A Friendly Musical Visit Every Day

As a Very Depressed Person, I consume a lot of comedy. Comedy helps keep me not dead on those days when I'm not doing great. Jeeves and Wooster is a series I have watched... I don't know how many times. I never get sick of it. Every time I hear the theme music, I feel like a kid. I get so excited. I always figured the theme music , which is called "Jeeves and Wooster," existed prior to the TV show. It sounds like it's coming at us straight from the 20s. But nope. It was created for the series by composer Anne Dudley. By the way, have you ever read the books by P.G. Wodehouse ? They are priceless. In fact, most of the dialogue on the show is pulled straight from the source material --it's just that good. Hope this little ditty makes you as happy as it makes me! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particula

Went to bed last night feeling like crap. Woke up this morning feeling worse. I have zero voice. Like, I try to say words and no sound comes out--just the odd squeak. So, obviously, I start singing Morning Has Broken to myself. Singing when you have no voice is hilarious. To me it is, because I'm generally a pretty good singer. But now I go for a note and hit a completely different one, or my throat just kind of hisses. I wish you could hear me right now. I sound awful and it's the funniest thing. Maybe that's the cough syrup talking. At least my illness entertains me, because my throat is not a happy camper right now. Hope my voice comes back so I can like... record audiobooks and stuff.  You know, do my job... If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fic

This is my favourite Pink Floyd song. One of my cats is currently sitting on my belly, watching the video with me, and she seems pretty entertained by it as well. I wonder if my cats share my taste in music. I do leave the radio on for them when I go out. Maybe they resent me for it. Maybe they're country music cats, and I'm torturing them with indie rock. The reason Comfortably Numb came to mind is that, as I've mentioned here before, things are getting pretty serious between myself and my partner. Thing is, we both need to make a lot of huge changes in our lives before we can be together for good. Getting married seems a lot more complicated at middle age and beyond than it does when you're younger. We've both accumulated so much baggage along the road. We've been seeing a couples counsellor to help guide us through this time, and he asked us what happens if we don't end up together. I couldn't answer. I didn't want to think about it. I don'

A couple weeks ago, I was listening to a Weaves album on repeat. This EP only has 6 tracks, so after listening to it quite a few times, I just wanted more Weaves! I consulted YouTube, and Scream was the first video that came up. It's a collaboration with Tagaq, who is one of my favourite artists. In fact, I've seen Tanya Tagaq live in concert more often than I've seen any other performer. She is always worth my time. Her stamina, I swear! So here's a fierce track from Weaves and Tanya Tagaq. This video is mighty adorable, I must say. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But you don't HAVE to d

Remember how I played "One Night In Bangkok" for you last week? I played it for my partner and the response was: "I've never heard that song before." Like, what? Where were you in the 80s? Why have you never heard any 80s music? This is another 80s song my partner had never heard. Like, we could do a theme week, because one time I said, "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!" and my partner was like, "Wait, who? What wife? Are you married?" Cool your jets, it's just a Talking Heads lyric. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But you don't HA

Yesterday I confessed to you that, when I was a child, I cried every time I heard the Del Shannon song "Runaway." Today I bring you the song that made my MOTHER cry, though I suspect this was in her teenage years, not as a young child. My mom got married the second she turned 18, to a man (my father) her parents didn't want her hanging around. She came home drunk one night, and my grandmother forbade her from seeing him. That didn't work, of course. Teenagers don't heed their parents' advice. I think that's why my mom was surprisingly hands-off about the whole situation when I was 19 and dating a man who was 30 years older than me. She knew there was no point telling me not to. Teens gonna do what teens gonna do. She did warn me that it was just infatuation. I suspect that's what her parents told her, when she fell in love with my father. Hence the tears every time she heard this song: Puppy Love. If you're wondering how you can support

This song. This is the song that made me cry EVERY TIME I heard it, as a kid. I'm listening to it now and it's not evoking any emotion. Nostalgia, but a lot of songs do that for me. But I remember, as a little kid, hearing this song and bursting into tears. I could not control myself. I didn't react this way to any other song. Just Runaway. As a child, I wasn't thinking of it as a breakup song--that wasn't within my realm of experience. I thought of it more as a child, like myself, running away from home. In the rain. Tears falling, feel a pain. You've probably got a song like Runaway--one that impacted you so deeply you couldn't explain it. I dare you to look it up now. See if you've still got feels for it. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Read

I have a soft spot for jazz standards, and here's one I can't get enough of. Doesn't love often feel this way? When you're deeply, desperately in love, nothing feels quite real until you've shared it with the object of your affection. Maybe love is all that's real. It doesn't have to be the love of another person--in fact, probably best it's not, because people can always betray you. But I really do believe there's a greater love that surrounds us all, at every moment of every day. This backdrop of life on earth would be nothing without it. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But

A third day of Broadway music! This song always makes me think of my career as a writer. Or, rather, the gatekeeping performed by other writers. It reminds me of that joke--the one about the surgeon who says "You're a writer, eh? Yeah, I always figured I'd write a book when I retired." And then the writer says "When I retire, I figure I'll take up surgery." I'm not saying writing is easy--it's not. Making actual money as a writer is excruciatingly difficult (at least, for me it is), but it doesn't offend me when people who have other careers express an interest in writing a book. I tell them they should go for it. Anyone should. I didn't leave my mother's womb with a pen in hand (ouch). I had another career before I started writing. But you know what? I didn't go to school to be a writer. I didn't even take a night class. I've been writing professionally since 2006, and the stuff I was writing in 2006 was... awful! I

Yesterday I mentioned my love of Broadway musicals, so I figured we'd continue on in that vein. When I was a teenager, I had a book of sheet music: Musicals of the 1950s. This tune from " Call Me Madam " was in there, and I frequently played it on the piano. Never really thought about the lyrics until... right this second, actually. And the words "You're not sick/you're just in love" are causing me to re-evaluate my life just a touch. Because, see, I've been having wild mood swings lately. I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm more than tad obsessive. I feel like a teenager again, same way I felt the first time I fell in love. I've been so worried about myself. As someone with chronic mental health issues, I assumed it was that. And I'm sure my depression, in particular, plays a role. But I'd never considered this: maybe, Giselle, you're just in love. I should share this insight with my partner (ie. the person I'm in love wi

I was just (re)watching the Alien From L.A. episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 , and one of the bots starts randomly singing One Night In Bangkok. You know when you're like "ooooh I haven't heard that song in a long time!" and it excites you, so you go look it up immediately? That's what I did with One Night In Bangkok. You know what?  I had no idea this song came from a musical-- the musical Chess . I remember hearing it on the radio in the 80s, so I just figured it was a... radio song? They say you learn something new every day. This is my new info for today: One Night In Bangkok comes from a musical. Is this useful information? Probably not. Do I feel good about learning something, even if it's just random trivia? Absolutely. Even though I was obsessed with broadway musicals in the 80s and 90s, I am not at all familiar with Chess. If you want to get to know it, get the original cast recording right here . If you're wondering how you ca

This song showed up on a playlist for me yesterday. When I listened to it, I realized that even though I'd heard it a bunch of times, I'd never actually listened to the lyrics. When I did listen closely, it reminded me of the song we listened to yesterday, Bran Van 3000's "Drinking in L.A." Both are about feeling out of place. Yesterday's song was more about feeling out of place in your own life. This one's about feeling out of place in the space you find yourself in. p.s. Alessia Cara was an actual baby when Drinking in L.A. was released in 1997. Yup, vinyl is available! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  woul

I love this song so much that I play it for everyone. The reaction is always the same: they give me this blank stare and ask, " This song? You love this song?" Nobody seems to get it. Maybe it's the kind of tune that appeals mostly to writers and other creatives. Even though it's about drinking in L.A. at 26, it speaks to me as much now, as a midlife crisis person, as it would have when I was experiencing my quarter-life crisis in my mid-twenties. Strangely enough, I became a writer at that stage. I'd been working in business and I knew I couldn't spend the rest of my days toadying to rich asshole clients. I needed to do something different. Now I'm closing in on 40, having spent all this time writing professionally. I'm pleased to say I'm coming out the other side of the career portion of my midlife crisis. Eight to ten months ago, I'd pretty much stopped working because it just seemed so pointless. Old work was selling, but everythi

Yesterday I shared with you my favourite music video from the early 90s. This one was my second-favourite. Watching yesterday's video and today's back to back, I notice they both seem to draw inspiration from comic books. I'm thinking I probably didn't understand what this song was getting at--I was a spectacularly naive kid... and preteen... and teen. Kids today seem so much more sophisticated than I was at that age. And I'm not even THAT old--my partner didn't know what sex was until Grade 12! There weren't no sex ed back in the 60s, apparently. Anyway, I thought this song was funny when I was young. I wasn't "allowed" to watch Married With Children, though, as I've mentioned before, when one parent is passed out and the other works nights, you pretty much get to do whatever you want. Married With Children was on in syndication every night at 11pm, but I really didn't watch it too often. Enough to know who Kelly Bundy was, but

In the early 90s, this was my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEO EVER!!! After bringing you a classic Betty Boop cartoon yesterday, I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to share Betty Boo with you. I don't remember ever hearing this song on the radio. I don't think they played it in my neck of the woods. But the video was so much fun they aired it all the time on Much Music, and I quickly added it to my taped-off-TV VHS tape of favourite music videos. It's the perfectly forgettable song I will never forget. Sure takes me back... If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But you don't HAVE to do any

I've talked before about how much I loved cartoons when I was a kid. I had VHS tapes of many black-and-white cartoons, including this hot little number from 1934. I remember a resurgence in Betty Boop's popularity in the 80s or 90s--not of her cartoons, though. It was more of a merch thing. You saw her on a lot of T-shirts. There was another cartoon from the 30s that I absolutely loved, but I haven't been able to track it down. Maybe you remember it: it was about two little kids who are walking around town, collecting scrap wood for the fire. When they get home, their mother has nothing to feed them. The kids go to bed hungry and dream of a world where food is readily available. It's a fun place, with lots of yummy scrumptiousness. (I think this cartoon appealed to me particularly because we often went hungry in my household). When the kids wake up, they find a feast waiting for them. All the townsfolk had noticed their need, and brought what they could spare to fee

I've featured music by Devi McCallion on this blog before and you should definitely listen to her music , but if you don't follow her on Twitter, you are really missing out. I consider myself to be a pretty entertaining Twitterer, but I've got nothing on Devi (@dei_genetrix): I actually have rich parents that are connected with the music industry... this is my mom can u see the resemblance https://t.co/yS9n04bqEl — ✨🚧dEvi🚧✨ (@dei_genetrix) July 8, 2019 In case the video doesn't embed properly through her tweet, here it is again. Wow, does this song take me back. Sometimes I miss the 80s: If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patr

This song from 1989 popped into my mind while I was writing a strap-on sex scene for the lesbian erotic novel I'm currently working on. By way of procrastination, I immediately looked up the music video and was overcome by a wave of nostalgia. This song was on the radio a lot when I was young. The music video came out at a time when I used to record my favourites onto VHS. Remember recording your favourite songs off the radio onto audiocassette? I did that too, but I also recorded videos from MuchMusic onto videocassette. It occurs to me, as I'm sitting here watching this music video over and over again, that most of the people in my life wouldn't really get these references. Most of the people I know are in their 60s or 70s. I have a few acquaintances in their twenties, but nobody in my life (aside from one of my sisters, who never shared my taste in music) is hovering around the forty mark. I need to reconnect with people I used to know.  I've always gravitated

This song takes me back to my teenage years--not because I was a teenager in the 70s, but because "Fly Like An Eagle" was the theme song to a radio show I listened to religiously as a teen. When I was in high school, I had a lot of family responsibilities. When I wasn't working my retail job, I would come home after my tutoring gig to make dinner for my younger siblings. Sometimes my mother got home in time to eat with the kids, sometimes not, but, either way, my family would assemble around the TV while eating and stay put after mealtime. I spent that time in the kitchen, washing dinner dishes and listening to my favourite program on AM radio: a call-in show hosted by the late Anne Toth, a psychic medium. She'd cover a different topic on different days. I think Monday was astrology, Tuesday was tarot, Friday she'd talk to callers' departed loved ones. This program came at my ears from a small station in Niagara, but it meant the world to me. I h

This is a story about feeling old. It's a funny story, so don't worry--you won't be bummed. A couple weeks ago there was a FREE Broken Social Scene concert here in Toronto. I was like YAY! I'm totally going to that! And then I saw that the concert started at 9:30 AT NIGHT and I was like... k, maybe not. So I didn't go. Later that week, I was chatting with a couple of young women about what we'd done over the weekend. I know these people to be music lovers, so I thought I'd impress them with my COOLNESS and tell them I was totally going to go to that Broken Social Scene concert (except it was too late at night so I didn't...) They looked at me. Blank stares. And then one of them said: "Broken... Social Scene?  Is that a... band?" Womp-womp! "They're a rock band, yes.  Well, like a musical collective, I guess?  They've been around maybe 10... 15... 20 years?" In that moment, I realized the sound I found so COOL and

On Canada Day (July 1st, if you're not from around here), the indie rock station I listen to was playing all Canadian artists. When this song came on, I immediately pulled up the music video, because I remember watching it years ago and thinking how much it added to this track--which is amazing on its own. Sometimes I watch a music video and go... I don't get it. What's the connection between what I'm seeing and the music I'm listening to? On a few rare occasions, a music video has even ruined the song for me, because I had interpreted the song one way and the music video seemed to be implying something completely different. Not so here. This video adds another layer of depth to a song that's beautifully deep to start with, and increases the narrative through character and dance. Love it. From t he album Joyful Rebellion , which also features that brilliant song Crabbuckit . If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visi

Yesterday I promised to bring you the song that is played during an episode of the Irish comedy Father Ted called "Think Fast, Father Ted." During the episode, the DJ priest has forgotten all his records. The only song he as at his disposal is this one. No one at the dance seems to get too desperately sick of it, despite the repetition, and I'm not sure I would either. Just in case you've never heard of this TV show from the 90s , someone has spliced together all the scened featuring Ghost Town for YouTube. Here you go: If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But you don't HAVE to do any of tha

Yesterday we listened to a Tiffany tune from the 80s and compared teen singers past and present. The first time I heard a Billie Eilish track I thought "Where have you been all my life?" Then I found out her age and thought "Oh, you weren't alive for most of my life." Young artists are creating some really incredible music these days. When this particular song came on the radio, I'd been binge-watching the zany Irish sitcom Father Ted for weeks on end. It caught my ear because it reminded me of the song the DJ priest plays over and over in the raffle/car episode. I'll be bringing you that song tomorrow so you can compare the two. They're nothing alike, but maybe you'll hear what I hear. For today, enjoy Billie Eilish and bask in the grungy glory of today's youth. From the album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? which is available on vinyl and a variety of other formats . If you're wondering how you can support me in

This was one of my most treasured albums of the 80s. At the time, I didn't realize how YOUNG Tiffany was, because I was even younger. How old was she when this song was a hit, like 16?  I'm guess I could look it up, but maybe I'll leave the research in your hands today. These days, I compare a singer like Tiffany, who was known (by adults) for her youth, to more recent young artists like Lorde or Billie Eilish and... well, I don't want to say anything disparaging about a singer I loved when I was a kid, but they really are worlds apart. I listened to an interview with Lorde and she was saying that she'd been signed to her label at age 13, I believe it was, but rather than putting her right on stage, they put her through some rigorous and beneficial training--songwriting, performance, I think she said even things like marketing, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I'm writing like some douchey music person with a refined palate. But I'm listening to this Ti

Got word today that all my partner's cards and cash were stolen on vacation in Europe. (And people ask me why I'm not interested in travel!) This is awful and I feel for my sweetheart, obviously, but the weird thing is that I KNEW this would happen. My sisters are both psychics and I always say I'm not, but often someone will tell me something and I'll just be thinking... yeah, I knew that would happen to you. I really need to harness my intuition so I can help prevent shitty things from happening to the people I care about. Thing is, my partner has the WORST LUCK. Stuff like this always seems to happen. I honestly don't think I've ever known anyone with worse luck. When our lives merge, and I going to inherit this bad luck? Or will I bring peace to the relationship? Guess we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, this is the song I can't get out of my head today. On a sidenote, my first exposure to this song was on The Simpsons Sing the

Well, this was bound to happen eventually: you're going to hear me sing. We used to sing "À la claire fontaine" in choir when I was a kid, and it always brings a tear to my eye (you'll hear it in my voice toward the end of the song). We always took it at a really slow tempo, which I couldn't find when I looked--granted, I didn't look very hard. I think I just wanted to sing for you. So I recorded this sad little number. In choir, we sang it slightly differently than I've done here. The second line of each verse would be repeated as the first line of the next verse, like this: Sur la plus haute branche, un rossignol chantait. Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai. Tu as le cœur à rire… moi je l'ai à pleurer. But I didn't sing it that way for you because the song would have been twelve minutes long and I'

This song had me from the start. I first heard it on Laurie Brown's CBC Radio 2 program The Signal. There are so many lines in here that got me: "Always was the one you thought would never marry" in particular. It's become a bit of a theme song ever since things with my partner have started getting... well... serious. Yes, Virginia, there is a vinyl album! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy music. Readers of adult fiction can also buy my books or check them out from your local library. Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely! But you don't HAVE to do any of that. I'm very happy to get a daily visit from you, so just keep coming back. Oh, and I also recommend hitting the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page s

Yesterday I mentioned Cris Derksen’s choral work Maada’ookii Songlines, which I witnessed at Luminato in June. One of the musical ensembles participating in this concert was the Canadian Arabic Orchestra, and they made an impression--to say the least. Prior to the performance of Maada’ookii Songlines, all of the many choirs participating in the main event had the opportunity to showcase their skills independently. I heard a bunch of people having a great time, and gravitated toward the crowd. Turned out I was listening to the Canadian Arabic Orchestra. The crowd really got into it--a dad bouncing his kid on his shoulders, the women next to me ululating between licks at their melting ice cream cones, people dancing even though there was no space to move--but when they got to their final number, everybody seemed to know the words. I wish I could tell you what song it was, but I didn't catch the name in all the chaos of the choral event. Everyone was clapping--even me, and I nev

In June, I had the great good fortune to witness Maada'ookii Songlines, a choral performance created by the inimitable two-spirit Cree cellist and composer Cris Derksen. The audience assembled around a pond at Harbourfront Centre here in Toronto. As the sun set, we listened to drummers, instrumentalists, and more than 200 singers from diverse choirs across the city, as well as vocalists posted at four corners, scaffolded above our heads and located on the roofs of buildings. It was an experience. Maada'ookii Songlines takes us on a journey that, at times, gets chaotic--frightening, even--but ultimately resolves itself and leaves the audience feeling hopeful. The future doesn't have to be like the past. The future doesn't have to be like today. Here's a Cris Derksen number called Pow.wow.wow. From the album The Cusp. Buy it now. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is te

Yesterday I mentioned that BLACK CLOUD got me through some troubled times. Today we've got another track that accomplished the same feat. I can't even remember what was going on in my life at the time--something relationshipy that resolved itself, I guess? Oh my gosh, now that I'm actually listening to this song, it's all coming back to me. Amazing, the power of music. It's like amber, trapping in the emotions and memories of related events. It was these lyrics that so perfectly described what I was experiencing: On the one side/ I can dream my future/ Dream my future/ On the other/ I can feel my nature/ Feel my nature At the time, my partner and I were talking about making some huge life changes that will lead to establishing ourselves as a committed couple. In case you're not aware, I am extremely commitment-phobic. So this idea seemed, to me, like a beautiful dream--something I did and do want for myself, at this stage in life. Still, I could

I mentioned that yesterday's song of the day was a segue from THAT'S NOT MY NAME to this killer track, BLACK CLOUD . The segue line in yesterday's REMAIN NAMELESS: "I was born in a big grey cloud." Today we've got a black cloud--one I'm very familiar with, as a person who's been living with chronic depression for the past 20 years. I came across this track at a time when I needed it BAD. I just listened to it over and over and over and over. When I'm depressed, I want music that describes my mood, and this track did the trick. I will forever be indebted to Devi for creating it. Hope it helps you, if you need help right now. Please just buy everything Devi's ever created.  https://blacksquares.bandcamp.com If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and visits every day, the easiest thing you can do is tell your friends about the site. Tell anyone you know--particularly people who are isolated and enjoy mu