Trousdale - Sometimes & Point the Finger (from Out of My Mind album)

Whilst I was on my Toulouse excursion I desperately needed something to listen to and reached for the earlier Trousedale albums hoping that they would have something peppy and diverting. AND OH BOY I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. 

Here are two of the songs that I liked. 

1. Sometimes

This is a great “I’m going on a journey, perhaps on Route 66, perhaps in a car with a fold down roof, perhaps with my gals, perhaps after we’ve committed a crime or escaped an abusive relationship etc”...song.

• Traditionally pop and rock songs are built around chords 1,4 and 5. Now i'm not the best at harmony but i'm pretty sure this song has a 6, a 2 and even a dimished 7th in it. Whatever the weather, the harmony of this song takes me on a journey from the humdrum mundanity of my present to the wonder of the great tomorrow.  
• I basically just love songs that are a bit crunchy and chromatic. I like a crunchy blues note (0.52) I like the chromatic bass line. It makes the harmony 'feel like a melody'.

• I also love the way the way the extended second chorus feels like flying. 
• I recently recommended Serving Kant (Malta's Eurovision entry) because Miriana Conte adds a 5th bar to the second pre-chorus and it makes the world fall out of my bottom. In this song they also extend the second chorus (starting 1.25) and it makes me feel like flying. (Perhaps with the wind in my long blonde hair streaming behind me as we speed towards the horizon and the setting sun which symbolises this chapter of my life coming to an end). This section is especially 'flying' because the lyrics are very ‘Ooo’-y, and so the music flows without being hampered by consonants.
• Another piece that feels like flying is the first movement of (one of the greatest pieces of western classical music) Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. But I'm not sure if it's for the same reason...

2. Point the finger

I kept thinking that if I were to title this recommendation it would be ‘I listened to the earlier Trousedale Albums so you don’t have to’. But you should listen to the rest of the album because it's probably great, and I like this song because it scratches a very personal itch. 

• For a high speed loopylala person, such a m’self, a restrained ‘back beat’ rock songs is a little slice of heaven. It feels like the tempo grabs me by the scruff of my neck and forces me to WAIT A MOMENT AND DO IT WITH TWO HANDS JAMIE. 
• I LOVE the little beat of silence at 0.28. I feel like it forces me to 'create the music' for myself. And I don’t slow my roll and ease myself into the warm syrup of their tempo i’m in danger of traversing the space too quickly and looking like a silly goose.

[this next bit is a ramble...]

• I’m having a wonder at the moment about music reflected my inner sensory world. I wonder whether listening to music is nice because it externally reflects my ‘inner tempo’. For example I often listen to music when i’m walking and like songs that reflect the speed I want to walk at.
• On this note, I’m reading a really great memoire at the moment by Patric Gagne which is all about her being a Sociopath. It’s called Sociopath: a memoir by Patric Gagne…DUH! Anyway in this book Patric (the author (we’re best friends now)) talks about feeling ‘stuck stress’, which is a feeling of uncomfortable pressure that steadily increases inside her that she has to release. She can find release by doing something ‘bad’ eg. Stealing things or breaking into people’s homes. But what I find poignant is the ‘good things’ that relieve this stress. For instance she talks about how as a child she loved lying under the dining table and talking to her mother and it seems like her mother helped her to make sense of the world she was struggling to understand. Music is a running theme throughout the book and I've just read a section in which she talks about her love of jazz, and how she worries that listening to it too much might reduce it's ability to relieve her 'stuck stress' so she has to listen to it sparingly. 
• This is relevant because I listened to this song, Point the Finger, as my plane was taking off coming back from France. I started it as the plane was taxi-ing to the runway so we started taking off at around 2.30. I shall let you listen and imagine it for yourself. Perhaps find some swings to listen to it on, or do that stretch of road going to Pattingham where you leave your tummy behind. Basically it was one of the most euphoric moments of my life. Whoopee (she giggled).
• I would also recommend taking off in a plane listening to a song called Here and Heaven. I did this once on my way to a quartet gig. Perhaps I will recommend this another time.

Ok that’s all for now. Big kiss bye.