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Rating: "Me And Josie On A Saturday Night"...
...I haven’t been able to listen to it since last summer, or I listened to it stubbornly distracted.
It slips away in my player and I have a sea of sensations surfacing in my stomach, rising, swelling, devastating with the last notes of the solo piano of this first track of the album. I listen to "A Song About A Girls". I am back at house number fifteen on any Avenue in my mind, returning after a few months guided by the hand by Stef who sings. Once again I'm alone and relaxed, at ease yet uneasy with an insular thought that is present and caring, with a vaguely guilty air. Two days have passed quickly. "It was warm and dark" (and I don't think De Gregori was referring to the 46-degree heat we have here today). And it was different from how I had imagined it (what strange thoughts sometimes in the mind... what irreparably unstable and unbalanced thoughts cut through Reason, at times, in some moments of life, leaving shreds of unconsciousness!).
"It's really hard to let you go..." track 3... I already have the sea at eye level. On the words of small anxiety and the confused rhythm of "Hey You, Whatshadoing?" intense sensations emerge with every listen, yet it's a simple and... delicately non-moving song. Yet, a word I detest and love. It explains a contradiction. It describes anger and the sense of absolute impotence. And it all started, more or less like this: "the nightmares in the dreams, the kisses in the wind...". All what? My submission to that sweetly scratched voice lamenting in a soothing rhythm. Soothing, yes, thinking that someone else must surely have felt what you feel... if they complain as well as you would, if they rejoice softly and composedly as you would, if they play moments of your own anger and tenderness, with chords of fury and abandonment, those inside you for never having learned to translate music with your hands. Like those of Stef, laden with melancholy and perfectly in tune with his voice that overcomes tears and warms. It was "Selfish Girl".
"Sad Water" was after an August storm passed over the Milan sky amid those two days. I thought fate had placed it there to spread slowly under his window just as I, with hard elbows, breathed out the strong smell of rainwater, sad water, needing to flow elsewhere...? and yet notes capable of washing away every thought leaving me only gratitude towards the Almighty for letting that noise last for just a short time, because I'm afraid of the rumble of storms!
"Josiesomething", then, always arrived like a sense of peace, a panacea for my restless forty-eight hours. Someone seemed to knock on the door of the room, someone who would talk to me... about a girl(s). From the piano introducing Stef, it must be about a radiant woman. And the tiny, plucked notes chasing his voice, his voice, his sweetly obsessive voice that disturbs and unsettles those who do not love the effeminate elf of agonizing feeling, Stef. Peace, not just the sense of it, never came again.
From that point on, captured and affected by a charming Stockholm Syndrome.
Mita
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Me & Josie on a Saturday Night (03:55)
Me and Josie on a Saturday night
We're out of our house
I guess we're feeling all right
We try to believe in everything that we see
Walking side a side
Holding God on a a leash
When things get complicated
We try not to be blue
Me and Josie on a trip to the moon
We're out of our minds
I guess eternity's soon
We're happy to hover throurgh the darkness and light
We understand it's allright
When things get complicated
We try not to be blue
Me and Josie on a wave of the sea
We're washed up on shores
We never dreamed to be real
We tumble through silence and we burst into noise
A force wants to guide us through the heat and the cold
When things get complicated
We try not to be blue
(c)tekst: Stef Kamil Carlens
muziek: Stef Kamil Carlens, Pintens & Eriksson
03 Hey You, Watshadoing? (04:13)
It's really hard to let you go
I feel so bad cause I just don't know
What I'm doing
And whatshadoing?
I wish I could just write this song
And turn away and carry on what I'm doing
But whatshadoing?
I wish I could match
These angels in my soul and these devils in my bones
But no no no
It's been so long since I've seen you
I half forgot about the things you do
But half is only half there's still enough
Enough of you inside of me
Enough of you in lots of dreams
Enough and pretty close to much too much
I wish that could match
These angels in my bones these devils in my soul
But no no no
Truth and lies
I realize
Are just disguises
Of ways to live your life
It's really hard to let you go
I feel so bad casue I just don't know
What I'm doing
Whatshadoing?
And I wish I just don't know
What I'm doing
Whatshadoing?
And I wish I could just write this song
And turn away and carray on what I'm doing
But whatshadoing?
04 Selfish Girl (03:49)
You selfish girls
Go blame it all on me
The nightmares and the dreams
The kisses in the wind
You haunt my memory
you love me baby till I bleed
Do we believe in love?
Do we exist at all?
Should I return your call?
Will we rise or will we fall?
You six months itch
You stay away from me
I recognize your fear
I also had my share
The darkness that we're in
Will disappear when we leave it there
Does love mean sacrifice?
Can hearts just turn to ice?
Will time tell wrong from right?
With a little luck we'll survive this fight
A lot of damage has been done
Confidence broken and on the run
Hey I don't mean to hit
I just get angry bout the anger that you did
I had hoped you'd catch on
You'd understand me when I sad I was gone
Now close your roving eye
And leave me be in my saint's disguise
What lies benath our words?
With sex we're blessed and cursed
Is truth a joke or worse?
Every deep believer is bound to burst
When all the thinking's done
Who's bored and who had fun?
I can't believe this song
I will drink for you 'till the morning comes
Do we believe in love?
Do we exist at all?
08 Josiesomething (04:37)
Josie said be quiet and she stared into the sun
And sent her faith upon a permanent vacaction
I never knew somebody who could speak like she's a gun
And make the roar sound like a peaceful conversation
Josie said now hush
Or else the flapping of your tongue will wake the dogs
Already on our trail
Josie closed her eyers like she had planned to all along
Up smack dab in Sorrowville
Although we shared the movements lord
Although we shared the thoughts
We had a very differnt kind of destination
If mine was dark and never sure
If mine was painted blue
Then hers would kill the devil if it hit him
Oh man I am stranded
Oh man I've done wrong
Oh man I pretend that
Life still goes on
I might as well get wasted
Oh sister don't you go
She could have been a movie lord
She cold have been a song
But the real to real would roll it into wrong
09 Thinking About You All the Time (04:19)
I'm thinking about you all the time
Is it the howl of the devil or a sound divine?
I know it's wrong but I know it's right
I gotta get a grip on you somehow
I spend my days and I spend my nights
going over every second of the time we had
going over the scenes
going over the dreams
but tripping over all the edges of reality
I'm thinking about you all the time
But it don't do me no good it puts
my love on the line
It's something in the air
It feels cold as ice
I guess that every time you play
you gotta pay the price
I'm thinking about you all the time
Who are you anyway? You precious ghost of mine
I hope that when you leave I will survive
But today I feel like drowning in a
sea of wine
I know it sounds bizarre but that's the way it is
I dread the moment I will call you for another kiss
I never ever had a doubt about the life I lead
but since we met I can t help
wondering if that's all I need
the apples and the pears they taste so good
the summer s coming up and it will do me good
the birds are singing in the trees
all that s lacking is a little bit of
inner peace
I'm thinking about you all the time
but I don't really know why, it's an emotional crime
I gotta get back to where I was before
But when I get there, all I do is think some more
I'm thinking about you all the time
Is it the howl of the devil or a sound devine?
I know it's wrong but I know it's right
I gotta get a grip on you somehow
I gotta get a grip on you somehow
I gotta get a grip on you somehow
11 Individu animal (03:37)
Mille millions d'âmes
Qui poussent comme des bananes
Des briques dans le mur qui entoure l'individu
Mille millions de canettes
On boit comme des vedettes
Parc' qu'on est jamais très sûr
Les doutes sont très durs
Les garçons et les filles insistent tous pour rire
c'est dur de rester pur
Il y a toujours des cassures
Pas que ça m'intéresse
Mais on évolue à une vitesse
Qui ne me simble plus saine
Je ne sens plus mon destin
Individu animal
Je veux bouger comme une bête
Mais je coince dans la tête
J'y retrouve trop de mots
Des seaux plein de mots
Je me fixe sur des phrases
Ces phrases me rendent naze
Je rêve d'un instant
Un instant de silence
Dis-moi où sur la planète est-ce qu'on trouve un vide-tête
Un espace vide sonore
Une île bruit mort
Mandarine, banane, choco-coco, marihuana
Pomme, pune, poire, marimba et guitares
Individu animal
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Other reviews
By trellheim
A Song About A Girls features as many as four songs in French, and despite the language barrier, Intrigue is a tune that gets stuck in your head with extreme ease.
A good album, pleasant and eccentric, entirely recorded at home, as the cover notes specify.
