Music Monday: Of Arcs and Stone and Rifts and Storms

So, I'm still thinking about Em and Alex...and Lex today. This song speaks to me when I think of them, but it also makes me think of my own expat journey. To boot, it is just beautiful, speaking of wandering and travel and new lands and home. The best line, the one that encapsulates everything I'm thinking about as I start work on the next Arcstone novel, is the chorus: "In the cathedrals of New York and Rome/There is a feeling that you should just go home/And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is."

(This live version is particularly lovely.)

Cathedrals

by Jump Little Children

In the shadows of tall buildings
Of fallen angels on the ceilings
Oily feathers in bronze and concrete
Faded colors, pieces left incomplete
The line moves slowly past the electric fence
Across the borders between continents

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome
There is a feeling that you should just go home
And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is

In the shadows of tall buildings
The architecture is slowly peeling
Marble statues and glass dividers
Someone is watching all of the outsiders
The line moves slowly through the numbered gate
Past the mosaic of the head of state

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome
There is a feeling that you should just go home
And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is

In the shadows of tall buildings
Of open arches endlessly kneeling
Sonic landscapes echoing vistas
Someone is listening from a safe distance
The line moves slowly into a fading light
A final moment in the dead of night

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome
There is a feeling that you should just go home
And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is

Music Monday: This is the Time

I heard this song in the car and was struck. Or shook. I might have been shook. Anyway...

This has always been one of my favorites by Billy Joel, and the meaning has changed as I've gotten older. I'm on the other side of that life that he talks about, in the aftermath. But it also speaks to the decisions that are coming for Em in the upcoming sequel to Rift that I'm drafting during nano this year. She has been running madly toward the next thing for so much of her life...when she has time to slow down and look around, what will be left? I think of her when I hear, "You've given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you."

And come on...Alex/Lex? "So stay with me baby, I've got plans for you..." Right? Maybe that's just me.

And that's all I can say because of SPOILERS, SWEETIE. 

"This Is The Time"by Billy Joel
We walked on the beach beside that old hotelThey're tearing it down nowBut it's just as wellI haven't shown you everything a man can doSo stay with me babyI've got plans for you
This is the time to rememberCause it will not last foreverThese are the daysTo hold on toCause we won'tAlthough we'll want toThis is the timeBut time is gonna changeYou've given me the best of youAnd now I need the rest of you
Did you know that before you came into my lifeIt was some kind of miracle that I survivedSome day we will both look backAnd have to laughWe lived through a lifetimeAnd the aftermath
This is the time to rememberCause it will not last foreverThese are the daysTo hold on toCause we won'tAlthough we want toThis is the timeBut time is gonna changeI know we've got to move somehowBut I don't want to lose you now
Sometimes it's so easyTo let a daySlip on byWithout even seeing each other at allBut this is the time you'll turn back to and so will IAnd those will be the days you can never recall
And so we embrace againBehind the dunesThis beach is coldOn winter afternoonsBut holding you close is like holding the summer sunI'm warm from the memory of days to come
This is the time to rememberCause it will not last foreverThese are the daysTo hold on toBut we won'tAlthough we'll want toThis is the timeBut time is gonna changeYou've given me the best of youBut now I need the rest of you

Music Monday: Right Now

Well, I can't tell you why this song speaks to a project that I'm going to start working on soon because I am notoriously horrible with spoilers...but I can tell you that it is a YA book - a real one, not one that starts as YA and then becomes NA because I'm an old lady who thinks she is still in her late 20s - and that it is a fantasy series. 

But I heard it as I was running an errand yesterday and it hit me that this is the motivation for one of the MCs in this story, especially this line: "Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm / And nothing falls into place, no / Only missed by a fraction / Slipped a little off your pace, oh..." I mean that line could be written on my tombstone or be found if you looked me up in the dictionary. That's my whole life, right there...and that's her life too.

Crap. Spoilers. Anyway...while I'm not a fan of what I like to call Van Haggar, the music in this song is all Eddie Van Halen and his amazing skill on the piano and guitar, and when this mysterious YA story becomes a movie this song will be in the soundtrack, no doubt. 

,/center.

Right Now
by Van Halen

Don't want to wait 'til tomorrow
Why put it off another day?
One more walk through problems
Built-up and stands in our way, ah
One step ahead, one step behind me
Now you gotta run to get even
Make future plans or dream about yesterday, hey
C'mon turn, turn this thing around
, hey
It's your tomorrow
(Right now),
C'mon, it's everything
(Right now),
Catch a magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything
Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm
And nothing falls into place, no
Only missed by a fraction
Slipped a little off your pace, oh
The more things you get, the more you want
Just trade in one for the other
Workin' so hard, to make it easier, whoa
Got to turn, c'mon turn this thing around
, hey
It's your tomorrow
(Right now)
C'mon, it's everything
(Right now)
Catch that magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything
It's enlightened me, right now
What are you waitin' for?
Oh, yeah, right now
, hey
It's your tomorrow
(Right now)
C'mon, it's everything
(Right now)
Catch that magic moment, and do it right, right now
Oh, right now
It's what's happening
Right here and now
Right now
It's right now
Oh
Tell me, what are you waiting for?
Turn this thing around

Music Monday: An Early Throwback Thursday

So I sat down last night to find something to watch on tv and stumbled across one of my favorite movies from my younger days, The Lost Boys. While there are cultural things that were lost on me as a teenager not growing up on the West Coast, I was mesmerized. To this day I still am, even though I've seen it so many times that I know all the words.

I still say good dog when Nanook knocks the vampire into the bathtub.

So this just makes sense that I would find this movie after discovering an old manuscript in my hard drive and thinking for a few minutes about trying my hand at writing paranormal romance. 

You will all be glad to know that I'm sticking to fade to black for now.

Cry Little Sister (Theme from "The Lost Boys")by Gerard McMahon
Last fire will rise behind those eyesBlack house will rock, blind boys don't lieImmortal fear, that voice so clearThrough broken walls, that scream I hear

Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall)Come, come to your brother (Thou shall not die)Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear)Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)
Blue masquerade, strangers look onWhen will they learn this loneliness?Temptation heat beats like a drumDeep in your veins, I will not lie
Little sister (Thou shall not fall)Come, come to your brother (Thou shall not die)Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear)Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)
My Shangri-La, I can't forgetWhy you were mine, I need you now
Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall)Come, come to your brother (Thou shall not die)Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear)Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)
Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall)Come, come to your brother (Thou shall not die)Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear)Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)
Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall)(Thou shall not die)(Thou shall not fear)Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill)