happy birthday to me

This time last year I was in France, she sighed with nostalgia. 23 was a very good year (cue Frank Sinatra). And if I have anything to say about it, 24 is going to be even better.

I'm giving you all permission to use me as an excuse to eat cake and drink really good wine. Now let's meme!

I'm going to be a total lesbian and steal the 7 songs meme from my girlfriend's blog. In no particular order:

• Thea Gilmore, Even Gods Do.

I indulged in a birthday present for myself, the album Where's Neil When You Need Him?, a collection of artists doing musical interpretations of the works of Neil Gaiman (one of my most favorite writers in the entire multiverse). Neil's been singing Thea Gilmore's praises on his blog for a while, so she wrote a moody, noirish folksong about his novel American Gods.


Bring the Gods
Line them up one by one
Turn the coin
Sound the fife and the drum
Wreck it down
Til Kingdom comes back here

She's got a smoky, soulfull voice and perfectly captures the atmosphere of the book.

• Martha Wainwright, Bloody Motherfucking Arsehole

I expected this song to be a rocking, furious punk-metal song, but it's a rocking, furious British girl with an acoustic guitar, and it's amazing.


I will not pretend
I will not put on a smile
I will not say I'm alright for you
When all I wanted was to be good, to do everything in truth
You bloody motherfucking arsehole



• Mathieu Boogaerts, Ondulé

Just a cool funky little French song that makes me think of Paris.


Here and there, by the moon
Without any firm ideas
It is a shame
I never feel the same

• Voltaire (with the Oddz), Come Sweet Death

Another one from Where's Neil..., about the character Death from Gaiman's The Sandman comics. According to the liner notes:

"I'd like to write a song about Death," said Voltaire, "but I want it to be the most upbeat, uptempo, bouncy song about Death you've ever heard." He did, and it was.




No eerie skull.
No scary scythe.
You've a pretty face
And a warm embrace.
I never dreamed
Death could be so sweet
Til she came for me.

It's somewhere between 80s New Wave and ska, like New Order meets the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I love it.

• John Wesley Harding, Bastard Son

John Wesley Harding is a cheeky bastard. I want to be cool smart-ass with a guitar when I grow up.


Bob Dylan is my father, Joan Baez is my mother
And I'm their bastard son
Though my roots show through I'm just 22
I don't belong to anyone
When The Band was disbanded, I was disowned
I got a number you can ring me on but I ain't got no phone
Got a forwarding address, baby I ain't got no home
I got no direction home
That's the style of a bastard child
This is the song of a bastard son




• Loreena McKennitt, All Soul's Night

One of my favorite artists singing about one of my favorite holidays. After nine years she's finally releasing a new album next month, and I can hardly stand the anticipation.



Figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows
Held up tall as the flames leap high
The Green Knight holds the holly bush
To mark where the old year passes by

I can see the lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Soul's Night.




• Sharon Burch, Sacred Wind

Burch is a modern singer-songwriter creates folk music expressing her Navajo culture in her native language. It's a beautiful fusion of indigineous tradition with contemporary styles.