i've never felt very connected to the words of this song, but i love the melody, and i can imagine the feeling behind the words through the melody. for the melody alone, this is one of my all-time favourites of the classics. i don't know why it ends early because i barely remember recording this. maybe i never did..

moon river

i don't feel no pain no more
i don't feel no pain no more...
i've left this cruel world behind
and i've found my peace of mind
i don't feel no pain no more

--
this song marked me deeply as a child, watching the credits of 'the plague dogs' rolling and not knowing if the characters i had grown to love would survive. the suffering they had been through - was there any point to it? and yet, if they could transcend to some better place, as the film suggests they might, then perhaps it didn't matter that there was no point. maybe the fact that we get to leave is the point.

there is so much i absolutely love about being alive. i have a thirst for life more than i ever did before at this point. but to process much of the pain i have experienced, most of the time feeling alone in it because my struggles are not 'normal', i sang this and it helped release some of it. and it helped to listen back on this and know, something beautiful has come of that pain. singing is alchemy for suffering in that way; so is writing. in fact, perhaps all art is. it's just pure alchemy. i love art. i want to be an artist so much, so i can live my life celebrating this, honouring this, being art. sorry for the oversharing. bye. hope i didn't make you sad.

i don't feel no pain no more

sing me a song
of a lass that is gone
say, could that lass be i? 
merry of soul, she sailed on a day
over the sea, to skye
billow and breeze
islands and seas
mountains of rain and the sun
all that is good, all that was fair
all that was 'me' is gone...

i remember watching season 1 of this show when it first came out and hearing this theme song opening slowly to build to a gorgeous climax of bag pipes and Raya Yarbrough's voice, evoking such a strong sense of longing and hiraeth in me (a very concise Welsh word for 'longing for something you've never had') that i honestly didn't know what to do with it at the time - other than become obsessed with 'outlander'! 

i think it'll always have a cherished space in my memory, this song and this show. reading Diana Gabaldon's book series (which the show is based on) also gave me a deep appreciation of home and family. i'm grateful to have spent so much time reading those books.

sing me a song of a lass that is gone

This recording marks the time in 2023 that I was discovering Jenny Hval's music and really enjoying the visceral plethora of her work. On this album, Classic Objects, each track feels like a deeply profound conversation on philosophy and meaning with a friend. 

It really flowed when I sang this, the song 'Classic Objects', although this was really only my second attempt. So it doesn't really sound like the original - listeners of Jenny will note. But I remember how happy I was at that when I first listened back to it; the result was so spontaneous! I was pleasantly surprised; I'm used to sticking quite close to the original when singing a song that's not mine, even when I try to lend my own 'twist'. I just felt comfortable improvising with this song. Perhaps because of the genre, the mood or something else.

I share this with the hope that someone out there might enjoy this meandering recording. Perhaps to just relax, or to think... Thank you.

Lyrics:

There was a painter in my first studio space
I remember, she used to attach her own hair to her paintings
Left out in the hallway, versions of her face:
Desperate but hopeful

A row of death masks, fusing life and death together
I mean, life and art; or is it 'death and art'?
Or maybe it's just me

At times, I have been obsessed 
With connecting to textures and materials
And I dreamed of having a face made of marble
A face made of marble

How do you kiss, how do you kiss 
A piece of a marble, or a piece of gold?

I've always tried to prove that I'm the living
Connecting dead parts (dead parts, dead parts)
Once I tried acting, I was the virgin in the cast
Like I wasn't human
Performing alabaster, an empty canvas
The shape around the other
In a silent pageant, away from emotion

Now I rearrange objects 
That my friend made for my show
I'm not sure if these are art or just stuff she made for me 

But I rearrange them on the countertop
Like I'm examining a stage plot
Working on my performance, examining the borders
Living my text

Two dead parts (two dead parts)
Two still lives (two still lives)
Two dead parts (two still lives)
Two still lives...

Two dead parts 

Two still lives

Classic Objects (Jenny Hval cover) interpretation

Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand, vanished from my hand, left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping... My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet. I have no one to meet, and the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming in. Oh hey, Mr Tambourine Man, sing a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey Mr Tambourine Man, sing a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I'll come following you.

A groggy cover of the first part of Mr Tambourine Man I sang one morning recently. It helped to wake up and sing that; I felt hopeful afterwards. For me, Mr Tambourine Man is the spirit in all of us that wants to hope and to create. Calling him over to me in my shabby little house in Dublin, like 'hey, sing me a song!', just felt so awakening. 

I like to communicate with things when I sing, with feelings or even the spirits of things, whether that of my own buried dreams or the spirits in the earth I like to imagine I glimpse whenever I walk in a wood or by a river. I think singing is meant to be a communication. More than just a performance or a show, it's a joining of hearts. Maybe that explains a little why I felt so energised after singing this.

Mr Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan cover)

a little song I started singing some months ago, thought I'd share it here.

lyrics:
but what is the meaning
if it's not a feeling
that I've found something beyond the door
that I love you more and more
and you love me more and more
more than you did before

The last three lines were actually added on by me during this recording, I don't know if I'll keep them. I like their melody though. my mouth was quite close to the phone here as I was singing very quietly (singing undercover as usual!) so sorry for any weird mouth sounds... D:

what is the meaning if it's not a feeling (original)

This new album from Aurora has been a special comfort to me. It offers emotional release from so many sources of pain, or elation, or despair common to us all today... I fell in love with this song on the first listen. It clicked in place with an experience I've had in my own life. Next time I sang, I found myself singing it (in the middle of a thunderstorm!). I hit record to remember the experience of doing that for the first time. 

I share a lot of first takes on this channel. I know it's not the best, that you don't get the best takes that way. I didn't even remember to sing the last melody, which floats off at the end in the song... But there is something about first takes which always feels immeasurably special to me. Thank you to anybody out there who listens. I hope you are okay. I hope, if you can find it, you can heal your own invisible wounds.

Invisible Wounds (AURORA) cover

It hurts so much, to be in touch
With the essence of us

(Another thunderstorm session recording). I felt the message of this song to my very core the first time I heard it the day the album released. I connected with so much on this album, What Happened To The Heart. It is a feeling I hoped to get from Aurora's previous album The Gods We Can Touch, but it really wasn't much about that. 

But you know, if anything, this song suits more the mood of this year than the years before. It's about the horror and the beauty of the essence of us. Truth, lying in the arms of a fight. What paradoxes we must endure as they rip us apart, what hypocrisy and poison we must swallow just to live in this world as aware human beings, with their 'whole lives' ahead of them... Our world is so sick, so very sick, and people like Aurora are the only ones who give me hope that it might heal again.

The Essence (AURORA) cover

I am a singer, not a musician. I sing and I record myself singing with my phone, so most of these tracks on here are of poor quality. But if you have come here for substance, for emotion and raw articulation with a human voice, then I invite you to stay. I have never shared some of these recordings before now. But they comfort me, so I want to offer that comfort to others. I will not share my name or identity for the purpose of keeping my singing isolated here. That's all I want to share. If it is a 'gift' I have, then let it be a gift to the few. I'm okay with that. Thank you for being here, even if you just stumbled on it. I hope you are doing okay.

Mr Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan cover)

illanellinor

Related tracks