Jeez, it’s been a wee while since I’ve posted here. But I have been keeping up with doing videos. I’ll post the rest of them tomorrow but for now, here’s the latest, called “Love me Less”. The title says it all.
Here it is, and the lyrics are below. I hope you like it, thank you for watching and listening!
If you enjoyed this, please share it on your twitter or facebook or google plus page (et all), that helps me out a great deal.
Love me Less lyrics:
The way you look at me makes me nervous
and I’m not sure that I can live up to your expectations.
Couldn’t it be that you came to see me play, liked what you saw,
decided you wanted more, but nothing more than that.
Couldn’t it be your imagination that leads you to say
that leads you to say
I love you.
It makes me dubious
the way you look at me makes me nervous
and I’m unsettled by all of this
unsettled and unbalanced so
love me less
The dog gone fool that came before you
the one so incapable of saying I love you too
Well he kind of left me in ruins
that dog gone fool
Then along comes you
so sweet and so true
So, so full of
I love you’s.
It makes me dubious
the way you look at me makes me nervous
and I’m unsettled by all of this
unsettled and unbalanced so
love me less
I love Eddie Vedder’s ‘Ukulele Songs’ album which he released a few years ago. I love how much he does with the ukulele, and given that he’s a rock star, I feel like him doing this album gave the ukulele more recognition for being a legit instrument, as opposed to a toy instrument. So, thank YOU Eddie. Perhaps you’ll let me take you out for a coffee to thank you in person? Hmm? Well, okay, just get back to me on that.
So anyhoo, here is my cover version of one of my favourite songs from the album, “Longing to Belong”. Hope you like it!
Well now, last weekend I went away to the Oregon Coast, to Cannon Beach to be precise. My friend’s aunt has a house there, literally within a stone’s throw from the beach. We went for just 1 night, but it was brilliant. So, two out of these three videos have beach scenes, yay! Who doesn’t like beach?
This first video, which is video 4 of the challenge, is a Lykke Li cover of her song “Dance, dance, dance”. I actually don’t dance in this video, but I plan on doing another cover of it in which I will dance.
Next video is a couple of beach and roadtrip scenes set to my song, “Promise to Me”. The track I used is the mastered album track of this song, which you can listen to/buy here:
Finally, the day 6 video of my 30 day challenge is actually an old one. This one was recorded on the first day of a short tour I did with Anna Morley Collective, which started in Barcelona. So this was recorded at ‘Inusual Project’ in Barcelona. I performed ‘Someone Like Me’ with my loop pedal. I actually have since sold my loop pedal. But I didn’t feel like doing a video this day, and I was looking through old videos, and I remember now liking this performance at the time of making it, and so I had it as unpublished or private or unlisted or what have you, and upon second look, years on, I decided that I do like this performance, and so I brightened up the video a bit and published it. Easy. And people made nice comments on this video, so I’m glad I posted it. Anyhoo, here it is.
Alright, that’s all for now, thank you for reading and watching and listening.
I shall be back soon with a new post with the next 3 videos.
Well hey there,
So I’ve managed to stay on top of things with my 30 day challenge, and in case you haven’t seen them, here are my videos for the first 3 days! I’m really having a great time doing it. It’s a fantastic challenge and I love that making videos and music is at the forefront of my mind each day. I’m honestly thinking that I will keep making daily videos after this 30 day challenge. I’m just really enjoying it. Granted, I’m not managing to do a music video each day. You know, things get in the way or don’t go according to plan. BUT I am still pushing myself, and I am playing music each day, which is something that hasn’t happened in years, YEARS I tell you. So, this is great, and I’m loving it.
Here’s my day 1 video, an original ukulele song of mine called “Itch in my Feet”. I’ll post the lyrics at the end of this page! But a bit more about the song. I wrote it quite awhile ago, when I had been living in Barcelona, Spain, for about 5 years, and I was finally considering moving on. I wrote this about those people that you’re sad to leave behind.
You can listen to and buy the mastered album version of this track below.
My day 2 video is a vlogging video. I didn’t intend to do it, as you’ll hear in the video, but I’m glad I did it, as it was a challenge in itself.
Then day 3 is an Italian song that I’ve been singing for a while, I just think it’s such a pretty song. I didn’t write it by the way, it’s by Tiromancino. I do speak Italian, although right now it’s very rusty.
I’ll do another post soon with the next 3 videos! Thanks for reading and watching!
~ Ciara
Lyrics for “Itch in my Feet”
I’ve got an itch in my feet
I think it’s time to travel on
My heart and thoughts are mine again
and mine they shall remain
And you can borrow them
for a while
here take them for a spin
Rent is minimal
just a little bit of affection in return
sweet memories of love and fun
Well it’s my time to travel on
I’ve been still for quite some time
Where I go, I don’t know
but I’ll take some of your things
with mine
Memories of your smile and
thoughts of really happy times
Memories of your smile and
thoughts of really happy times
Let’s arrange a date to meet
I’ll wear a new dress and do my hair all nice
Bring yourself and nothing else
I’ll cherish these moments all of my life
Well let’s make food
let’s drink some wine
let’s stay up all night and sleep all morning
Let’s hug and kiss and melt
let’s bask in each other
Don’t ever forget these moments my dear
cos we have something really special here
Don’t ever forget these moments my dear
cos we have something really special here
Well hi there,
So I decided to set myself a challenge to do 30 videos in 30 days.
Here’s the video talking a bit more about it!
I am really excited about doing this challenge. What I didn’t mention in the video is that there are a bunch of cover songs that I want to properly learn, and there are many songs that I have half written that I want to finish! So this challenge will really push me to work on those songs, and that will make me very happy. Believe it or believe it not, at the moment, there really is no cover song that I am really comfortable playing. It’s great to have your own music, of course, and I’m so glad I can write songs. But for example, at a party or sitting around a campfire (which in fairness, rarely happens), I really don’t have any go-to cover song that I’m comfortable with. So, this is one of the things I want, and this challenge will help me get there!
I put up this song about a week ago and I had a request for the lyrics of it, so I decided to write a blog post about it. The lyrics are below, and here’s the video!
This song was written in my father’s house in New Jersey (he’s Irish also but he lives in New Jersey now). I was upstairs in their guest room one morning, just wanting to slap myself out of this silly dazy state that I was in. The feeling of being apathetic is just the worst. I find that anger has energy to it, and depression is so bad that you…maybe you can justify being selfish and just letting yourself hole up somewhere and watch movies. But apathy just feels like a heavy weight on your shoulders and a deadening of your senses, and you just want to shake it off (no Taylor swift reference intended) but you really can’t. So I wrote this song first as a poem, and it really perfectly described how I felt. I later turned it into a song.
I guess there’s not a whole more I can say about the lyrics, because it’s all there IN the lyrics. But I will say that it was morning time, in the winter, and I was gazing outside towards the garden, and there was so much life outside in the garden, so many birds, and I just wanted to be part of it but felt very, very far from it all.
If you like this song, you can listen to or buy the mastered version of the song here:
And here are the lyrics:
Someone Like Me
For me the worst part about being apathetic
is my fastidiously keen awareness of it
because it’s not that I can’t hear the songs of the birds
or see the fancy cloud formations found upwards
but that all of that is in a format
that’s too far from me
to be able to feel.
Coffee awaits me downstairs
coffee coffee fill me with glee and caffeine
And the day outside is cold and crisp and sunny
Crisp winter air
shake me and make me care
And the birds happily and hungrily eat their suet
And I watch from a window keenly aware I’m looking through it
And the wind shakes the pine branches outside
Trees, trees, I can feel that you’re judging me
Apathetic is broken down into a and pathetic
followed swiftly by human
or at least that’s how I feel it
which is mean of inner me
as if I didn’t feel bad enough already
and as if I would not switch it off if I could
and as if inner me weren’t the one that could set me free
cos she makes it far worse, oh I curse her, I curse
oh, for crying out loud, is there not something around, hideous inner me,
that could stop your incessant glaring at me
Today I won’t go running, as I ran yesterday
and the day before,
which is a shame as I would so adore
to feel completely worn out and switched off
and too tired to feel what a waste and a disgrace of a person I am today,
and I would run run run run run, run run run run run, run run run run
away from such a pathetic human
And the nicest cardinal you ever did see
hopped and flew past, yes right past me,
trying his best and utmost to make me feel
his truth which is that life is good and sweet
but he’s in one place and I’m in another
and I tell him he must stop,
that with this girl his beauty just hurts her
and to the dove, and the cardinal, and the little chickadee,
I say,
“thanks but don’t waste your time
on someone like me”.
So I did a new video the other day, this time of ‘White Fluffy Clouds’.
This song has been kicking around for quite some time. If I’m performing, it’s normally what I open with because I guess it’s one of those songs that I’ve written that I’m almost 100% happy with, which is not normal for me.
Also, I suppose it’s quite a special song for me, firstly because the first line in the song is “I very badly need to go running, I feel pent up in my own body”. And that is a way that I very often feel, so I can pretty much always relate to this song. When I was performing it for this video actually, I felt that way. I had had too much coffee and I couldn’t freakin’ get my fingers to do what they should, and I just wanted to GO! But I knuckled down and got it done, which felt better in the end.
I wrote this song when I was living in Barcelona, Spain, where I lived for 6 years. I believe…yes, I wrote this song while in the very last place I lived in Spain (I moved around quite a lot, I think I lived in 6 or 7 different place in all.) This last place I lived was located RIGHT by the only active bull fighting ring in Barcelona! I could actually see where the bulls were kept. The inner walls for the actual ring were much higher, but from my fourth floor balcony, I could see over the lower walls to where the bulls were kept. It’s really very sad. Anyway, I remember so well the feeling of being in that room, looking out down below at the world go by, and feeling quite trapped within myself. I wrote these words in one sitting, and as the song says, I did actually go out for a run after I wrote it. It helped me. I did go on to having “lovely boring jobs”, but I did not last in them 🙂 They were not lovely for long.
Okay, I will leave you with that. For those that are interested, the lyrics are below.
Thanks for reading and watching!
If you liked this video, please make sure to ‘like’ it and also to share it. It really helps me out.
Also, you can listen to or buy the mastered recording of this song here:
~ Ciara
White Fluffy Clouds
I very badly need to go running
I feel pent up in my own body.
It’s incredible that I won’t be alive forever
and incredible that I don’t make the most of it now.
I need to put on my shoes and go running
tie my hair up so it doesn’t bother me
I need to step out under the sun
in the hope I can again become
a part of the world I live in.
I could so easily be a hermit
but that would surely be the end of it
the final leap into madness,
the nearby ledge overlooking the abyss
I would miss my friends
I would miss my family
but would soon become demented
and in that state you see
avoiding and missing them would be better than
company and revealing the insanity within
Well, if only I talked more and if only I were capable
of telling people when I need help
instead of hoping they might be able
to read my mind or at least the part of my mind
that shouldn’t be censored
so not that much of it really…
This is an open letter
to anyone that has two eyes:
I’m not doing so good
I’m not doing so good
It’s a beautiful day and people below move about their day
As per often I feel removed from them all
I think I need a normal job
so I too can feel normal and join the ranks of
everyone that complains about their lovely boring job.
But just for now putting on my shoes
and going running
might be all that I need
for a vital dose of sweet reality
I’ll run by the beach and try to
shut off my mind
I’ll run by the beach and try to
match my speed to
that of the world around
though I don’t quite know how
and then I’ll look for a lovely, lovely, lovely boring job.
So I’m definitely not a hair guru of any styling. But I did come upon one technique that I just think gives the best curls ever. It’s so easy, and I wanted to share the technique. So I made a video on it and here it is!
I think this technique is called Bantu knots but I’m not sure. It’s really the easiest thing you can do, though yes, it’s a little time consuming, but really not very much. If you have fine hair, I think you’ll especially like this technique because it really gives such volume. My hair is fine, but I have a lot of it, and it holds a curl very well, so for me, this hair lasts about 3 days. Bit of dry shampoo each morning, and voila, that’s all I need to do with it. Granted, it is very big hair, so I’m not always in the mood for it. It’s hard to get over just how much hair I have when I do this style. Need to get used to it. Maybe I’ll wear it every day for a month and really get used to it 🙂
Anyway, let me know if you try it!
Hi!
So I recently committed to doing frequent youtube videos, mostly of ukulele original songs , but some cover songs as well, and it’s been going well. I did a few late last year, which I was really pleased about. I worked hard on them and they took a long time to do, and I really was so pleased with them.
So then I wanted to do more but as with all things music for me, I got overwhelmed! So I decided to get back into it, but to set lower expectations for myself. I really REALLY like creating videos and recording music, but sometimes I get these ideas and I so badly want them done RIGHT now that I… well, I get overwhelmed, and become completely inept!
But so I decided a few weeks ago to get back into it. Doing youtube videos really helps me because it’s a very easy outlet for my music and for me. It’s really so fun, I get such a kick out of it.
Here’s the video more or less explaining what I want to do with my youtube channel:
I went to the Tori Amos concert here in Portland last Friday, at the Oregon Zoo. That’s right, they have concerts at the zoo. That was my first time going to the zoo, for concert or otherwise, and it was great cos it was a beautiful day and you got to wander around the zoo before the concert. I’m not big on zoos, but as they go, this one is pretty good. In the short time I had before the concert, I saw bears, a huge seal, penguins, and my favourite, a gorgeous otter that was having a great time swimming around on his/her back. I wanted to take a photo but I just couldn’t capture the fun he or she was having.
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I’ve been a Tori Amos fan for about 14 years, and ‘From the Choirgirl Hotel’ is one of my desert island cds. I haven’t been listening to her stuff in a while though, and didn’t even know she was going to be playing until a friend mentioned it and kindly also gave me an extra ticket she had. And oh my word, Tori Amos is brilliant live. She’s so great. Mad, quite mad. And she played some from her new album, but plenty from her previous albums. I watched an interview with her today where she said that before most concerts she does an hour of ‘meet and greet’ and she takes requests and makes sure she does them that night.
So naturally this past week I’ve been on a Tori listening spree, and decided to a playlist of my favourites to share with Tori fans and would-be Tori fans.
I did it on YouTube and also Grooveshark, for whichever takes your fancy.
music and musings 