Way back in 1972, Joni Mitchell introduced her brand-new song to the audience like this:

“You see, I’ve never had a hit, so I decided that…”  (Awww!) “No I haven’t, I haven’t had a hit, I mean, I”  (I haven’t had a hit!)  “(laughs) I haven’t had a chance to, like, watch any, like… I, I get subscriptions to Billboard and Cashbox, you know? And, uh, I don’t take them out of their rolls, I use them to start my fireplace up North.”  (laughter)  “They just sort of pile up. But um… it is kind of fun, every once in a while, to watch my friends watching their, their records race up the charts, you know. It’s sort of like, like going out to the race track, you know?” (laughter)

“So I decided that, you know, I would like a crack at it, so I sat down and… I was in a very sensitive place, you must understand, but at the same time I thought, well, I’ll, I’ll channel, I’ll channel all the sensitivity into a little commerciality.“  (laughter)

“So I said, ok, what appeals to DJs? Radios appeal to DJs! So…” (applause) “with that in mind, I constructed this little ditty.“  (laughter)

Jodelling Joni. Amusing muse. Stellar storyteller.

(I’ve highlighted the content words. But we do say so many others to fill in the spaces.)

If you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love you

Oh honey you turn me on
I’m a radio
I’m a country station
I’m a little bit corny
I’m a wildwood flower
Waving for you
Broadcasting tower
Waving for you

And I’m sending you out
This signal here
I hope you can pick it up
Loud and clear
I know you  don’t like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don’t like strong women
‘Cause they’re hip to your tricks

It’s been dirty for dirty
Down the line
But you know
I come when you whistle
When you’re loving and kind

But if you’ve got too many doubts
If there’s no good reception for me
Then tune me out, ’cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head
And you wind up cracking
And the day goes dismal

From Breakfast Barney
To the sign-off prayer
What a sorry face you get to wear
I’m gonna tell you again now
If you’re still listening there

If you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love you

If you’re lying on the beach
With the transistor going
Kick off the sandflies,
Honey, the love’s still flowing

If your head says forget it
But your heart’s still smoking
Call me at the station
The lines are open!

© Joni Mitchell 1972

song week learning english with songwriters

songs | 5 Comments »

A dark November thriller : Lisa Hannigan presents her song “Knots” in a video that picks up on the paramilitary game of Paintball to present the everyday wars fought out in a relationship gone bad. It seems also to evoke the archaic and horrorific stoning of a woman who has lost her man. The video even calls to mind Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, specifically “Painting the Roses Red“, not to mention, of course, that the song uses haunting string arrangements similar to Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe“.

This song is full of vitality although Lisa Hannigan alludes to violent death by choking, to spluttering and to chalk lines drawn around a murder victim. “Knots” is on her album “Passenger”, which contains ten such existentially emotional “journeys”. Recommended!

KNOTS
It was early in the morning,
we were sitting on the stoop,
there wheeled away a starling
and I thought that I would too.
Oh for all I knew,
I was lost through and through,
in my high heels and my old dress
with my new keys in the wrong city.

I tie the knots to remember in my heart,
so I choke and I sputter to a stop,
I am a borrower and lender of the lot.

I walk away asleep
and chalk an outline round the scene.
This shadow play of whiskey talk,
a heavy denier dream.
Oh let it be, I was lost in him and me.
In my high heels and my old dress
with my new keys in the wrong city.

I tie the knots to remember in my heart,
so I choke and I sputter to a stop,
I am a borrower and lender of the lot.

song week learning english with songwriters

songs | No Comments »

Bollywood meets the Beach Boys. Off of “Helplessness Blues”, released some time last spring when I wasn’t paying attention. Thanks Thomas.

Fleet Foxes: Grown Ocean (Robin Pecknold)

In that dream I’m as old as the mountains
Still as starlight reflected in fountains
Children grown on the edge of the ocean
Kept like jewelry kept with devotion

In that dream moving slow through the morning

You would come to me then, without answers
Lick my wounds and remove my demands for now
Eucalyptus and orange trees are bloomin’
In that dream there’s no darkness a loomin’

In that dream moving slow through the morning

In that dream I could hardly contain it
All my life I will wait to attain it
There, there, there

I know someday the smoke will all burn off
All these voices I’ll someday have turned off
I will see you someday when I’ve woken
I’ll be so happy just to have spoken
I’ll have so much to tell you about it

In that dream I could hardly contain it
All my life I will wait to attain it
There, there, there

Wide eyed walker, don’t betray me
I will wake one day, don’t delay me
Wide eyed leaver, always going

song week learning english with songwriters

songs | 2 Comments »

Teacher/translator, 49 (for another few days), seeks office companionship with other like-minded independents aka freelancers aka knowledge workers. Needs office accessible from street level and public transportation in Berlin, by those not willing to mount 5 stories to her new bird’s nest. Looking for a space close to the heart of things, where minds are free and hands are busy. Call me, the lines are open.

other | 3 Comments »

“The Visible Man”, Bangladeshi-born American Hasan Elahi, says that he was mistakenly included on the US government terrorist watch list — “and once you’re on, it’s hard to get off”. (Wired) In response, he has dedicated his work to surveillance culture and has put the minute details of his life and travels online. See his website and engaging and thought-provoking talk on TED.

If you’re learning English, don’t watch the video here, though; watch it on the TED site instead, where you can follow this, like most of the talks, in the interactive transcript. Click on any part of the transcript, and the video plays that part. If you’re practicing listening comprehension, keep the section very short, listen to it several times, and try to repeat his words with the same emphasis to get a sense of the way the speaker stresses some syllables (the stressed syllable in the words that carry meaning), and unstresses all the others. The TED talks, along with the fantastic English Central, and for everyday topics, Video Jug, are great for self-study listening comprehension.

short film, tools | 5 Comments »

Wow. Unbelievably hypnotic. Eamonn, again. Review on Pitchfork.

Swinging in the backyard
Pull up in your fast car
Whistling my name

Open up a beer
And you say get over here
And play a video game

I’m in his favorite sun dress
Watching me get undressed
Take that body downtown

I say you the bestest
Lean in for a big kiss
Put his favorite perfume on

Go play a video game

It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
It’s better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do

Singing in the old bars
Swinging with the old stars
Living for the fame

Kissing in the blue dark
Playing pool and wild darts
Video games

He holds me in his big arms
Drunk and I am seeing stars
This is all I think of

Watching all our friends fall
In and out of Old Paul’s
This is my idea of fun
Playing video games

It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
It’s better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do

(Now you do)

It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
It’s better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do

song of the season learning english with songs

songs | 2 Comments »

This is one of Steve Job’s last presentations, still explaining “his” products with inspired simplicity and clarity.

Focus with me for a moment on his metalanguage (often called signposting), that is the language he uses to take us from one point to the next. Metalanguage or signposting varies widely between presentation types, and is generally very different in product marketing, say, than in a presentation of technological developments to other specialists. Likewise metalanguage in academic science presentations that rely heavily on visuals will differ completely from those in economics, with their charts and empirical data, or from lectures in philosophy. At one level the difference is connected to the way each type of presentation communicates concepts. The more abstract and involved concepts get, the more difficult it will be for the audience to relate to and follow the speaker communicating them, and the more necessary it becomes to talk about what has already been said and to connect it to what is coming up next. In other words, there is no one formula for signposting, no instant phrases to learn by heart and simply apply to presentations. One size does not fit all. Every genre is different!

Just listen to the type of metalanguage Steve Jobs uses. It’s unbelievably simple:  Introducing a new product: “You like everything so far? (Audience: Yeah!) “Well, I’ll try not to blow it.” Moving from one feature to the next: “So that’s Contacts; here’s Calendars. Works much the same way.” Each statement backed by the trademark big, beautiful pictures. His authentic and communicative body language suggests that everyone is really getting the message. He doesn’t explain the technology in a way that goes over anyone’s head. And should anyone not get it completely, he draws them in, not through information, but through

• Empathy: “Keeping those devices in sync is driving us crazy.” “You might ask, Why should I believe them? They’re the ones that brought me Mobile Me. It wasn’t our finest hour, let me say that, but we learned a lot.”
• Emotion, quasi-religious feeling and humor: “Some people think the cloud just a hard disk in the sky… We think it’s way more than that.” “The truth is on the cloud.”
• Reassurance: “It just works.” “Pretty cool.” “It’s that simple.”

…and his audience laughs and believes it understands. A socially very powerful approach. Remember we are talking about an app that takes all of the information on your personal phone and removes it to an external something, somewhere, which should at least invite questions. But no, it’s all good.

It’s really an understatement to say that Steve Jobs’ iconic presentation style perfectly matched the Apple image. As a consequence of these presentations, Jobs was Apple. He’ll be a hard, no: an impossible act to follow. RIP.

• I’ve written about what we can learn from Steve Job’s presentations here: Island Weekly April 2008: Simply Beautiful.
• Here’s a lesson based on his presentation style by Carmine Gallo, BNET: Present Like Steve Jobs, March 2008. – Also see a summary of the lesson on Six Minutes, a public speaking blog by Andrew Dlugan, May 2008.

business, language, science | 3 Comments »