"The Morning Hour": The Beatles, Penny Lane

I don't know of any photos nor paintings describing an ordinary British high street in such a simple and yet beautiful way:


In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello

On the corner is a banker with a motorcar
The little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a mac
In the pouring rain...
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It's a clean machine

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway

In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
Then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain...
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies...
Penny Lane.

"The Morning Hour": The Police, Roxanne

well, there's a word for my waking up today... "it sucked" and it was actually my very own fault.

short of words and inspiration right now... but I'm trying very hard to let a very young Sting and a vintage video with a horrendus quality to cheer me up. Jeez, some people can age incredibly well!

By the way, who came up with the idea of shooting the video on a red scene (Roxanne...red light...) should have been banned for life from any other video production...

Police - Roxanne
Uploaded by bebepanda

"The Morning Hour": Elbow, Ground

Third time in the Morning Hour and I think I finally found an album I want to buy, The Seldom Seen Kid.

Despite being "in business" since the late '90s, the band has self produced its last two albums and still retains a kind of "true indie" aura that most of the other bands have lost at their second album or sooner.
As the first line of the post testifies, radios are now massively pushing the band's last album, winner of the Mercury Prize of 2008, but these are musicists who, dropped by Universal, have worked for years with a label called Ugly Man Records, and made it nevertheless!

I'm not yet sure it's one of their lyrics or it is just something they asked the people at Glasto to sing with them, but I cannot help but going nuts for a band that writes "We still believe in love, so fuck you"

"The Morning Hour": Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter

Beatles or Rolling Stones???

Who cares? I'll have them both, with a cherry on top!

Sometimes "the Question" (with a capital Q at least among music geeks) seems so stupid to me, I have to focus really hard to understand why so many people keep repeating it. I've got the luxury of having, at the mercy of my play button, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Lennon&Macca... why should I care who's the best? best for what? best for who?

Anyway...
Today a new project starts; well it's not really a brand new project, let's just say that a very promising PHASE 2 begins, phase in which I'll be a bit more involved. It's a group thing, trying to put together the thoughts, the dreams, the boredom of 14 young brains scattered all over Europe (but with a rather strong Southern Italian fil rouge). The project is PennelliSolari.
There's no stated theme, no stated line of thought nor a common way of seeing the word. The idea, and the hope, is that something thrilling will arise from mixing it all up!

My involvement will most probably comprise of two or three posts a month with photos being the central piece. I wanna try a new thing with them, pictures and words in one common place, to express an idea and provoke some reaction- I'm almost afraid to call it ...ehmm...photojournalism...

"The Morning Hour": The Jam, Beat Surrender

you wake up, it's sunny. you get out of the house, and tiny drops of rain are getting onto your face while you ride to work. It is what it is, you know what it is!

but today I don't care, last night I got great news! Nothing big, nothing major, but it makes me very happy and blows new energy into my veins. Too soon to say more...

enjoy the video, let your feet move and follow the tune, surrender to the beat!

You'll see me come runnin
To the sound of your strummin'
Fill my heart with joy and gladness
I've lived too long in shadows of sadness

"The Morning Hour": Elbow, One Day Like This

When the idea of "The Morning Hour" started it was meant to include music, words and photos. It was, basically, a way to link three media I'm keen into around the same entity. To help me decide the single song/theme each time, I turned to my alarm and "outsourced" the service.

Words are fast, YouTube is even faster, my eye, my mind and my camera couldn't keep up. Hence I've been writing and posting about each song (almost) every day, while taking some more time to shoot the pictures.

When I heard this song today coming out of the radio, I looked out - it was a brilliant morning, I smiled - I finally had a photo to post with the song! The song has been one of the first to feature in the project and, I remember, came out a few weeks ago in another shining sunny day.

Here is the picture, my own personal way to look at this song, to its melody and its lyrics, to the mood it puts me in whenever I listen to it.



I don't know where the project will end up, but I'm enjoying it. Taking beautiful photos by capturing moments that life offers to us is a tough task, building an idea, looking at ways to implement it through the lens and getting a satisfactory final results is proving to be a daunting one!
But I'm taking up the challenge!

"The Morning Hour- Double Bill": Travis, Driftwood and Duffy, Mercy

It might be the spring, the April laziness that comes along with the sunny and warm days; it might be the stampede of overdue work and projects that is overwhelming me, but in the last few days I'm not "functioning" properly.
It takes me ages to do simple things and I get easily distracted.
I feel like I'm pushing an elephant around.

Today's a double bill: Travis is yesterday's song, Duffy's from this morning.

Driftwood is a great song, from a few years back but always spot on. I think I'll go back in time today and listen to "Good Feeling", their first album, really really different from anything else they have done ever since.

Duffy... don't like her. Catchy tunes but it seems to me she's trying too hard to emulate something from the past, something that's not of our times and it seems fake to me. Maybe it's my mood... poor girl, I'm being very harsh with her...

Here's Travis


Here's Duffy

"The Morning Hour": Franz Ferdinand, Ulysses

This brings me a few years back: Franz Ferdinand were indeed my first ever article on the web, for Yellow Submarine on OraD'Aria. That was also my first year in London with Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight and The Killers being its soundtrack.
It was a rather new music for me back then, I'd been listening to a lot of Brit Pop while I was in Italy and got stuck for a while on Coldplay as an almost natural evolution of the Oasis, Blur, Radiohead years... I still remember the first sentence of that first article "Il vento fresco arriva dalla lontana Glasgow, scende giu' sul sud dell'Inghilterra per divenire uragano e infiammare la capitale, veste con gusto ed eleganza anni '30, sale sul palco in camicia di raso e cravatta, pantalone con la piega e stivaletto, ma ha un'unica missione: divertirsi e far scatenare il pubblico."
The change of rithm and the beat of Take Me Out is still one of my favourite tune ever!

For me it was actually just like that, new town, new music scene, new rithm. This was all I thought this morning as my sleeping ears cought the new song from Franz Ferdinand. The four Scots (or sort of) seem back to their basics, at least for me. I'm not a fan of their second album, but the first two songs of their last one and the white shoes Alex is wearing in this video are promising.


Anyway, I'm back in London after 4 days of Italian spring- jeez, I'm getting more and more homesick by the year, and this worsen a lot with the summer approaching... when, while on that side Ferruccio Tagliavini sings "Voglio Vivere cosi' col sole in fronte", here we have Travis with "Why does it always rain on me".

For the curious (and Italian friendly) ones, here is the link to OraD'Aria http://xoomer.virgilio.it/oradaria/archivio/Giallo-franzferdinand

"From Texas": The Moody Blues, Tuesday Afternoon

I was watching TV and suddenly, during the commercial for Visa's Check Card, a particular sound caught my attention. It was the beginning of an absolutely amazing song I’d never heard before.
I couldn’t recognize the band and I didn’t understand the words (so I couldn’t look for it on the web), so I had to ask to an American friend of mine for a suggestion.

The song is “Tuesday Afternoon”, composed by the British band The Moody Blues in 1968 (on the album this song was listed as “The Afternoon: Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)", at the insistence of the producer).
The Moody Blues were born as a blues band, but after the introduction of orchestral arrangements and the tones of mellotron, they set the stage for the progressive rock movement.
In fact the strange sound I was listening to was produced by the “mellotron”, an electronic keyboard invented some years earlier.

This band composed the only song by them I knew: “Nights in White Satin”, of which the Italian band I Nomadi performed a cover called “Ho difeso il mio amore”.

According to an interview with Justin Hayward, he wrote "Tuesday Afternoon" while sitting in the middle of a field near his home in England on a beautiful spring afternoon. He claims that he had his acoustic guitar in hand and the song just came to him.

The use of mellotron fits the poetry of the lyrics and the daydreaming atmosphere and it’s like getting captured in this fantastic and relaxing world, a place where you can find your peace of mind.
Was the writer under the effects of any drugs or does this song reflect the habits of that period? In the 60’s and 70’s the use of hallucinogens and psychedelic drugs became a very popular means to find a new realty and to reach the truth.

“I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way
...
Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why?
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.”

"The Morning Hour": The Beatles, Day Tripper

It wasn't a song or the raucous voice of the dj that woke me up today. It was a whisper in my ears, from a very familiar voice, while my eyes were still shut: Ti amo.
With such a start, this needs to be a great day!
It follows almost naturally that, unawarely, she picked the song for the morning hour today... she picked The Beatles (I could see that coming...) and a song that we actually had been singing (her)/humming (me) a few days ago within a driving-related-Beatles-songs theme. Drive me car, One ticket to ride, Day Tripper, Get back.
We went on debating the meaning of this song, what actually it means to be a daytripper and which way out John is singing about... we didn't finish it, so no final word on it yet! We also listened to more Beatles song while having breakfast, hence the morning hour today has more than 1 video as usual.

I need some positive vibes today for some creative work... it'd really better be a dam good day!

"The Morning Hour": Stereophonics, Maybe Tomorrow

today's pick is a bit of a cheat; the real morning hour song was Lily Allen's The Fear, again! As per Monday and Friday of last week. Now, I wrote that the song is brilliant... but I cannot write about it every single day! So I stayed in bed and waited for the next one...
Maybe Tomorrow was one of my favourite songs during the first months in London, a few years back- hence I thought today was going to be a good day. Unfortunately as I launched Firefox while sipping the coffee, the news from the earthquake in Italy hit me. Luckily, none of my relatives has been affected, and the only friend from the region is safe, as it's her family. Though, when a region close to home looks like a scrap yard and among the scrap you can see people... all the rest seems trivial and it's difficult to focus on the small things that make my everyday's life. I hope things don't get worst than they are (and look) right now in Abbruzzo.

Gabriele D'Annunzio
Alcyone, Sogni di terre lontane
I PASTORI

Settembre, andiamo. E' tempo di migrare.
Ora in terra d'Abruzzi i miei pastori
lascian gli stazzi e vanno verso il mare:
scendono all'Adriatico selvaggio
che verde è come i pascoli dei monti.

Han bevuto profondamente ai fonti
alpestri, che sapor d'acqua natía
rimanga ne' cuori esuli a conforto,
che lungo illuda la lor sete in via.
Rinnovato hanno verga d'avellano.

E vanno pel tratturo antico al piano,
quasi per un erbal fiume silente,
su le vestigia degli antichi padri.
O voce di colui che primamente
conosce il tremolar della marina!

Ora lungh'esso il litoral cammina
la greggia. Senza mutamento è l'aria.
il sole imbionda sì la viva lana
che quasi dalla sabbia non divaria.
Isciacquío, calpestío, dolci romori.

Ah perché non son io cò miei pastori?

"The Morning Hour": Stealers Wheel, Stuck in the Middle with You

I woke up with a classic tune today, well, it's classic here as you can hear it often in the pubs and become accustumed with it despite, in my case, ignoring completely who's singing it and how it's become so popular in the years. In my playlist, it sits along "I will walk 500 miles" (also known by its official name "I'm gonna be") by The Proclaimers, and "Weather with You" by Crowded House. These are the songs that can bring together a whole pub in a second, strangers singing together and smiling at each other- an arcane mystery for some foreigner who has heard those songs only a couple of times in his/her life on the radio.

It's day 2 of the G20 and I'm still trying to figure out what all of this means for the town that is hosting it and, coincidentally, is hosting me as well.
i went to the demonstrations yesterday night. Not so much to protest but more to witness the moment since it's all over the media and so close to my house, and take some pictures (though i forgot to put a new memory card in...). Well, the demo was in line with what i was expecting, lots of people of different sorts shouting and holding banners, tightly guarded by the police in riot gear (i guess the open face policy of the morning had to give up to a tougher stance once the protesters became too "energetic").
What really struck me is what i didn't see... less than 50 meters far from the shouting crowd, people were watching the England game in the pub, the news stand was selling the mags with the pictures of the morning clashes, and the Terravision guy was selling the tickets for the shuttle coach to and from Stansted Airport. Everything very normal, everything so smooth and ordinary, but for the amount of police around and the helicopter constantly flying over my head. Not even debris in the street...
It was probably a matter of expectations after having watched the news all day about the riots and the excitement, the mob and the police, smashed windows and dressed up people- or maybe it was that i didn't manage to get close to the "action".
oh well, I'll leave it like that.

here are the pictures from Trafalgar Square, 15 minutes before the rally.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gianleo/sets/72157616165602061/

and here is the video:

"The Morning Hour": Lily Allen, The Fear

I'm on my own for a couple of days... tough, it means I've to wake up alone in bed and I really don't like it- I actually think it sucks!

The words Lily Allen came out just a few seconds after the alarm went off, well before the song, and well within the usual 5 minutes of rambling by the dj- I wasn't happy about that. I find her pretentious, a bit too full of herself and I'm not sure she deserves all the fuss around her (a clothes line, a tv program...).

"The song" he says "is called The Fear... bla bla bla", I dind't have great expectations.

But, hands down, the song is great! the lyrics are genial for the way they mock the fashion/celebrity establishment, though she's totally part of it.

I'll say no more:

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and f***loads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them
...
And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it’s how I’m program to function
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner
...
Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I’m not a saint but I’m not a sinner
Now everything is cool as long as I’m getting thinner

"From Texas": Rod Stewart, Baby Jane

Finally I’ve found out the name of the song by Rod Stewart I’ve listened to a lot of time on the radio; I listened again to it a couple of nights ago, in a bar in Bryan (Texas), and lots of guys were singing it.
It took me about a couple of hours to get the name, I opened several videos on Youtube trying to find which one it was.

It’s “Baby Jane” (1986), a song with a particular rhythm that make you dance while you’re listening to it and sing it the whole day after you’ve listened to it.
It talks about the end of a love story with a woman who “threw” him away once she reached for the high society and got what she needed for.

I’m not really keen on Rod Stewart, the song mentioned is one of the few songs by him I know, so I cannot say that I really like him, but for sure I’m in love with his voice.
It’s a distinctive “rasping”, hot and sexy voice, immediately recognizable...once you’ve got Rod Stewart’s existence! In fact at first I confused it with the voices of other great singers, especially with Roger Taylor (Queen’s drummer)’s one. Actually, they are pretty similar.

I’ve read that Belle and Sebastian performed a cover of this song. I haven’t found it on the web, so please, if someone have it, upload it! Thanks!

"The Morning Hour": Snow Patrol, Crack the Shutters

today has been one of those quite typical London days... it's 6pm, almost weekend, the weather is good and the evening is promising... but there's a memory, rather vague at this point, that still today, the weather in the morning was awful, the grey overcast on the city so deep and heavy that no weekend feeling was remotely possible. Is it possible it was yesterday and not today...?
I distinctly remember that listening to the line of this song "Crack the shutters open wide, I wanna bathe you in the light of day", I opened my eyes and thought..."where the f. is this light of day???" well, now we have a great sunset and the sky is blue! (don't complain about that...)

Not a great fan of Snow Patrol, I actually find them a bit boring; i mean, a few good lines and tunes in the songs but never a real humpf! and after a while most of the songs look similar to me. I have the same problem with another British band who makes good song from time to time, Embrace- jezz,I feel like ratting on pop-rock bands today... Anyway, here's what the radio threw at me today

Snow Patrol - Crack the Shutters (New) [HQ]
Uploaded by wonderful-life1989

"Before Leaving": The Housemartins, Caravan of Love

Once I was driving my car, I turned on the radio, and one of my favourite radio channels was playing a song I’ve never heard before and I was hypnotized by it.
It was a cappella style song: “Caravan of love” by the British band The Housemartins. I usually don’t listen to this kind of music; actually, I don’t know many songs like these (except for the ones by the Italian band Neri Per Caso). I obviously appreciated the melody and above all the way voices replace instruments, in my opinion it is a very great ability. Maybe I wouldn’t like it so much if it were a “normal” song, played with musical instruments.
Actually I didn’t understand if they use at least a basso (in the live video one component has one).

I invite you to watch also the live video: I am impressed by the fact that Paul Heaton, the singer, sings exactly as in the recorded studio version. He is really great. I admire him. Every respectable singer would be able to sing this way on a live performance!

Anyway I must underline that this son is a cover version of Isley Jasper Isley’s “Caravan of Love” (personally I don’t like it: it’s too “eightish”. And I like 80’s music!!!).
The I.J.I.’s video represents the band in the middle of a crowd of several nationalities. And it becomes more banal especially if you compare it with the Housemartins’ video.
This last one expresses more originally the meaning of the song, also because of Paul Heaton’s Christian believs.
It is set in a church, the singer is a kind of priest who sings from the pulpit, as if he were preaching; the other band components are the believers. They all have a cross shaved in their hair.
In the end of the video they are joking to each others and they are funny; they also sing staying together in the same bed.
It is pretty weird, I like it (the first times I watched both the studio and the live versions dozens of times a day!)