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Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

Image via Wikipedia

Stay for the genius. Shoutout to Deus Ex Malcontent for reminding me that Johnny Cash is a master.

Sometimes, when i play my guitar – well, practice, sometimes it is almost playing – i hear a chord that strikes off one of his songs in my head. Huge….

Damn, black and white is more powerful, but irony is what this clip screams loudest to me. It also shows his impact…

Yet the thing i think of most with Johnny Cash , besides the music, is the transcendent difficult love he and June Carter Cash shared, and the cost to her…Watch the clip of Hurt. It belongs as much to her as him. Her pain for him, cost her dearly. Amazing woman.

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Bits of me

It has been a week. One would expect that. Ok, not entirely a week in date terms, if one is to be fussy, its just feels that way. Much other people’s stuff and comings and goings and thinkings and wantings and not wantings and loving but not in the way they wanted and loving is just enough kind of ways and oh my. I love where i probably shouldn’t, and that is my own business and a pattern i see no reason to change now (the shouldn’t i mean, never been good at shoulds), don’t love where it is probably wanted (at least how it is wanted), but love is what love wills itself into being.

A wilful child, love, best thing is just to get on with it, like life, and see where it does or doesn’t go. However, the constant touchstone of my life, i always love my beloved family, my dearest friends, and my children – well, they are my literal raison d’etre. My wayward heart does its own thing beyond those absolutes.

Eb (Evil Back) is my most faithful companion, and all efforts to persuade him to be otherwise are to no avail. This is discouraging but am attempting further ways to persuade him that he is not what i want in a devoted lover, thank you. Attempting hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, and accupuncture in upcoming weeks, may keep you posted, or not as i do or don’t think of it. I don’t tend to do much of that here, why would that interest you? It doesn’t do much for me either!

However, for Facebook refugees bemoaning that i no longer am there, and somehow failing to be able to live in a  world where simple hi how are you works into increasingly busy lives, i made rash promises to the effect of updating here occasionally. Consider it an occasion.

I try to post things of interest. I have too many interests, and too much that is demanding of my time. I have taken to the step of rebelling against that strange sense of obligation to finish reading all my feeds (like unwanted vegetables to children at dinner), even if Feedly makes it so nice an experience, and to post to social networks regularly, (i remain a solitary monster who reaches out in bits and pieces. Mostly pieces, though some are quite pretty held up in the light). Finiding posting time is hard enough, and takes a combination of Zemanta, Shareaholic, WordPress tools, and Evernote. Oh, and strange feeling that this looks interesting finds that seem to call a theme together enough to make me post.

I am addicted to podcasts, but also gleefully decide this week they will be marked as watched despite not having been. Oh the anarchy. I tend not to miss Boxcutters ever, and they mentioned me very nicely this week, and i got a warm chocolate fudge gooey kind of aww moment from that – thanks guys.

Trying to squeeze in half an hour a day for guitar practice is a battle i do not always win but i do try so hard, for i love Fergus the wonder guitar. I am fascinating by the strange numb blistery feeling on my left hand fingers, where i hold the strings for chords. Having played the violin, i think i have finally persuaded my wrist to settle down and just let my fingers decide placement, don’t be so damn rigid. Feels still a tad anarchic. I use a few really good apps, such as Guitar Toolkit and Chords on the iPhone.

Being a book addict, audiobooks (thanks Audible.com ) are a constant companion, i try for two a week. Used to read a book a day, still do if i decide i am allowing myself a hide form the world (despite it knocking urgently at my door and emailing and ringing and messaging) day when the kids are not around. This is increasingly hard to find.

I have made two gift quilts for baby and toddler, and have two play mat/snuggle rugs for small ones, and two baby ones to make as gifts. I have made an intensely bright tye died rainbow fleece winter coat that just needs lining and buttons, and hurts your eyes like sunshine on a bright day, and is very warm,therefore perfect. I started my quilt (design below), and am starting to make pet beds with the So So Sisters, (my partners in crime and dear sisters of the heart and material), as local pet shelters are in need for these colder days.Also two double, one queen to king sized quilts of various bizarre designs for three eldest daughters, five or six knitting projects, made fleecy pjs for two smallest, and and am hand stitching in bed (i do spend a large amount of time stuck here or in a wheelchair with EB after all), a hex pieced bag for me to carry my iPad (love it still)  and iPhone (love it too!) and other general stuff around in. Must be mad. I keep promising to resurrect the photos of collected works we had up on Facebook, i will get there. Maybe on weekend if someone reminds me. I am using my IPad a lot oddly in quilting, and Dropbox, and running EQ7 (via Parallels) on my Macbook Pro, so technology seems to be my thing no matter what I do.

timelady quilt

Timelady Quilt

Also working on several webdev projects for work, and one for a not for profit i shall be talking a lot about very soon, as soon as i get the content finished for the site – i have written in my todo list by weekend, so it must be done by then. It is amazing, and has huge potential to save AND enhance lives, so am very very excited to be a part of it.

I have had one thing mostly distracting my thoughts the last few months, i am hoping i have reached a resolution, a place of rest and peace and a point to start growing and evolving with it, rather than struggling with it, but time will tell, it always does. It is still background noise, but hopefully the playlist has hit more of an upbeat but ambient vibe, suitable for joy and acceptance and potential, less for worry and fear and pain.

In short, like all of us, i have a lot on the surface, and far more brewing underneath. The brave face is necessary to function. I am not that good at it in my writing, hence these updates are irregular. I am too honest in my writing, and have found it hard enough to not be more detailed and open. However, tis is not a bare my soul blog. It is whatever it feels like it is at the time. It feels like i have said enough:)

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How to cover a hit – and be better than the original.

I often have this discussion with my music mentor and webdev business partner and all round person of friendship, Corey, about the difference between tribute to and covering a song. So this title has misled you already.

Covers are – ordinary. Done by the numbers. Cover bands are well known on pub circuits. Hell, i am working my way laboriously through ‘covering’ (and i apologise in advance to The Church for my mangling thereof) my first ever guitar played song, Under The Milky Way (i have loved this song since i first heard it, when i was so young, so much younger than now – though i am still young when i hear it….)

So, the difference between cover and tribute? Well, tribute is much like version – take the original, and add, extrapolate, tease out new ideas and takes on the original. This can be quite subtle, or it can be extreme. The first two versions i bring today are extremes. The second two are subtler, they come from such anguished places, not vastly different in execution perhaps, but enough to be recognisably so – yet there is a a power to each that is so different.

(I am looking forward to sometime soon, when Corey has promised he will do requests for versions to illustrate this on his website. Imagine how amazing different takes on songs can be – and they even make cheesy corny one hit wonders good? Can they spin straw into gold? If anyone can, he could, but i digress. As he is taking it by request weekly, must resist temptation to send him such stinkers..well, resist a bit…)

Chez over at Deus Ex Malcontent bought this one up, and it is a big rotation song on my list – yet so is the original. Almost two completely different takes, two magic songs out of it.

So, Mad World done by Tears For Fears, and the version done to wrap the exquisite Donnie Darko by Gary Jules.

Tears For Fears :

Gary Jules:

The other extreme is a very good song, Hurt, when covered by Trent Reznor, who wrote it, – and the stunning, astonishing version done by the late, mourned Johnny Cash. Trent even went so far as to say it was no longer ‘his’ song, it was totally Johnny’s now. There is a tired pain in his version that the anguish of Reznor’s version, done with his band Nine Inch Nails, cannot quite reach – the film clip heightens the historical sense of a life travelled at extremes. Cash’s beloved wife was with him in this – she knew, she was on his journey too, shared the pain. Their eyes. They tell stories if you have the heart to bear them.

Trent Reznor:

Johnny Cash:

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