro anthem that manages to lyrically combine fruity double entendre, tequila and iconic Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi."

Fait-divers by Niels Bohr on language

“We are suspended in language.” (Niels Bohr)

Fait-divers on pessimism and happiness

Pessimists are happy because they don't expect to be.

Fait-divers by Nelle Harper Lee on love

"Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal." (Harper Lee)

Fait-divers on suffering by C. S. Lewis

"In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions to your opponent, which stand to the ordinary rules of the game as miracles stand to the laws of nature. You can deprive yourself of a castle, or allow the other man sometimes to take back a move made inadvertently. But if you conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him — if all his moves were revocable and if all your pieces disappeared whenever their position on the board was not to his liking — then you could not have a game at all. So it is with the life of souls in a world: fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once limits within which their common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself." (C. S. Lewis)

Milo Meskens - here with me, 2016

"The last song off Milo Meskens’ debut album is, surprisingly, his first single: an acoustic and slow song, relaxing through the presence of finger picking and harmonies. The bridge is, as many of the other ones on his album, crescendo with powerful and high vocals and a repetition: “You could be here with me.”

The Go-Betweens - part company, 1984

"Forster later indicated in an interview that McLennan had told him that "Just a King in Mirrors" was about Nick Cave, whom he was close to at the time. Desperately broke at the time, Forster said, "A moment of brightness for me was writing the music for "Part Company", the strummed folkie chords setting up the possibility of telling a story, not a fragment."

Belle And Sebastian - fiction reprise, 2002

"The "Fiction Reprise" is a track by Belle and Sebastian from their 2002 album Storytelling, which was the soundtrack for the film of the same name directed by Todd Solondz. The song is a brief, instrumental reprise of the earlier track "Fiction" from the same album, lasting about 1 minute and 22 seconds. It features a gentle, melancholic melody with the band's signature lo-fi, chamber-pop sound, incorporating soft guitar strums and subtle orchestral elements. The Storytelling album was recorded in 2001 and released in 2002 via Jeepster Records, with the band working under constraints due to the film's production needs, which influenced the minimalistic and fragmented nature of some tracks, including "Fiction Reprise."

The Smiths - the boy with the thorn in his side, 1986

"Margi Clarke asked Morrissey if this song was inspired by Oscar Wilde, and Morrissey replied: "No, that's not true. The thorn is the music industry and all those people who never believed anything I said, tried to get rid of me and wouldn't play the records. So I think we've reached a stage where we feel: if they don't believe me now, will they ever believe me? What more can a poor boy do?"

Gerry Rafferty - island, 1978

"Setting out in his apocalyptic "Ark," each song radiates the confidence of a master craftsman cruising in his prime, constructing brilliant pop confections with top-flight support while awaiting the crunch of civilization."

Belle And Sebastian - fuck this shit, 2002

"Fuck This Shit" is an instrumental track by Belle and Sebastian, featured on their 2002 album Storytelling, which serves as the soundtrack for the Todd Solondz film of the same name. The song is a brief, quirky interlude, clocking in at just over two minutes, with a lo-fi, almost improvisational feel. It blends jangly guitars, a plodding rhythm, and a touch of whimsy, characteristic of the band's indie pop sound. The title, bold and unfiltered, contrasts with the band's typically gentle aesthetic, reflecting a playful rebellion or frustration that aligns with the film's darkly comedic tone."

Fleet Foxes - battery kinzie, 2011

"Robin Pecknold remains the ringleader of this Celtic circus. His is the only voice to cut through the thick, lush harmonies that Fleet Foxes splash across every refrain like paint, and his lyrics - rife with allusions to the Bible, Dante the Magician, and the poetry of W.B. Yeats - reach beyond the territory he occupied on the band’s first record, which painted simple geographical portraits with songs like "Sun It Rises," "Ragged Wood," "Quiet Houses," and "Blue Ridge Mountains." On Helplessness Blues, he's just as interested in the landscape of the human heart. Still, it's the music that stands out, and the band's acoustic folk/chamber pop combo makes every song sound like a grand tribute to back-to-the-land living."

Bee Gees - i started a joke live, 1997

"It touches me deeply. I think it is simply about someone who wasn’t taken seriously or maybe even laughed at, put down. Someone who tried to fit in, made jokes, but still couldn’t get on the wavelength with other people. I think many of us can relate to feeling that way at times and that’s why people are even brought to tears with this song. I think Robin said to interpret it for yourself because that’s what it was meant to be, a deeply personal song. Also, this was at a time when bands were getting into experimental and psychedelic music that was a mind trip. The Beatles led the way in this genre. The BeeGees also experimented with this psychedelic genre. Not to the degree as the Beatles but still to some degree."

Beirut - landslide, 2019

“Landslide” is the third single off of Beirut’s upcoming 5th album, Gallipoli, and with each new track they release, the more evident their musical evolution becomes. The single boasts roaring rhythms of the organ that give it a touch of what listeners heard with Beirut’s earlier albums like Gulag Orkestar. Surround that by bright and uplifting harmonies – like ones from No No No – and what is created is a gorgeous combination of new and old, showcasing a maturation of sound that one would be hard-pressed not to have chills when listening to."

Headlights - i don't mind at all, 2009

"Headlights principal songwriters Tristan Wraight and Erin Fein were in Absinthe Blind, who put out two albums (“The Everyday Separation” and “Rings”) on little Mud Records in 2001 and 2003. With Headlights, the direction is meticulously observant and thankfully un-cloying indie-pop; “Wildlife” ebbs and flows, twining keyboard-drenched melodies, shimmering guitars and boy-girl vocals into a dreamy tunes that, like the music from their first two albums, has been shelter from the storm."

Bee Gees - heartbreaker live, 1997

"Heartbreaker" is a song that Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb wrote for Dionne Warwick. Released in 1982, it was a Top 10 song in most markets. Warwick herself has said that she personally didn't like the song a whole lot, though trusted the Bee Gees (her trust paid off!) while Maurice especially considers "Heartbreaker" a song that got away. The Bee Gees often included the song in their live medleys and later released a full version of their own on The Record. A demo version was also released."

Fait-divers by Buddha

There are no chains like hate... dwelling on your brother's faults multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey. (Buddha?

Fait-divers on the inteligence of Newton by James Gleick

"He made associations between seemingly disparate physical phenomena and across vast differences in scale."

Fait-divers on quantum entanglement

"Bohm’s ideas involve non-local hidden reality, in which everything depends on everything. In his universe, something happening in a distant galaxy is influencing you right now and vice versa, however minor the effect."

Fait-divers on attitude by Viktor Frankl

"When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." (Viktor Frankl)

Fait-divers on supportive self-talk

Bee Gees - nights on broadway live, 1997

“It came to me in a dream. There was a request by Arif Martin, who was like an uncle to us, he was a great record producer during the song ‘Nights on Broadway’ for the Main Course album, which is previous to the ‘Fever’ syndrome. And he said, ‘Can any of you scream? Scream in falsetto?’ So, you know, give us an ad lib or a scream at the end. So from screaming, it turned into things like Blaming It All.”

The Reds Pinks And Purples - don't dream alone, 2024

"Don't Dream Alone" is a track by The Reds, Pinks & Purples, featured on their 2024 album The World Doesn't Need Another Band, released on September 5, 2024. The song is a 2-minute, 6-second melancholic indie pop gem, characterized by Glenn Donaldson's signature jangle-pop sound with introspective lyrics and a lo-fi aesthetic. It’s one of the album’s more meditative moments, exuding a "sad and heavy honesty" with a whispery, intimate delivery. The track was first performed live on October 11, 2024, at The 4-Star Theater in San Francisco. The album blends new songs with remixes of previous singles, incorporating noisier elements and real drums alongside Donaldson’s strummy earworms, drawing comparisons to The Smiths, The Go-Betweens, and Sarah Records. Fans have praised its catchy, gloomy, and literate vibe, with influences from '80s and '90s college rock."

Pope’s July prayer intention: ‘For formation in discernment’

Holy Spirit, you, light of our understanding, gentle breath that guides our decisions, grant me the grace to listen attentively to your voice and to discern the hidden paths of my heart, so that I may grasp what truly matters to you, and free my heart from its troubles. I ask you for the grace to learn how to pause, to become aware of the way I act, of the feelings that dwell within me, and of the thoughts that overwhelm me which, so often, I fail to notice. I long for my choices to lead me to the joy of the Gospel. Even if I must go through moments of doubt and fatigue, even if I must struggle, reflect, search, and begin again… Because, at the end of the journey, your consolation is the fruit of the right decision. Grant me a deeper understanding of what moves me, so that I may reject what draws me away from Christ, and love him and serve him more fully. Amen.

Learning to discern "To learn to live, you have to learn to love, and for this it is necessary to discern... Good discernment also requires self-knowledge... Often we do not know how to discern because we do not know ourselves well enough, and so we do not really know what we want." (Pope Francis). Do you take time to enter your heart, in the silence of prayer, to discern your decisions? Stay attentive to the Spirit of the Lord to discover your deepest desires and make life-giving decisions.

Feeling and distinguishing one’s own emotions "Examination of conscience helps a great deal… what happened today? What happened? What made me react? What made me sad? What made me joyful? What was bad, and did I harm others? It is about seeing the path our feelings took, the attractions in my heart during the day." (Pope Francis). Take breaks during your day to discover what's happening in your heart, what brings you joy or makes you sad, what emotions are aroused by the things you experience. The Lord speaks to you through the emotions you feel. Listen to His voice to decide according to the emotions that lead you to life.

Recognizing inner movements "It is important to know ourselves, to know the passwords of our heart, what we are most sensitive to, in order to protect ourselves from those who present themselves with persuasive words to manipulate us, but also to recognize what is truly important for us, distinguishing it from current fads or flashy, superficial slogans." (Pope Francis). What is important to you? Does it align with what God wants for you? Let Francis' question resonate within you: "Am I free, or do I let myself be carried away by the feelings of the moment, or by the provocations of the moment?"

Embracing what opens me to life "The good habit of calmly rereading what happens in our day, learning to note in our evaluations and decisions what we give most importance to, what we are looking for and why, and what we eventually find. Above all, learning to recognize what satisfies my heart." (Pope Francis). Is Joy the fruit of your decisions in general? Do you have the habit of reviewing your day? This will give you clues about where you are heading, and what is beneficial for you to choose more and more that Life that Jesus desires for you, and for those around you.

Reject what leads me to death "Temptation does not necessarily suggest bad things, but often haphazard things, presented with excessive importance. In this way it hypnotizes us with the attraction that these things stir in us, things that are beautiful but illusory, that cannot deliver what they promise, and therefore leave us in the end with a sense of emptiness and sadness." (Pope Francis). Seek someone who can teach you to discern, a guide, the community, to decode that secret password of your heart that manifests in many ways. How do you decide? Where do your choices lead you? By their fruits you will know them.

 

The Smiths - vicar in a tutu, 1986

"Vicar in a Tutu" centres on a cross-dressing clergyman, with Terence Cawley of The Boston Globe noting its "casual dismissal of gender norms", further describing as "sneakily subversive". Musically, the song features musical elements characteristic of the music hall tradition with Korber describing it as a "slight-yet-enjoyable rockabilly pastiche".

Neil Young - heart of gold live mönchengladbach, 2025

"I don't understand how broccoli became the most hated vegetable. There are so many better candidates like that rotting piece of garbage known as cauliflower."

Popidiot - the way i made you laugh, 2025

"Popidiot is an Estonian band. In 2009, the band won several awards in Estonian Music Awards, including in the category "best band of the year" and "best video of the year".

The Soft Cavalry - bulletproof, 2019

"The Soft Cavalry is husband/wife duo of Steve Clarke and Rachel Goswell of Slowdive. The band have released a video for album-track “Bulletproof” in which they use sign language to convey the track’s lyrics. The song is off their current self-titled release, available via Bella Union."

Bee Gees - and the sun will shine live, 1997

"On November 14, 1997, the Bee Gees reunited for a concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This was the Gibb brothers' first show in ten years, and the concert sold out in a hurry. The burning question was whether or not the chemistry would still be there, and thankfully, it was. After being aired on HBO on Valentine's Day 1998, the Vegas performance found its way onto CD when One Night Only was released in the fall of 1998."

Club 8 - i wasn't much of a fight, 2003

"I Wasn't Much of a Fight" is a song by Swedish indie pop duo Club 8, released in 2003 on their album Strangely Beautiful (track #3). Its melancholic lyrics, like "I wasn't much of a fight (I'm sorry) / Some temptations I must resist," explore themes of emotional surrender, exhaustion, and the end of a relationship. Rooted in indie pop, the song reflects introspection and emotional complexity, with the album peaking at #18 on the US CMJ charts."

Outros olhares: Espanha, litoral de Murcia, pôr do sol no Mar Menor, ontem, 05 de Julho de 2025

The Mountain Goats - harlem roulette, 2012

"This is a song about the death of Frankie Lymon, who was a wonderful young singer. Then he wasn't young anymore and his voice changed and the world had no further use for him. But he kept trying to work because that was sort of the only line of work he'd ever had. And, uh, he scored a recording contract with a tiny little label out of Harlem called Roulette, there were a lot of tiny little labels in the 1960s, and they let him track like fifteen demos in one night, and he did that, and got a couple hundred bucks, and he went and got some heroin, as you do when you get a couple hundred bucks, and died in his mother's house that night. This is called 'Harlem Roulette'."

Paul McCartney - hello goodbye live, 2002

"McCartney has performed "Hello, Goodbye" on many of his tours as a solo artist. These include 2002's Driving World Tour and 2003's Back in the World Tour, when he opened his concerts with the song, and the On the Run Tour in 2011–12. In addition, throughout his 1989–90 world tour, McCartney segued the coda onto the end of "Put It There". This medley was included on McCartney's 1990 triple album Tripping the Live Fantastic, while a full live rendition of "Hello, Goodbye" appeared on Back in the U.S. in 2002."

The Smiths - i won't share you, 1987

"Recording at the Wool Hall provided a more relaxed atmosphere, with a fully stocked wine cellar often emptied after long sessions by the band and Street. While Morrissey typically retired early, Street recalled that overdubs would continue late into the night, often followed by partying. The sessions were marked by a shift in musical approach and ongoing communication about the band's evolving sound. Ed Power wrote in The Independent that "everyone else was more than willing to join [Marr] in this new love affair. Parties at Wool House became a nightly event. With Morrissey tucked up in bed with his favourite Sylvia Plath anthology, the musicians would cover their favourite Spinal Tap songs into the wee hours".

The Soft Cavalry - mountains, 2019

"Melodic and timeless, the album lands in the atmospheric dimensions between Pink Floyd, Talk Talk and Mansun."

Junip - line of fire, 2013

"The end is very dramatic, as he sings: "Step back from the line of fire" about 8 times, but with the strings going for it, more harmonies, more drums and the Moog thing, and it's just very lovely really, a nice atmosphere. After the 8 times, there's an instrumental until the end which is very soothing."

Bee Gees - i can't see nobody live, 1997

"The Bee Gees were at their zenith in this live performance. Their song writing and vocal skills have greatly enriched my love of music and then Celine Dion singing Immortality Wow what a concert!"

Club 8 - born the wrong time, 2025

"Club 8’s “Born The Wrong Time” is a single released on July 4, 2025, as part of their 2024-2025 rollout of monthly singles leading to their album A Year With Club 8. The Swedish indie pop duo, Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård, known for their dreamy, melancholic sound, dropped this track as a standalone single, not included in the 11-track album released in December 2024. Described as a wistful indie-pop gem with post-punk and dream pop influences, it’s been praised for its nostalgic yet modern vibe, resonating with fans of mid-80s UK indie like Primal Scream or Slowdive."

Paul McCartney - things we said today live, 1990

"McCartney wrote the song in May 1964 while cruising the Caribbean aboard a yacht called Happy Days with his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. Music critic Ian MacDonald said, “The sombre lyric—provoked by the frustrating interruptions of a relationship between two career people—matches the lowering gloom of the music.“

The Moody Blues - tuesday afternoon forever afternoon live at red rocks, 1993

"A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra is a live album by The Moody Blues, recorded from a live performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre on 9 September 1992. This performance was the first time The Moody Blues performed in concert backed by a full orchestra. The concert was held in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their second album, Days of Future Passed, which had featured the London Festival Orchestra. The full video of this concert was broadcast as a fundraising broadcast for PBS in the United States."

Old Sea Brigade - if love was the answer, 2025

"Benjamin George Cramer, better known as Old Sea Brigade, is an American songwriter and producer, signed to Nettwerk Music Group. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Cramer currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee."

The Housemartins - the light is always green cheap version, 1997

"Raise the Flag" is a bootleg compilation album released in 1997 by Saturday Elephant Productions. This album is not an official release but a collection of B-sides, live tracks, and rarities from 1984–1988, featuring 24 tracks such as "Stand at Ease," "Coal Train to Hatfield Main," "You," and "Drop Down Dead (12" Version)." It includes an 8-page full-color foldout insert with a bio, band member details, and a complete Housemartins discography. The CD, cataloged as SE02-97, is considered a rare collector's item and is noted for its jangle pop and indie pop style.

The Go-Betweens - bachelor kisses, 1984

"Despite the efforts of producer John Brand to shine it up, Bachelor Kisses is perhaps still too skeletal to have been a genuine commercial hit in 1984 (maybe a couple of years earlier it might have been a contender), but it remains one of the great treasures of the Go-Betweens’ catalogue." 

See also https://sintrabloguecintia.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-radio-dept-bachelor-kisses-cover.html. This is a fabulous cover version of this song by The Radio Dept. A dreamy and lo-fi cover, aligning with The Radio Dept.'s style.

Bee Gees - new york mining disaster nineteen forty-one live, 1997

"Released in April 1967, it was the band’s first internationally released single and their first song to hit the charts in the U.S. (#14) and the U.K. (#12). Barry and Robin Gibb’s haunting harmonies proved to be reminiscent of the Beatles, leading some to speculate that the song was actually performed by the Beatles under a different name. And “New York Mining Disaster 1941” was said to be an influence for David Bowie’s first big single, 1969’s “Space Oddity,” which had a similar theme of an astronaut trapped on his ship floating in space."

The Smith Street Band - song for you, 2017

"Song for You" by The Smith Street Band is a track from their 2017 album More Scared of You Than You Are of Me, released on April 7, 2017. It’s a song with indie and emo influences, written by Wil Wagner and produced by Jeff Rosenstock. The lyrics explore themes of rejection, insecurity, and unrequited love, with lines like “Rejection’s a constant, bitterness comes with age” and “One day there’ll be a song for you,” reflecting Wagner’s raw, emotional storytelling.

The Soft Cavalry - the ever turning wheel, 2019

"The album’s highlight is undoubtedly its final track, the near-seven minute The Ever Turning Wheel, flexing through the contours of the epic finale without ever appearing sticky or over-earnest (itself a feat that’s easy to get wrong). It's a track whose presence is indicative of the record as a whole: tender, considered, personal."

The Moody Blues - nights in white satin, 1974

"While it has been commonly known as part of "Nights in White Satin" with no separate credit on the original LP, "Late Lament" was given its own listing on the two-LP compilation This Is The Moody Blues in 1974 and again in 1987 (without its parent song) on another compilation, Prelude. Both compilations feature the track in a slightly different form than on Days of Future Passed, giving both spoken and instrumental tracks an echo effect. The orchestral ending is kept intact, but mastering engineers edited out the gong (struck by Mike Pinder) that closes the track on the original LP as it relates to the closing of the original album (with Side 1 beginning with the gong fading in) and not the track alone."

Beirut - gauze für zah, 2018

"The longest track on the album, Gauze für Zah, begins with the signature sound offered on more recent Randy Newman standards, before subtly slipping into deeper and haunting echoing’s as if one were settling into a meditative state."

Bee Gees - lonely days live, 1997

"Though One Night Only was originally meant to live up to its name, the Bee Gees ultimately decided to expand the “tour” and play shows across the world. In late 1998, they performed in Dublin, London, Bueno Aires and Pretoria, South Africa before finishing up the tour in Auckland and Sydney in 1999. While each of these shows have similar sets to the one in Las Vegas, a few other treats sneak in. The Pretoria concert was also recorded and (I believe) aired live at the time, though is a less polished version than the one officially released. The Bee Gees also rang in the new millennium with a full set not far from their adopted home of Miami, sending off their celebratory end of their 4th decade as the Bee Gees in style."

Moby - isolate, 2009

"Wait for Me sounds like the sparse lunar landscape depicted on its minimalistic album cover. The album is lonely and desolate, featuring spacey keyboard textures, sad vocals from a bevy of female guest artists, as well as a few by Moby himself, minimal beats, and woozy guitar that reminds me of how Reese's Pieces feel between my teeth. Also, something about this album - rather anachronistically - reminds me of the 50's."

The Sound - acceleration group, 1987

"Acceleration Group" is a song by the English post-punk band The Sound, featured as the opening track on their fifth and final studio album, Thunder Up, released on December 28, 1987, by the Belgian label Play It Again Sam. Written by frontman Adrian Borland, the song embodies the band’s signature blend of new wave, pop rock, and post-punk, with lyrics that evoke themes of persistence, defiance, and breaking free from stagnation. Lines like “The flames will flicker and the wanting will waver / But there's something in this somewhere / That's going to go on forever” and references to the “acceleration group with the acceleration groove” suggest a restless energy and a refusal to conform. The track runs for 3:34 and was recorded at Elephant Studio in London. Thunder Up marked a shift toward a more polished guitar-pop sound compared to the band’s earlier, rawer work, though it retained their emotional intensity. Despite critical praise—Melody Maker called it a magnification of “the intensity of expression,” and band members like drummer Michael Dudley and bassist Graham Bailey considered it their finest work—the album was not commercially successful. The subsequent tour, marred by Borland’s mental health struggles, led to the band’s breakup in early 1988."

Ford Chastain - give it time, 2024

"The sweltering mid-year months carry their own unique brands of white-hot wistfulness and seasonal depression as the days drag on and on and the nights just flatly refuse to cool off."

The Goon Sax - somewhere in between, 2018

"The songs are bright and bold, the strings swoop in occasionally to lift the songs into the skies, and there's a refreshing lightness to everything that makes the still-somewhat-difficult nature of the subject matter go down more easily. They managed to build up and expand up their sound without losing the core of what made them special."

Pet Shop Boys - it must be obvious, 1990

"But it feels like the flight of the von Trapps, does that mean it's war?" – The Trapp Family Singers, led by their patriarch Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp, were a popular Austrian vocal group during the period just before the Second World War. Ardently anti-Nazi, they fled Austria just before their country was annexed by Germany in 1938, at which time their home was confiscated. They settled in the United States. Their story, told primarily from the viewpoint of stepmother Maria von Trapp, became the basis of Rodgers and Hammerstein's popular 1959 stage musical The Sound of Music."

Bee Gees - to love somebody live, 1997

"My fascination with the band had started way back in high school in Dhaka, Bangladesh. When I was a student in class X, my eldest brother presented me with a Record of the Bee Gees which he got during an official tour to Washington DC. One of the songs in that album was the song “To love somebody.” At the time I was too young to understand the meaning of “love” except that in a couple of years girls my age usually get to experience it as that is the time girls have crushes on a boy. I was totally unaware of the deep pain associated with the rejection of romantic love."

The Sound - hand of love, 1987

"Borland's initial influences can be traced through his work with The Outsiders into punk bands of the 70s, such as the Sex Pistols. However, it is clear that he had a broader appreciation for other forms of rock parallel to this; his admiration for The Stooges and Iggy Pop was reaffirmed on several occasions. Other influences included The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison and Joy Division and David Bowie. In terms of admiration for contemporaries, mid-show interview in 1984, he cited New Order, Soft Cell and Eurythmics. His favourite bands from the eighties were The Waterboys and Talk Talk. He also lauded Ride in the early 1990s."

Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts - like a hurricane live dublin last thursday, 2025

"The electric guitar is alive and well. Neil Young, who is back touring in Europe for the first time in six years with his new backing band, Chrome Hearts, jabbed manically on Old Black, his trusty guitar, to glorious effect at the castle gardens in Malahide on Thursday night."

Neil Young - hey hey my my live glastonbury yesterday, 2025

"Then it’s Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) – and the three steady notes that punctuate the end of the main riff are my favourite sound in the whole Young catalogue, these smears of noise that intimate some kind of warning or barrier."

Bee Gees - massachusetts live, 1997

"If you enjoy the Bee Gees early period, then look no further than Massachusetts. The concert in Las Vegas in 1997 we watched frequently as a family on DVD. It’s ‘Mainstream Pop’ delivered at the highest level. They initially hit the big time in Brisbane, Australia (1963) as kids. There is a great video ‘Melody‘ of one of their earliest performances in Brisbane. For that reason, we like to say the Bee Gees are really Aussies."

REM - it's a free world baby, 1992

"I don’t know why “It’s A Free World, Baby” is not on Out Of Time. It just doesn’t make sense. The song is distinct, fully formed, and superior to all but maybe four of the tracks that actually appear on the record, but something compelled R.E.M. to cast it aside. I suppose that it could be an issue of thematic consistency — though the arrangement most certainly fits the chamber pop aesthetic of Out Of Time, its oblique, infantilized lyrics stray far from the album’s theme of love and romance."