Don't leave me

Today I spent half an hour listening to Jacques Brel singing ‘Ne me quitte pas’. I’ve always been a firm (but silent) believer in the idea that if someone listens to one song over and over again on loop, it is a very scary sign of their mental health. It doesn’t matter if it’s “If you’re happy and you know it”, “Shut up and drive” or “Betterman”. It’s all creepy. Balance is good, repetition is not, no matter what the message of the song is. I’m not talking about listening to a song three times in a row, mind you - this is more about what I did or I have seen or heard some of my friends do. It’s about as creepy as whispering the one and same prayer under your breath the whole day - a sign of fragility. Something’s about to snap.

Nevertheless, I listened to it until I knew most of the words by heart and gurgled happily to all the French R’s. It’s always made me cry.
It was a bit embarassing the first time I heard it, which was in French class. Everyone had to bring a French song or at least lyrics to class, and then we translated them, analyzed them, and listened to the song. I think it was the teacher who brought Ne Me Quitte Pas… which makes it all the worse, since she was one of those ‘concerned’ types who really wanted the best for her students. Tina or Stina. Blonde, short, and you really got the feeling she liked French so much she wanted to be French.

After a while, I got over myself and on to some Manu Chao. Nevermind that the songs were called ‘Infinita Tristessa’ and ‘Mentira’, it still sounded cheerful and I only listened to each song once. (Well, to be honest, one of them I heard the first few seconds twice because I was checking a CD I had burned worked properly.) *ahem.*

I remember hearing Manu Chao for the first time. One of the class loonies brought a home-burned CD to school and played it on the radio. On a certain weekday, (I cannot remember which one) we always had a 1 or 2-hour break between classes. This was when we would watch Quantum Leap on the Estonian TV-channel, or The Bold and the Beautiful and Ghost Busters dubbed by only one man who was more reading than dubbing.
I liked the Manu Chao song so much I had to go download the song and eventually bought the CD because I liked what I downloaded so much. (HA! eat that! I would never have bought the cd if I hadn’t heard the song in the first place - and I’m not one for listening to the radio. This is mostly because at home I live so close to the country’s biggest radio antennae that all the channels overlap. And here, well, my radio ran out of batteries and I have to refind all the channels whenever I accidentally unplug it with my bare feet.)

Eventually I realized that for the first time in my life, I really wanted to hear Rage against the machine. I’ve always hated them. But right then I needed ‘Wake Up’. It was nowhere to be seen and so I settled for Deftones - My Own Summer (Shove it). It hit the spot so well that I had to enqueue all the rest of my Deftones songs, too. It doesn’t serve to make me feel any different, but it fits. :)

Meanwhile, I apologize for my lack of entries of late (and in the future). All my art project deadlines are looming across the horizon and I can’t escape them. :) And I’ve not been in the mood for speaking much of late. But don’t worry, I’ll still be around…

I can’t wait to be home. Wherever it is.