The New Alanis Album

or

My humble opinion 'gainst yours

Earlier this year, in the middle of June, I wrote a post inspired by a chance hearing of Alanis Morissette's One Hand In My Pocket on the radio.  In it I wrote about the impact her album Jagged Little Pill had on me at the time, but that now things have changed, I've got older and couldn't relate to the lyrics anymore.  I also wondered how Alanis was doing and lo and behold, didn't she release a new album!

This Monday something happened to piss me off, so to cheer myself up, I headed off to the record shop to check out Havoc and Bright Lights (as well as Mumford and Sons' Babel and Radiohead's The King of Limbs).  I figured it was a slightly more responsible move than beating the shite out of a group of random strangers.

I still prefer the act of going into a music (I guess insisting on calling it a record shop is a bit ridiculous at this stage) shop to the newfangled options of ordering on-line or downloading onto your computer.  I have done both in the past but now I'd only order CDs on-line if they were unavailable locally.  Apart from having to wait for them to be delivered, I like to support local businesses.

And I won't download songs anymore.  If you get them from legitimate channels i.e. iTunes, and you change computers, you're not guaranteed to keep them.  I've switched computers three times since first getting an ipod about five years ago, but had to reset one and so have used 4 out of my 5 registered computer yokes.  I'm sure there is a way to keep them, but frankly, it's far too much hassle.

I don't download illegally because if I like an artiste, I want to support them. €15 for an album that can give you potentially hours of pleasure is a small price to pay.  A lot of people probably spend that in a week on coffee.

Anyway, back to Alanis.  Somewhat surprisingly, her life has evolved in tandem with mine.  Actually, I've no idea what's going on in her life right now, but I can still relate to her songs, which in the context of this blog, will suffice as being the same thing.

I'm slightly worried about her song "Will You Be My Girlfriend?".  Is Alanis a lesbian?  Not that it matters one way or another, but any female I've ever admired or respected in my life (I'm talking celebrities here, before my mother, sister, niece, aunts, cousins or friends go ape-shit) have turned out to be gay.  I long for at least one heterosexual woman to look up to.  (Oh, wait Victoria Coren's pretty cool - I'm alright!).  Maybe she means girlfriend as in a mate who's female, as they seem to do in American television programmes, rather than someone you're riding.  Hmmm...  Anyway, apart from the single word 'girlfriend', I can relate.

The song that struck me most, undeniably due to the mood I was in, was Numb.  Here's a flavour

           Have to remove myself from sensation

and

           Can't sit with this feeling
            I'd rather be flying
            And comfortabley numb

Alanis, you've done it again - tapped unknowingly into my psyche.  Now, I've only just bought the album and given it a solitary listen, so maybe I'm being premature, but so far so good.  And is the album any good?  To me it's similar in vibe to her earlier work with some current trendy sounds creeping in.  It's essentially more of the same with updated lyrics to match her and my maturing (note the ing, never actually hitting mature) years.  As I stated, it's early days and needs a few more listens to really make a decision.

Next week, I'll tell youse all about Mumford and Sons and Radiohead.  Or not, depending on where my mood takes me!

I'm not 22 any more :(

or

On Music and Ageing

 

I was in my car the other day, listening to the radio, when Alanis Morissette's Hand in My Pocket came on air. I was immediately transported back to the summer (possibly Autumn, memory can be fickle) of 1995 and the impact her album, Jagged Little Pill, made on me.

At the time, I was very disillusioned with the excuse for music that was making the Irish and UK charts. It seemed to be dominated by manufactured boy bands who could neither sing nor play instruments. I was listening to Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bob Marlay, Iron Maiden, Tom Waits, Nick Drake, Aerosmith, Indigo Girls and Lir (they played some great gigs in Whelan back then). With the exception of the last three, they all belonged to a much earlier era. Oh, and Portishead. How could I forget Portishead (Reminded by CT ringing me - I have Strangers as her ring tone). There was very little new music that spoke to me.

Then came Alanis. The same age, roughly, as me, her anger and pathos resonated. I got her straight away. I felt that I could have written the songs myself. She could sing, she played instruments, she wrote her own songs and she was a heterosexual female.  A seemingly rare breed at the time.  Even if the events in her songs hadn't specifically happened to me, I knew the emotion behind it. And listening to the lyrics of "Hand in My Pocket" last week, I realised how much things have changed in those 17 years.


I could have written that song (well, if I'd had enough talent) in my early 20s. Nearly every word of it applied to me. But now everything has flipped over. Take this opening excerpt as an example:

           I'm broke by I'm happy
            I'm poor but I'm kind
            I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah"

Well, now I have money. While I'm not unhappy, I've lost that optimistic, seize every moment, life is full of possibilities feeling that I had at 22. I don't feel kind towards people - I'm grouchy and intolerant and my expectations are too high. And this year, I sure as hell haven't been healthy.

Even the chorus bit is mocking me - 

          'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
           And the other one is flicking a cigarette

I had to give up cigarettes after getting pneumonia in January and ever since then the world has become a so much darker place. Oh, to go back to the I feel drunk but I'm sober days instead of I feel sober but I'm drunk which is a more apt description of me nowadays.

I wonder how Alanis is doing...