TEARDROP

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ
SONGWRITERS: ELIZABETH FRASER; ROBERT DEL NAJA;  GRANTLEY MARSHALL & ANDREW VOWLES
COUNTRY: SWEDEN
ALBUM: IN OUR NATURE
LABEL: IMPERIAL RECORDINGS
GENRE: INDIE
YEAR: 2007
 
        José Gabriel González(born 31 July 1978) is a Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist from Gothenburg. González is also a member of the band Junip, along with Tobias Winterkorn.
         In Our Nature is the second studio album by Swedish singer-songwriter José González. It was released on 24 September 2007 on Peacefrog Records in the UK and Imperial Recordings in Sweden. It was released on 25 September 2007 by Mute Records in the United States. The album received generally positive reviews from critics: on Metacritic, it has a score of 72 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".
          The album's lyrics address the human condition, or the nature that the title refers to. Though the sonic palette features classical guitar and vocal melody, as in his debut Veneer, it is occasionally expanded. Hand claps, backing vocals and synthesizer are some notable additions.
          In Sweden, the first single was "Killing for Love", whereas in the rest of Europe it was "Down the Line". Both singles came with the same B-side, a cover of "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat. The second single released was "Teardrop" (backed with the exclusive instrumental B-side "Four Forks Ache"), and the third single was another split--"Killing for Love" in the UK, and "Down the Line" in Sweden. Both singles came with the same B-side, "Neon Lights".
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Feathers on my breath
Gentle impulsion
Shakes me makes me lighter
Feathers on my breath
 
Teardrop on the fire of a confession
Feathers on my breath
 
Night, nights of matter
Black flowers blossom
Feathers on my breath
Black flowers blossom
Feathers on my breath
 
Water is my eye
Most faithful mirror
Feathers on my breath
Teardrop on the fire of a confession
Feathers on my breath
Most faithful mirror
Feathers on my breath
 
Teardrop on the fire
Feathers on my breath
You're stumbling into all.

OCCASIONAL RAIN

THE WAR ON DRUGS
SONGWRITER: ADAM GRANDUCIEL
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: I DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
LABEL: ATLANTIC RECORDS
GENRE: INDIE
YEAR: 2021
 
        The War on Drugs is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 2005. The band consists of Adam Granduciel(vocals, guitar), David Hartley (bass guitar), Robbie Bennett (keyboards), Charlie Hall (drums), Jon Natchez (saxophone, keyboards) and Anthony LaMarca(guitar).
      Founded by close collaborators Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile, The War on Drugs released their debut studio album, Wagonwheel Blues, in 2008. Vile departed shortly after its release to focus on his solo career. The band's second studio álbum Slave Ambient was released in 2011 to favorable reviews and a lengthy tour.
         The band's third album, Lost in the Dream, was released in 2014 following extensive touring and a period of loneliness and clinical depression for primary songwriter Granduciel. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim and increased exposure. Previous collaborator Hall joined the band as its full-time drummer during the recording process, with saxophonist Natchez and additional guitarist LaMarca accompanying the band for its world tour. Signing to Atlantic Records, the six-piece band released their fourth album, A Deeper Understanding, in 2017, which won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. The band released their fifth album, I Don't Live Here Anymore, in 2021.
        I Don't Live Here Anymore is the fifth studio album by American indie rock band The War on Drugs. It was released on October 29, 2021, through Atlantic Records.
Into the mouth of control
Take me down where the river strays
Where it flows outside the lines
Where it's picked apart and thrown away
Now I'm finally feeling free
I'm living down by an old par three
You know I'll be playing
 
Come around, don't take it hard
Don't let 'em stone you when the comedown starts
You've been moving much too fast
You never know just where it ends
What would I find living this life without you?
 
I got swept up in a world so strange
One you'd never even recognize
Oh, but I slipped away
Now I'm a stranger and I don't know why
It's killin' me, but your words
They brought me out onto steady ground
When I was wounded and ashamed
 
And now that my heart is empty
Where should I go?
You've always been a constant
My loathing star, where do I go
Yeah, without you?
 
Feel the storm coming on
Feel the darkness at your gate
Live the loneliness of life
Keep on moving at your pace
Ain't the sky just shades of gray
Until you seen it from the other side?
Oh, if loving you is the same
It's only some occasional rain
 
It's only some occasional rain
It's only some occasional rain.

IT NEVER WAS YOU

JUDY GARLAND
SONGWRITERS: KURT WEILL & MAXWELL ANDERSON
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: JUSY GARLAND: THE CAPITOL YEARS 1955-1965
LABEL: CAPITOL
GENRE: POP
YEAR: 2002
 
            Judy Garland(born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer, dancer, vaudevillian and television and radio presenter. She is widely known for playing the role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz(1939). With a career spanning 45 years, she attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Renowned for her versatility, she received na Academy Juvenile Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Special Tony Award. Garland was the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which she won for her 1961 live recording titled Judy at Carnegie Hall.
           Garland began performing in vaudeville as a child with her two older sisters, in a vaudeville group "The Gumm Sisters" and was later signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She appeared in more than two dozen films for MGM. Garland was a frequent on-screen partner of both Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly and regularly collaborated with director and second husband Vincente Minnelli. Other starring roles during this period included Meet Me in St. Louis(1944), The Harvey Girls(1946), Easter Parade(1948), and Summer Stock(1950). In 1950, after 15 years with MGM, the studio released her amid a series of personal struggles that prevented her from fulfilling the terms of her contract.
            Although her film career became intermittent thereafter, two of Garland's most critically acclaimed roles came later in her career: she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in A Star Is Born(1954) and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). She also made record-breaking concert appearances, released eight studio albums, and hosted her own Emmy-nominated television series, The Judy Garland Show (1963–1964). At age 39, Garland became the youngest and first female recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her as the eighth-greatest female screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema.
           Garland struggled in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of early stardom affected her physical and mental health from the time she was a teenager; her self-image was influenced by constant criticism from film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive and who manipulated her onscreen physical appearance. Throughout her adulthood she was plagued by alcohol and substance use disorders, as well as financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Her lifelong substance use disorder ultimately led to her death in London from an accidental barbiturate overdose at age 47 in 1969.
I've been searching through rains
And the wind that follows after
For one certain face
And an unforgotten laughter
I've been following signs
I've been searching through the lands
For a certain pair of arms
And a certain pair of hands
Yes, I tried a kiss here
And I tried a kiss there
For when you're out in company
The boys and girls will pair
But it never was you
It never was anywhere you
An occasional sunset reminded me
Or a flower hanging high on a julep tree
Or one red star hung low in the west
Or a heart-break call from a Meadow Lark's nest
Made me think for a moment
Maybe its true
I found him in the star
In the call
In the blue
But it never was you
It never was anywhere you
Anywhere, anywhere you.

CABARET

LIZZA MINNELLI
SONGWRITERS: JOHN KANDER; FRED EBB & JEAN-CLAUDE COSSON
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: CABARET
LABEL: MCA RECORDS
GENRE: SOUNDTRACK/POP
YEAR: 1972
 
         Liza May Minnelli(/ˈlaɪzə/LY-zə; born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy (Grammy Legend Award), Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Minnelli is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
          Daughter of actress and singer Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, Minnelli was born in Los Angeles, spent part of her childhood in Scarsdale, New York, and moved to New York City in 1961 where she began her career as a musical theatre actress, nightclub performer and traditional pop music artist. She made her professional stage debut in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward and won a Tony Award for starring in Flora the Red Menace in 1965, which marked the start of her lifelong collaboration with John Kander and Fred Ebb. They wrote, produced or directed many of Minnelli's future stage acts and TV shows, and helped create her stage persona of a stylized survivor, including her career-defining performances of anthems of survival ("New York, New York", "Cabaret" and "Maybe This Time"). Along with her roles on stage and screen, this persona and her style of performance added to Minnelli's status as an enduring gay icon.
          An acclaimed performance in the drama film The Sterile Cuckoo(1969), marked a film breakthrough for Minnelli and garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She rose to international prominence with her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the musical film Cabaret(1972), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Most of her following films, including Lucky Lady (1975), New York, New York(1977), Rent-a-Cop (1988) and Stepping Out(1991), were panned by critics and bombed at the box office, and she had no more major movie hits except Arthur(1981). She returned to Broadway on a number of occasions, including The Act (1977) for which she earned a second Tony Award, The Rink(1984) and Liza's at The Palace....(2008), worked on various television formats and has predominantly focused on music hall and nightclub performances since the late 1970s. Her concert performances at Carnegie Hall in 1979 and 1987, and at Radio City Music Hall in 1991 and 1992 are recognized among her most successful. From 1988 to 1990, she toured with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in Frank, Liza & Sammy: The Ultimate Event.
         While Minnelli is known for her renditions of American standards, her early-1960s pop singles were produced to attract a young audience. Her albums from 1968 to 1977 contained contemporary singer-songwriter material. In 1989, she ventured into the contemporary pop scene by collaborating with the Pet Shop Boys on the album Results. After a hiatus due to serious health problems, Minnelli returned to the concert stage in 2002 with Liza's Back and was a guest star in the sitcom Arrested Development between 2003 and 2013. Since the 2010s, she has avoided huge concert performances in favor of small retrospective performances.
"What good is sitting alone In your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.
 
Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
It's time for a holiday.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum
Come to the Cabaret.
 
Come taste the wine,
Come hear the band.
Come blow a horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting.
 
What good's permitting
Some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret!
 
I used to have a girlfriend
Known as Elsie,
With whom I shared
Four sordid rooms in Chelsea
She wasn't what you'd call
A blushing flower...
As a matter of fact
She rented by the hour.
 
The day she died the neighbors
Came to snicker:
"Well, that's what comes
From too much pills and liquor."
But when I saw her laid out like a Queen,
She was the happiest... corpse...
I'd ever seen.
 
I think of Elsie to this very day.
I remember how she'd turn to me and say:
"What good is sitting all alone in you room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret."
 
And as for me,
I made my mind up back in Chelsea,
When I go, I'm going like Elsie.
 
Start by admitting
From cradle to tomb
It isn't that long a stay.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Only a Cabaret, old chum
And I love a Cabaret.