Hallelujah

One of the big talking points in the media this week has been the widespread (although mostly on the internet) opposition to x-factor winner Alexandra Burke presumed Christmas number 1 with a cover of Hallelujah. Seeing as this blog is indeed on the internet I probably ought to be taking this opportunity to join in the general hatred of Simon Cowell, but unfortunately I can't bring myself to do that.

You see here's the thing, the main argument seems to be something on these lines. Hallelujah is a great song, that is special to an awful lot of people, so therefore it shouldn't be commercialised.

Now that's quite a good argument, but sadly the reality is that great songs are sometimes going to be butchered by later pop covers (case in point, the brilliance that is Axel F, destroyed forever by the evil that is the Crazy Frog). If songs are going to be covered you have to accept that some will be good and some will be bad, that's just how it is.

That is not to say that I won't be overjoyed if Jeff Buckley is propelled to the top of the charts, it's just that I'm not upset about x-factor winners singing good songs. The way I see it, I'd rather listen to a passable version of a great song than Shayne Ward warbling 'That's my goal' or some similar tripe.

You're more than welcome to disagree with me in the strongest possible terms via the comments box, but remember this, no covers means no Buckley version either. If I have to ignore an awful version of a song in order to hear a great version then that's a price I'm willing to pay.

On a similar (but festive) note I'd just like to point out that the best xmas number one ever was also a cover...that's right Only You by The Flying Pickets

Returning to Hallelujah, here's a quick run down of a few of the many versions that are out there on Youtube. I've trawled the internet so that you don't have to.

Leonard Cohen - The original, but probably not the best. Cohen delivers in his typical singing-talking hybrid. Though quite frankly he wrote the thing so he can do whatever the hell he likes.

Jeff Buckley - Minimalistic, guitar backed, epic length version. If you are an angst-ridden teen, as opposed to a screaming pop-idol loving teen this will probably be your favourite.

Alexandra Burke - Not as bad as people seem to think, Burke can certainly sing a bit and it's nice to hear a version with a bit more in the way of backing. Though Dermot O'Leary doesn't add much with his cameo and there appears to be a point at which Westlife would stand up if they were singing it. Definitely goes down hill in the second half.

Kate Voegele - Sounds not entirely disimilar to a female Jeff Buckley version, not quite as good as Jeff but miles better than Alexandra.

Imogen Heap - Short A-Capella version, certainly different, but loses marks since it was recorded for use in The OC.

Rufus Wainwright - Piano backed, this is my favourite...so there

KD Lang - Somewhere in the gap between Rufus and Jeff, theres even a string section in there somewhere...marvelous

So there you go, if you know another good version please let me know the link (no rick-rolling please lol)

Have a great Christmas, may you receive many hats
D

Single

Lie in bed, awake
Thoughts of the day
Dreams of the night
Merge until you can’t separate
Here everything is possible
Repeat the failures
Relive success
Improve on either
Again, again and forever

Lie in bed, asleep
The images that come are not real
They will flicker
Fade with the sunrise
Nothing but fantasy
But sometimes more real
Than the thoughts that preceded them

Lie in bed, alone
No one to hold close
Loneliness that dominates the night
Unwanted?
Loneliness that dominates the day
Everyone else is loved
But not you

Another night, awake
The dreams of the day
And the thoughts of the night still mingle
Here nothing is possible
Except to relive the failures
And forget the successes
Improving on neither
Feels like forever

Dave on...The Credit Crunch

I work with accountants, but I'm not exactly an economic wizard myself, but I'm still pretty interested in the current situation. So I thought I would share my limited knowledge with you.

The first thing is this, the credit crunch is not entirely a bad thing. Sure some people are losing their jobs. And I'll admit that if you took out a mortgage in the last five years you're probably F***ed, but there is a bright side...let's look at which business' are in trouble
Woolworths only sells things that you could get in Tesco for cheaper...so no loss there
MFI, Land of Leather...if DFS gets into trouble we'll really be cooking
Chrysler??? General Motors, they're only killing the planet with gas guzzlers that no one wants anyway

So all things considered we're not losing anything worth having and with a little bit of luck we might manage to get rid of a few faceless coffee houses and mobile phone shops as well

The main question though is this, why are these companies in trouble??
The answer is simple, they all make shit that we don't want.

Land of Leather aren't selling any sofas because most people are still paying for the ones they bought back in 2006 with a pay nothing for two years deal. Something that has always confused me is this, who actually buys a couch after watching a tv advert? Or for that matter, who buys a tv? I've always assumed that anyone watching an ad on tv, probably already has a tv, which rather takes away the main selling point.
The same is (you would assume) true for reasonably priced, leather, three piece suites now available at up to 50% off. If you are watching tv (I would assume) that you probably already have something to sit on.

Most advertising works best with the sort of stuff you might buy on the spur of the moment, as I'm wandering through Tesco or Asda (but not woolworths) I might pick up a particular bar of chocolate. Domino's adverts have made me fancy a pizza. Grabbing a brand new car with my morning paper? Less so...

More thoughts next week as the pound slides further towards parity with the euro...looks like everyone is holidaying in Scotland next year...bad times
Dave

November Sky

Bury me under November sky
Beneath full moon final lullaby
Shun the day, embrace the night
Banish all cloud with cool starlight

No icy crypt, gates locked and barred
Trapped in town and grim churchyard
Promise you won’t do that to me
Wild river and forest to set me free

Across the streams, amongst the trees
Unchained at last to roam with ease
Far from houses, on lonely hill
Where my spirit wanders it feels no chill

Though I have gone don’t mourn my death
Cherish the moments when we drew breath
Bury me shallow or bury me deep
The bones lie still but my soul won’t sleep

Don’t mark the spot with grey headstone
I’ll be long gone, leave the flesh alone
Never visit the grave, forget that place
But remember my name, remember my face

Random thoughts of a random mind

My day has just been ruined. An advert has revealed to me that Camp Rock is actually a new Disney High School Musical spin off rather than the long awaited Scissor Sisters - Guns n Roses crossover album that I had previously assumed.
Bad times

I was off work last week for two days sick leave, which was a bit of a downer. I don't usually take much time off. My mother used to be a nurse, so I've never really got much sympathy unless I've been close to death (limbs missing or similar). At school I didn't get Man Flu, I got a cold, some vitamin C, a packet of tissues and thrown out the door into the swirling snow...it was a hard childhood

Christmas seems strangely close, yet still miles away. There's hardly any Christmas decorations up yet, but it's barely three weeks away. I must confess that I'm looking forward to it, unusual I know. There's going to be a fair few good friends back in the area, which should be a great excuse to drink to excess. Which lets face it, is the true meaning of Christmas

I appreciate that a few of my poems are a little bit vague on the specifics. The poem in my previous post would be one such example, so here is a little explanation. Both 'Half Forgotten Riff' and 'What was Said' are actually about the same (sadly drunken) night out, which rather sticks in the memory for mostly the wrong reasons.
Although the night is mostly a depressing blur, the most tangible memory of the evening was a particular song from the club we were in. This featured a very distinctive but unknown (at least to me) melody. Some how I ended up in a mindset whereby until I discovered the song, I wouldn't really be able to put the whole shambolic affair behind me. For two months the song taunted me, played at the start of a film, half heard in the background of a French Pizzeria. I think the poem was jotted down at some point during that period.
Eventually I managed to pin down the song (and by this stage it was a genuine relief), the tune? Time to Pretend by MGMT

So there you go, till next time, may you guard your words and feelings whilst under the influence
D

Half Forgotten Riff

That night was long ago
Forgotten almost
To everyone
Nothing special, not even for me

Everything happened that night
Nothing happened
Depends on the viewpoint
Perhaps you do not remember
The joke I made
You laughed at the time
I remember
Maybe not that night, but I remember
Something

A couple of drinks
Pictures that no one really likes
When they appear online
I wasn’t looking
At the camera
Wasn’t thinking about the camera
Just felt tired

But then that song
Woke everything up
Came and went
Back to obscurity, I enjoyed it whilst it lasted
Didn’t like what followed
The unknown song was the highpoint
Of a low point
Of my year
But unknown it remained

Time passes
Not so foolish anymore
People forget
Not me, I remember
Just the riff
Over and over
Can’t exorcise the memories till I find it

There’ll be joy when I find it
Even though it may wake the memory
That you don’t have
And I wish I could banish

Meh

If I have learnt anything from reading and writing blogs it is this – Nothing happens as planned.

If someone says they’re going to blog on Friday, check back on Monday. If the subject is supposed to be films, then anticipate music. First in a series? I doubt the topic will ever be mentioned again. In short, your average blogger tends to make lots of plans and forget about them just as quickly…and I’m pretty much your average blogger.

Hence my earlier blog suggesting a topic for last Friday, obviously that went out the window. However, despite Dave’s first law of blogging (Don’t expect the expected) I am going to try and stick to a couple of very generic ideas.

Firstly come wind or rain, sun or snow, nuclear apocalypse or Armageddon I’m going to blog twice a week. The only exception being holidays and other periods where I can’t access a PC. That said I’m just a poor ex-student so holidays are fairly limited at the moment.

Secondly, I’m going to alternate between a blog style post and a piece of poetry. Hopefully this should force me into at least a little bit of creative writing each week.

Any more targets than that and I would be doomed to failure (curse my own innate laziness), so I won’t even try.

Right, on to a semi-serious post.
As you, my intelligent, well dressed, good looking readership, may be aware from your daily perusal of your favourite broadsheet or red top, ‘Meh’ has been recognised as a word by Collins (they make dictionaries, but you already knew that).

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for the general addition of new words to the dictionary as they move into everyday parlance, but surely you have to draw a line somewhere. Meh, is not to my mind a proper word. Internet is a new word, fantastic, stick it in the dictionary. Meh is more of a sound, like saying hmm or tutting. Lol is probably recognised as a word now, what next? Zomg? Rofl? (actually rofl is probably recognised as a word already…what is the world coming to?? FFS?)

I guess my basic feeling is that terms that are widely used multi-cultural slang or abbreviations(particularly relating to the Internet) should not necessarily be added to the English language. What makes something a word?? Lots of people using it? Millions of people play World of Warcraft, so should we just add terms from that into English?? Of course not. Should we add every technical or slang term from every pastime, hobby or community (online or otherwise) to the language?? We could, but we’d end up with a dictionary substantially larger than what we have now (and the full English dictionary is pretty huge as it is).

On a similar note, I feel that in most cases you should wait a reasonable period to see if a word continues to be used. When I was eight, perhaps the two most common words were lush, and cool. Both obviously used outside of their normal context. People still say cool, but it’s a pretty long time since I heard anything called lush (do primary school kids still say that??).

No doubt, you’ll have your own opinion on this and fair play to you for that. However I feel there should be a line drawn between what is ultimately slang that may just be passing through and real words, the ones that everyone uses every day…like zugzwang and fianchetto

Until next time this is Dave Marshall telling you to use a spell checker (it won't recognise meh)

Ethereal Journey

It was dark when I woke
Urged from slumber by that persistent alarm
Washed, dressed but still the night
Cloaked my passage as I pulled away
Beneath the swollen moon
And into the mist

Leave behind the concrete
Enter the maze of hedgerow
Both grey in the half-light before the dawn
The birds yet silent as I speed into the East
Behind me the stars yet shine
But not before me

Ever I race in twilight
No limits can hold me
Soar along a causeway
Rising among the waves
Those ethereal strands
Dancing at the feet of ghostly trees

As I crest a hill I see her
Magnificent
And a golden tide sweeps toward me
But still there is silver
The one among the other
And I can barely watch the road

Onward I fly
It is early yet
But finally the enchantment is broken
And I wake
Though I left my bed an hour before
The dream starts to fade

That's handy Jose

So here’s the thing. It’s only the first week of this new blogging network and already I’m verging on obsession. Any hour in which I don’t get the chance to check for updates is an hour wasted. I’m joking of course; I only check every third hour.
In all seriousness my working day has been brightened considerably knowing that each evening I’ll have the opportunity to spend an hour reading intelligent and well written posts, be they blogs, poetry or creative writing (and I still need to find time to listen to Marsh But True).

As more and more people start to blog there will be an even greater variety of quality posts to read, which is both fantastic and problematic at the same time. Fantastic, because with more activity and greater feedback the standard of the posts can only get better and better, but problematic because ultimately each individual can only read so much. In a sense our small network may become a microcosm of the internet as a whole, plenty of diversity, but no conceivable way to see (or hear) everything.
Hence our first problem, albeit a happy one, if more blogs start to appear (and considering that the rapidly growing facebook group has 40 plus members, I certainly hope there will be many more) how can anyone (not least me) be sure not to miss something great.

The first option is the obvious one, read everything. Right now that’s what I’m doing but with just a few more blogs you’d need an awful lot of time to be sure not to miss anything. You would have to be in front of a computer with nothing better to do for hours everyday. In short you’d need to be a student.
Clearly this is not much of a solution for all but a small minority, so we need to think again. If we can’t read every post of every blog we’ll have to be more selective.

Assuming that you’re only going to read a couple of posts each evening, or each week, how do you make that selection? Entirely at random? I suppose you could select your favourite authors and just read their posts, but as the bard said if variety is the spice of life, play on. You’re going to want a third choice.

Having reached this conclusion I’m going to help you (the discerning reader) as much as I can. Each week or fortnight or month, as appropriate, I’ll post some links to a small varied selection of blogs that you might enjoy. Obviously this can only ever give you a taste of the whole meal, but still, hopefully that’s better than nothing.
So far so good you say, but here we hit our second problem.

How do you or I, or anybody else for that matter, decide which blogs are most worthy of attention?

It’s troublesome to be sure, but please think about it, leave a comment and I’ll share my thoughts on the subject on Friday.

Until then if you’re reading this and haven’t got a blog of your own, why not sign up and get involved? It's great fun, even if you can only post on an irregular basis. This really is a case of the more the merrier.

Until next time,
D

What was said

If only I could open my mouth
And for once not regret
The words that spilled out
And escaped

Better would have been to
Even though not proved wrong
Eat my words
Chew them over and swallow
Never to break forth
Erupt
Destructive as any volcano

Where was my wit
Sparkling intellect run dry
Or washed away
Did drowning cause the sorrows
It’s not like this with anyone else

But the words did escape
And you laughed at my confession
Turned away
And left me to mourn
What was said

In the beginning was the word… and the word scored pretty poorly when used in scrabble

So, as they say, what on earth is going on?

I have to concede that I’m not entirely sure myself, but to try and give you some idea you probably ought to check out this link.

Hopefully that makes things a little clearer, and if it doesn’t, well c’est la vie as I believe they say in Yorkshire. Let’s cover some basics.

Who am I?
I am Dave Marshall, formerly a student of religion at the University of Kent in Canterbury, more recently a low level administrative assistant for Wiltshire County Council. You may think that my job sounds quite boring, you would be absolutely right. I shall endeavour to steer well clear of the subject in all future posts.

Why am I blogging?
As the link above hopefully explained this is just one small part in what should be a whole network of other blogs. Many of the people in this group (including myself) are connected by the UKC Creative Writing Society, so please anticipate a fair amount of poetry and writing of a creative nature in among these assorted blogs. I’ll endeavour to draw your eyes to as many of the best pieces as I can.

What about this blog?
When I started university I blogged on a semi-frequent basis for the best part of two years. You can view that now defunct blog here. With this new project I’m going to try and move away from those longer personal posts/rants on a wildly eclectic set of subjects, instead I’ll be aiming to stick to the stated purpose, namely poetry and creative writing. With a different aim in mind I thought it best to start an entirely new blog.

What can you expect?
Well, I’ll have to wait and see how much activity there is across the network, but I’ll certainly be aiming to blog pretty regularly for the first month or so, then we’ll see where we are. Any predictions I make about the subjects of future posts are almost always doomed to wild inaccuracy, but if this blog doesn’t contain a fair few poems, a good helping of comment and terrible spelling and grammar then I would be very surprised.

So thanks for reading, check back soon and please feel free to drop me a line if you’ve got your own blog that you’d like me to take a look at.

Until next time, this is Dave Marshall telling you to wear more hats