Thanks to thanatos_kalos, I have just learned that Amy Winehouse has a song called "Valerie."

There's this running joke about how 95% of fictional characters with my name are either bimbos or crooks. Occasionally both. (They are!) So brainiacfive noted that, since we're talking about Amy Winehouse here, this one is probably a bimbo crack-whore crook.

Looked up the lyrics, and sure enough... *snerk*

I started giggling at "I miss your ginger hair and the way you like to dress." (A redhead by choice is still a redhead. So there.)

And then, of course, got to "Did you have to go to jail" and "Did you have to pay that fine that you were dodging all the time?"

So, crook. The trend holds. ;-D

Orphan song lines from yesterday's meme post...

4. When I was a child running in the night: "Hounds of Love" - Kate Bush
5. O sorelle in pio lavoro: "O sorelle in pio lavoro" - Suor Angelica
10. Well, it seems with you there is something new: "Faith Walkin' People" - Amy Grant
14. Born with no soul, lack of control: "Dead Cell" - Papa Roach
15. Malheureux, tu ne comprends donc pas: "Malheureux, tu ne comprends donc pas" - Les Contes d'Hoffmann
16. Well, I don't believe in God, but she talks to me all the time: "Still I Can't Be Still" - Idina Menzel
18. Left hand, side pocket: "Give 'Em What They Want" - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
21. The father giveth and the father taketh away: "Beautiful Prize" - Rick Springfield
24. Voi che sapete che cosa e amor: "Voi che sapete" - Le Nozze di Figaro
25. Now let the day just slip away: "Nocturne" - Secret Garden

I gotta say, I know what's on my Zen, and some of the juxtapositions made me go O.o .

Also, tytaniastrange and I appear to have virtually identical tastes, because I got a ridiculous number of hers, and have been almost completely stumped by most everyone else's! Which of course means I must investigate all of hers that I wasn't familiar with...

Gakked from tytaniastrange.

GUESS THE SONG
Step 1. Put your playlist on random.
Step 2. Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing. (You can skip songs that are instrumental. [I also skipped a couple that were in languages I don't know.])
Step 3. Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

( The list, should you wish to play )

I dislike "The Man That Got Away." Intensely. It's like everything I hate about the One True Love Or Your Life Has No Worth paradigm rolled up in one gorgeous big-band ballad.

So how did I end up with no less than three versions of it on my mp3 player?

:: gives fisheye to Linda Eder, Audra McDonald and Kristin Chenoweth ::

I've been catching bits and pieces of Band of Brothers during the History Channel marathon today. They just finished the episode where the guys have their first experience with liberating a death camp. One of the prisoners explains that the guards killed as many as they could before fleeing. The brass places the area under martial law, and local civilians -- who have said they had no knowledge of the camp's existence -- are conscripted to bury the camp's abandoned dead. The depiction of this process is underscored by a string quartet, who are eventually seen to be present in the scene and not merely soundtrack.

About halfway through the sequence, I started thinking, Hey, I know this melody. A few bars later, I realized that it's because I've sung it. It's Dido's lament.

The text of the aria, shorn of Baroque repetitions, is as follows:

When I am laid in earth
May my wrongs create
No trouble in thy breast
Remember me
But, ah, forget my fate

It may well be that no connection to the text is intended at all. But I'm going to be pondering it for a bit anyway.

Loreena McKennitt concert was, as expected, faboo (as was getting to see neonhummingbird and iingaartist). A few things were new to me, as I don't yet own An Ancient Muse and have previously only heard a few songs. Great mix of new and older material (mostly The Visit and later), hitting almost all my favorites. Would have been nice to hear "All Souls Night" or "Standing Stones," but definitely no complaints. The lighting and simple set were atmospheric and worth watching without overwhelming the music.

At one point somebody hollered out "Happy Beltane!" to which she responded in kind and wondered if anyone had a maypole handy. *g* I was wondering if we were going to have a concert on Beltane without "Huron Beltane Fire Dance," but it ended up being the first of the two encores, and a rollicking jam it was.

Wow, the lady can ramble when she gets started talking about songs instead of singing them! I'm still trying to make the connection between an impulsive December train trip across Siberia and "Dante's Prayer." But obviously it makes sense to her, and I'll certainly never argue with the results. Viva free association!

The parking garage on Washington? Really needs more than two payment kiosks.

Heading out to lunch, and to test out the voice in the car. Haven't sung in over a week now, and have only been talking for four days of that. Hopefully this will tell me whether I should bother going to the You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown audition tonight. I'm mostly going because it's a paying gig and not so much because I'm all that invested in the show itself, so not a HUGE deal if I decide to skip it.

Was kind of hoping to have heard (one way or another) from Janus so I wouldn't have to decide, but, not to be. At least most of the congestion and scratchiness are gone, anyway. This was a doozy. :-P

ETA: And I left my Zen home today so my Dad could watch some stuff on it, but Launch is now obliging me with "Standing Stones". :-D

ETA2: That's a negatory on the singing tonight. :-P It's technically possible, but with audition slots booked solid (I originally got in on a cancellation), it's highly unlikely to be worth anyone's time.

On no fewer than three separate occasions over the years, I have missed seeing Loreena McKennitt in concert due to performance commitments. So when the Chicago Public Radio announcer mentioned during my morning commute yesterday that that hour of programming was sponsored by her May 1 appearance at the Civic Opera House, I cursed roundly since that's the middle of the Pirates run. (Also because WTTW changed the scheduled time so our DVR didn't catch her on Great Performances on Saturday.)

It is not, as it turns out, on the weekend. *bounce*

Even better, as of just this week I had a mini-bonus coming from work, in the form of a dinner-and-a-show-of-my-choice night on the town for brainiacfive and me. We are now booked for second row dress circle just left of center. *doublebounce*

Aside from crowing over my good fortune, let this also serve as a heads-up to interested Chicago peeps. For those elsewhere, this tour looks fairly extensive, and the schedule is here.

Leave a comment and I'll assign you a letter. You are to list your ten favorite songs that begin with that letter in your journal.

quasievil_bunny gave me an "O":

(At this moment & in no particular order)

1. "On My Own" - Les Miserables
2. "Objection (Tango)" - Shakira
3. "Oh, Better Far to Live and Die" - Pirates of Penzance
4. "One Song Glory" - Rent
5. "Over the Rainbow" - Judy Garland
6. "Ombre légère (Shadow Song)" - Dinorah
7. "O Fortuna" - Carmina Burana
8. "One Day I'll Fly Away" - Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge)
9. "Only an Ocean Away" - Sarah Brightman
10. "Oh England My Lionheart" - Kate Bush

Launch has a new classical crossover station, which pleases me because my custom station can get a little noisy for work sometimes, and it's always nice to have another alternative (the previously existing ones being regular classical and movie scores).

The only problem is that it really points up how...well, kinda incestuous, really...the genre is. They have maybe eight artists on the darn thing at this point (I know they have more music in their system that would fit it, and presume it will get there eventually), and there are three songs in particular that keep coming up and coming up: "The Prayer" from Quest for Camelot, "You Raise Me Up," and "Time to Say Goodbye." With that last, not only do Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli each have it on more than one album, but others have recorded it as well.

And we'll have to blame Andrea Bocelli for the first one too, since I doubt anyone would have paid the slightest attention to it otherwise, Celine or no Celine. (Although ultimately I can blame Disney, which I always enjoy. Since they established the pop-duet-version-over-credits thing with "Beauty and the Beast," and every single *$@#& animated feature since has followed suit, even though they're invariably inferior to the version actually in the movie.)

The middle one...I dunno. It's okay, but somehow symptomatic of why Josh Groban just doesn't quite do it for me for some reason. Most of the guys don't, really, although I'm fonder of Bocelli and Russell Watson. Il Divo would be "ennhh" except for the part where they amuse me mightily -- translating and rearranging "Unbreak My Heart" for a quartet of Studly Young Classical Things was sheer genius, I swear.

My subject line isn't entirely accurate -- there's actually plenty of different stuff among all these people's bodies of work. I think I'm just kinda doomed by the insane popularity of a couple of "breakout" numbers. Just to show it's not just top 40 that's prone to that, I guess...

The 411 is in the A-H post.

( Strouse - Y )

The 411 is in the A-H post.

The former owner penciled in "a/k/a God" under Sondheim's name on one of them, which explains why he needs his own post.

( Sondheim )

The 411 is in the A-G post.

( N-Shire )

The 411 is in the A-G post.

( H-N )

Comment if you want it. I'll mark each one claimed with the first commenter. Andl get it to you sometime this century. :-)

Claim as many as you want (especially if you're local!); whether I ask for postage depends on how much I end up needing to mail. (quasievil_bunny, the Sunday In The Park With George score is still yours, even though I forgot to give it to you when you were in town...)

Sorry if it's a little hard to read; I have it all in an Excel spreadsheet, and really don't want to take Yet More Time to put it into another format. *wry g*

( A-G )

I have finally finished going through the Box O' Absurd Quantities of Sheet Music that I recently received. I have taken out what I want to keep (a fairly substantial fraction), and sorted and cataloged what remains.

Which is TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-NINE SONGS. O_o

List to be posted shortly. In (hopefully) manageable chunks.

Two. Hundred. Sixty-nine. :: shakes head ::

Well, one score, and a whole lot of single songs. ;-)

Finally remembered I had a copy-paper box nearly full of sheet music in the trunk of my car (courtesy of the lovely amilyn, who I believe came by it in some sort of Freecycle arrangement) last night and got it out. Lots of stuff I have no interest in keeping, even more stuff I have to go through and decide whether I want to keep it. Surprising amount of stuff I've never heard of.

The complete score is Sunday in the Park with George, which will probably be up for grabs. I like the show well enough to sit and watch the tape from PBS occasionally, but it doesn't grab me as music I want to perform. (Yes, I am an unrepentant Sondheim-indifferent philistine. Deal.)

Once I've sorted through everything, I will be emailing every musical person I know (and probably posting here) with a list of what I don't want.

Number one happy thing: I no longer have to contemplate shelling out for that Audra McDonald songbook, as the pile contains a number of songs from Floyd Collins, including "How Glory Goes," which I think is in the same key she recorded it in. I've been concerned, since it's written for a male voice, that she may have done a transposed version. But as near as I can tell from plinking it out at 10 p.m. after a long day, it feels like the same key.

How come there are half a dozen songs from Audra McDonald's How Glory Goes album available separately for download on SheetMusic Direct, and none of them are the ones I want??? ("How Glory Goes" and "I Won't Mind." You'd think they'd at least have the title track of the album available. Especially since I don't even know if her version is transposed from the original key, since it's written for a male tenor.)

And "Your Daddy's Son" can't be had outside of either the Ragtime vocal selections book or Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology soprano vol. 4, in which there are maybe two or three other songs I particularly want. (I've had volumes 1 and 2 for ages, and only use a fraction of them either.)

There's always the old standby of "find someone who has the book and copy it." But darnit, it's such a pain. And I'm willing to pay for the darn songs if they were just available!

I will now stop spamming my LJ with random kvetching. No, really...

Open mike at Gentry's was a blast. mannoftalent and Marsha both had great stuff I hadn't heard before. I ended up going with my most secure bets, since it's been so long since I actually got up and sang in front of an audience and/or with a real accompanist. "How Did I End Up Here?" got a nice audience response, "Stranger to the Rain" an even better one (even though I was a little off my game and didn't give the last note the solid belt I usually do). I'm always at a loss what to do with a microphone; I think that was part of why I felt a little unfocused and had trouble connecting with the audience. Plus just that it's a small cabaret setting, standing next to the (PHENOMENAL!) piano man at the same level with the rest of the room. I'm trained to sing big songs in a big space, so I always have the impuse to throttle back in a more intimate setting. And for the most part really shouldn't.

I also think I could tell I've been singing just for myself lately, and mostly in the car. *wry g*. Definitely going to try to hit this every Tuesday. Standing up in front of live people should get my good performance habits back in short order.

And because I am insane, we proceeded from the bar downtown to the AMC River East for an opening Spidey 2 showing. Nice-sized auditorium with comfy seats, packed with people who obviously got all the in references, got very into the story. And about 1/3 of the room whooped for Stan-the-man, making possibly his most fleeting appearance ever. Keep your eyes open!

No spoilers. Suffice it to say I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, and I'm not sorry. :-D

How do you keep a performance junkie from going nuts on hiatus? Send her to Gentry's open mike night, which has the distinction of being the only one I've heard of that provides an accompanist! Whoo-hoo! (How much do I love Marsha from 1984 for tipping me off??)

I'll be at the Halsted location tomorrow around 9, if any of you Chicago types want to come and be my cheering section. ;-) (Will be meeting mannoftalent there, hopefully with at least one other person, and heading downtown to catch an opening showing of Spidey 2 afterward. And so taking a nap after work first...) I'm going to start making as many Tuesdays there as I can, and may or may not branch out into the Sundays downtown at some point.

Poll #314130 Feeding the Need
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should Val sing? (Pick as many as you like, but I can probably only do two!)

Other suggestions are welcome in comments too, but these are what I picked out of my library tonight. :-) And yes, the Green Drama Queen is unrepresented only because the #*($&%(# vocal selections book isn't out yet...

... that my brain is a weird, weird place?

I keep getting that old song "Summer in the City" running through my head (this part is entirely Metra's fault, due to some marketing stuff posted on their trains). Except that, being my head, I get through the first two lines ("...back of my neck gettin' dirty and gritty"), and then the soundtrack switches over seamlessly to the spoken part of "One Night in Bangkok" ("All change, don't you know that when you play at this level it's no ordinary venue").

They have the same rhythm pattern. Which, while kind of interesting, does not make it any less weird to have them going on a semi-continuous mental loop for the past day and half.

Tech week for 1984 starts Sunday. The brain will only get weirder.

In other news, I don't have any less work at work, but I did get some valuable suggestions for prioritizing it. And BigBossLady pronounced it "ridiculous" that I'm doing several pretty clearly clerical tasks that she deems to be not appropriate uses of my time and abilities. There's always been the intention of restructuring those tasks elsewhere, but now there's a definite plan. This makes me happy. Bizarrely enough, my life really will be much easier with the easy stuff off my plate, simply because it's so darn time-consuming and keeps getting more so as we get in more business.

We'll see how it goes, but right now I don't think I'll be resorting to polishing up the resume just yet.