Ride - cali, 2017

"My favourite song is Cali. I love the optimistic, summer like feel of the track, with the little guitar flourishes and loose beat. There is also an insanely wonderful bit towards the end where there is a double tap on the snare that leads into the joyous second half of the song, where the band let rip and fly, playing with the melody of the song and taking it to new levels."

The Go-Betweens - draining the pool for you, 1984

"The album was named after an annual fair in Spring Hill, Queensland, suburb of Brisbane Grammar School, Robert Forster's high school. Some of the band had also lived there in the early eighties. Grant McLennan said of the title, "It was generally not that we were home sick, I think we just wanted to have, after Before Hollywood, which was so obviously an American kind of thing, a regional home-town thing." In another interview McLennan stated "we all lived there and the main reason was that in September, October of every year in Brisbane, there is, in Spring Hill, a fair, and as the album came out around then we thought it would be nice to have a parochial mention in a title because we hadn't done that for a long time."

The Cure - lovesong live, 1993

"for die-hard Cure fans it's a gorgeous treat and for other acolytes of the lukewarm or lapsed variety it might well re-recruit them back into Bob Smith's sometimes wacky, ofttimes gloomy and always idiosyncratic world."

Fleet Foxes - kept woman, 2017

"Crack-Up is enveloping enough to get lost in, and it doesn't always offer easy entry points. For every contained and elegantly pretty ballad like "Kept Woman," there's a byzantine engine of ambition like the title track, which closes Crack-Up with a burst of energy worthy of its title. But the point never gets lost that these songs chronicle the pursuit of contentment, however frustrated — and take great care to linger in the beauty that crops up along the way."

James - walk like you, 2014

"The tracks on La Petite Mort were influenced by the deaths of frontman Tim Booth's mother and his best friend Gabrielle Roth. It included more pianos and keyboards, drawing comparison to Elbow and Coldplay, with some of the guitar parts were compared to Muse."

Car Seat Headrest - joe gets kicked out of school for using drugs with friends but says this isn't a problem, 2016

"This whole record is one that I associate very heavily with a specific time and place. It was the only CD I played in my car for virtually that entire summer. Was living by myself for the first time, partying more than I should have been..."

Neil Young - a man needs a maid, 1972

"Bob Dylan had told him he liked the arrangement."

Sarah Cracknell - taxi, 1997

"For a decade, U.K.’s Saint Etienne have been keeping the ’60s pop flame lit; here, sublime vocalist Sarah Cracknell picks up the torch. Like her band’s efforts, her previous solo CD and countless contemporaries — notably Stereolab — Lipslide injects the sunny melodies of the ’60s into the dreamy, hypnotizing netherworld of ’90s trip-hop to create soothing, post-modern disco lullabys."

Devine And Statton - in the rain, 1989

"The second and last Devine & Statton album was even more concerned with the Welsh backgrounds of its two members, specifically the city the two called home. Aiming at what Ian Devine later called creating "a paean to Cardiff," the two, again supported with several side performers -- notably including New Order's Peter Hook on bass and regular Tom Waits collaborator Marc Ribot on guitar -- created another excellent effort showcasing (mostly) acoustic guitar/vocal-led numbers that carried both precision and sharp lyrical heft."

Car Seat Headrest - overexposed enjoy, 2012

"Car Seat Headrest frontman Will Toledo was offended when a friend pointed out the weak chorus in an early version of “Overexposed.” He had kind of asked for it, though; back in CSH’s fledgling days, Toledo would often post songs online as soon as they were done, asking for feedback — back then, he was testing out tracks for what would become 2013’s Monomania."

Echo And The Bunnymen - bring on the dancing horses extended mix, 1987

"Bring On the Dancing Horses" is a single by the English rock band Echo & the Bunnymen, released on 7 October 1985. It was the only single from their compilation album Songs to Learn & Sing (1985) and was recorded for the John Hughes teen romantic comedy-drama film Pretty in Pink (1986). The song reached number 21 on the UK singles chart and number 15 on the Irish Singles Chart."

Bright Eyes And Neva Dinova - get back, 2004

"in 2004, Bright Eyes mastermind Conor Oberst and Neva frontman Jake Bellows decided to take their friendship to the next level, lock themselves in a basement, and crank out some tunes."

Moby - the ceremony of innocence, 2018

"despite its relentlessly downbeat content, Moby's music is just too satisfying to be depressing."

Deerhunter - fountain stairs, 2010

"The album's title is a reference to a collection of fond memories and even invented ones, like my friendship with Ricky Wilson or the fact that I live in an abandoned victorian autoharp factory. The way that we write and rewrite and edit our memories to be a digest version of what we want to remember, and how that's kind of sad."

Mojave 3 - pictures, 1995

"Mojave 3's debut, Ask Me Tomorrow, was a refreshingly stripped down collection that changed little from the original demos. Halstead's melodic, folk- and country-tinged songs stood alone in a sea of Britpop anthems, drawing favourable (if lazy) comparisons to Nick Drake, Cowboy Junkies and Bob Dylan."

Sarah Cracknell - taking off for france, 1997

"Sarah’s father, Derek Cracknell – who died a few months before Foxbase Alpha’s release, and to whom her 1997 debut solo LP, Lipslide, was dedicated – had a distinguished film career, more than 50 assistant director credits ranging from the Boulting Brothers’ Heavens Above to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, Bond movies Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun, through to 1989’s Batman. He also took that iconic photograph of six-year-old Sarah used on the cover of So Tough."

Bright Eyes And Neva Dinova - i'll be your friend, 2004

"Conor Oberst began his musical career in his early teens, issuing self-recorded solo albums and founding Saddle Creek Records with his brother, which helped to kick-start a burgeoning Omaha, Nebraska scene. Propelled by a powerful collaborative spirit, the label and its bands grew significantly over the next 15 or so years, especially Oberst’s career. Setting his neurotic insecurities, mental instabilities and melancholy romanticism to equally fraught – and, for his age, mature and ambitious – music, he released his first record as Bright Eyes in 1998 and burned brightly. 2000’s Fevers & Mirrors is one of the great albums of the last decade."

The Goon Sax - strange light, 2018

"the slow loneliness of ‘Strange Light’ is soundtracking the views from the train I’m commuting home on"

Shout Out Louds - go sadness, 2003

"Shout Out Louds' debut record, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, is a blast of sparkling energy from start to finish and a contender for best out-of-the-blue debut of 2005. Coming from the angle of the pure pop sound of the '60s filtered through the indie pop of the '80s and '90s and the Beach Boys-worshiping chamber pop of the early 2000s, the Swedish quintet has crafted an album loaded with great songs, exciting performances, and an unerring ear for arrangements. In fact, a better combination of arrangement, emotion, and melody is hard to find anywhere in the early 2000s to date. Saturday Looks Good to Me, for sure."

Damien Jurado - lou-jean, 2018

"The one-two combo of “Lou-Jean” and “Florence-Jean” are both love songs, but each carries its own feel. “Lou-Jean” is a more traditional folksy ballad, and before the listener can fully process the end of the song Jurado launches into “Florence-Jean,” with a much faster tempo and a more lively acoustic track as Jurado comes the closest to belting as any track on the album."

Car Seat Headrest - los borrachos i don't have any hope left but the weather is nice, 2012

"the wall of sound effect he builds at the end is perfect, plus it overlaps into souls. thats one of my favaorite points on the album"

Seapony - i really do, 2011

"The music of Seapony is refreshing in its simplicity. Most songs on Go With Me use no more than three chords, with an average running time around two-and-a-half minutes. In lieu of a human drummer, the Seattle trio entrusts time-keeping to a vintage gizmo the size of a desktop calculator. The lyrics to “Dreaming,” the track that catapulted them into the spotlight, are just six lines long. Like Young Marble Giants and Beat Happening before them, this young three-piece has generated excitement that belies their music’s modest means. And their back story is just as no-nonsense."

Bright Eyes And Neva Dinova - i know you, 2004

"This song right here just does something to my brain. It’s like a lucid dream."

Saint Etienne - dj muddyloop remix, 2012

"I grew up in Croydon, and Brighton trips were a special treat. I’ve got three brothers, and to mark if someone passed an exam, or did something, we’d have a trip to Brighton, and I always loved it. It hasn’t really changed, well it has but it’s still got the same appeal. And it doesn’t have that thing like many seaside towns of shutting down and getting scary when it’s not summer."

Shout Out Louds - circles, 2013

"I’ve got my big hair on, my fluorescent spandex ensemble, and my rubber bracelets. The year is 2013, but when I listen to Shout Out Louds it’s the 1980’s all over again and that makes me very happy. I am going to get on my 80’s kick and I’m going to enjoy it. It is so refreshing, uplifting, a soaring feeling of “ahhhhhh” to hear good old straightforward pop-rock music, with beats and a melody, it’s that simple. Shout Out Louds are a new wave blend of Boy George, The Cure, and The Thompson Twins and I couldn’t love it more."

James - getting away with It live, 2001

"Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) is the twelfth track on the 2001 James album Pleased To Meet You and was the first and only single to be released from that album. It was previewed on the 2000 Autumn tour under the title Daniel’s Saving Grace and in press pre-release promos as just Saving Grace. It started life as an upbeat romp and is apparently one of Tim’s favourites on the Pleased To Meet You album and very similar in style to 80s classic unreleased track Gregory’s Town. It was slowed down and was released as the first single reaching number 22. It has been a stalwart of James’ live shows over the years and according to Tim their ‘unofficial theme’ song."

Damien Jurado - percy faith, 2018

"Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian–American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of instrumental ballads and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format. He became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Although his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the swing era, he refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s."

The Big Moon - barcelona, 2020

"Barcelona is the long-player’s new single. It starts with a flute, followed by a melody as sunny as the capital city of Catalonia itself. Lyrically however, it’s about Jackson’s anxiety to grow older. A wonderful pop song and a great step forward."

Shout Out Louds - my companion, 2022

"Sometimes it’s easy to get fooled by the youthful spirit of the Shout Out Louds songs … but yes, the Swedish indie rock formation has indeed been active for two decades now and have also crossed the magical age-mark of 40 by now. But once you fall into new music by the four-piece these things become quite relative anyway because there’s a certain timelessness that surrouns their music anyway. The sweet indie pop gems of the Swedes are carried by a certain longing, warm melancholia and a reflective notion that just gets better and better with age."

Coldplay - a sky full of stars, 2014

"Quite honestly it sounds more like a Zedd or Avicii offering than a Coldplay one, and it's certainly the loudest and most joyful cut we've heard from the album so far"

Belle And Sebastian - sister buddha, 2019

"Days of the Bagnold Summer encapsulates the best of Belle and Sebastian whist simultaneously narrating the key themes of the film. The gentle approach of the album and the complementary nature of the band’s rerecording’s and the new tracks are hard to fault. Belle and Sebastian have truly found a beautiful sweet spot on Days of the Bagnold Summer between a film soundtrack and a signature sounding album."

The Shadows - atlantis, 1963

"Atlantis" is a rock music instrumental by British group the Shadows, released as a single in May 1963. It spent 17 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number two for two weeks."

Jome - mountains, 2017

"Jome's 'Mountains' conveys a message of redemption and growth, using the metaphor of transforming a city into gold and rising above obstacles to signify overcoming past mistakes and achieving greatness together."

James - sometimes live, 1993

"Vocalist Tim Booth left the band after their December UK tour; the final show of which was released as the Getting Away with It...Live live/video album in early 2002."

The Coral - something inside of me, 2005

"Singer James Skelly - now 24 - still resembles a schoolboy given detention. Their fans come for their musical spells, haunting melodies that have survived a re-alignment further left-of-field. She Brings the Mourning perhaps over-references Can; Something Inside Me sounds like Madness and madness. The night's highlight, Late Afternoon, is an affecting slice of regret for lives left behind. "The place where we meet, tears in our eyes," sings Skelly, and the band leave the stage to be whisked off by Tardis, or tour bus."

Belle And Sebastian - jill pole, 2019

"Cave has the more challenging role. Rejected by his father, Daniel’s character is an unapproachable combination of rage and inertia. But gradually we realise that he’s a child who is plunged into depression without the vocabulary or the life experience to navigate it."

Mojave 3 - after all, 1995

"Ask Me Tomorrow starts and ends with its best songs; "Love Songs on the Radio," also the band's debut single, sets the tone perfectly, Goswell's sweet but strong voice and Halstead's guitar in perfect balance. "Mercy," meanwhile, concludes things on a dramatic, powerful note; without completely exploding, it's the most fiery song hands down, with Andrews' steady, doom-laden piano and the ever more strung-out guitar the bed for an at once soothing and warning vocal duet, Goswell and Halstead closing the album with a final a cappella singing sigh."

Coldplay - lost+ jay z, 2008

"Lost!" is a song by the British rock band Coldplay. It was co-produced with Brian Eno and Markus Dravs for the band's fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. The song was released on 10 November 2008 as the third official single from the album to generally positive critical reviews. A live version was released via download following a performance of the band and Jay-Z at the 2009 Grammy Awards, spurring high digital sales and giving "Lost!" a new peak at number 40 in the United States. There are several versions of the song, including a piano recording (known as "Lost?") and a remix featuring Jay-Z (known as "Lost+"), which appears on Prospekt's March (2008)."

Shout Out Louds - jumbo jet, 2017

"Shout Out Louds is a Swedish indie rock band from Stockholm. The band formed in 2001 and five years after its inception, it played many festivals throughout Europe and slowly gained quite a following."

Club 8 - i give up too, 2002

"The second U.S. release by the Swedish duo Club 8 is more of the same kind of floaty dream pop that predominated on their self-titled American debut. Only this time, the floaty/dreamy aspects are emphasized, largely to the exclusion of the Saint Etienne-like electronic dance pop that lurked around the edges of the first album. Multi-instrumentalist Johan Angergard doesn't forgo his synths and drum machines entirely ("The Chance I Deserve," right down to its processed vocals, is pure late-'70s Eurodisco), but the songs are mostly based on subtle layers of acoustic guitars, hand percussion, and rubbery, surprisingly melodic electric bass. However, the real appeal of the album comes from Karolina Komstedt's pillow-soft, slightly accented vocals, which have the kitschy allure of Claudine Longet, only with better enunciation and much less tendency to go off-key. (As on the debut, the two songs sung by Angergard are the weakest on the album.) The songs are melodic, sweet, melancholy - the duo ended their romantic relationship during the writing of the album - and just this side of twee. Club 8 do the warm'n'fuzzy indie pop thing as well as anybody."

Cliff Richard And The Shadows - please don't tease, 1960

"To decide upon the release of this track as a single, Richard's record company recruited a teenage panel to listen to and vote on a selection of his unreleased tracks. "Please Don't Tease" won the vote and was duly released, "Nine Times Out of Ten" came second and was the follow-up single."

Belle And Sebastian - there is an everlasting song, 2018

"This track is about the folksiest that Belle & Sebastian get on this project – it’s laid-back, toe-tapping acoustic music with a vaguely bluegrassy bass line and a little bit of finger-picking to sweeten the deal, but nothing too show-offy about it. Stuart and Stevie are singing close enough harmony vocals hear that I mostly just hear Stuart, except for an odd little part in the last verse where Stevie splits off to sing a few beat behind Stuart, who kindly stops to let him catch up. That sort of hints at a bigger finish to come than what the final few seconds of the song end up delivering, but it’s still an interesting way to think outside of the box in terms of how their vocalists can play off of each other."

Jome - thread, 2017

"a dreamy, atmospheric track with a runtime of 2:42, blending indie pop and electronic elements"

John Murry - southern sky, 2012

"Before his death, Albert Camus sent a letter to his wife – the remembered portion being when he wrote, “ I cannot find a comfortable place to lie in this bed.” This was at the height of French disdain for him and continued attacks on his insistence that we ought give a damn about one another and do away with ideologies that “fix” the world in some psychotic Hegelian way (Sartre, in all his stardom, didn’t agree – because he was the fraud Camus understood too well – the Cartesian in sheep’s clothing). His work wasn’t well loved in France at the time. He was despised by most. Not Faulkner, removed from the world of intellect-as-weaponry, who wept when he heard of Camus’ death."

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, 2018

"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.