Amado Mio

The first time I heard this song (which was by sheer accident), I was enchanted. Some songs make me very happy whenever I listen to them (regardless of where I am or what my mood is) and I don’t really know why. There are quite a few tamil songs that do this to me (theeraadha vilayaattu pillai is one) and that is a topic of a separate post. There are some hindi songs (Kabhie Kabhie is one) that do this as well. The other English song that do this is Uptown Girl by Billy Joel – I just start tapping my legs when I hear it – anywhere anytime.

So, I ended up listening to this song three times in a row. I learnt that the song is performed by a group called Pink Martini , whom I had never heard of. The group is not a mainstream one but is described (by themselves) as “Somewhere between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brazilian marching street band and Japanese film noir”. The more I found out about the group, my interest and admiration just grew. It looks like this group got started by a Harvard-alum with some of his friends and is based in Portland, Oregon – how cool is that?

I am not big on analyzing music, as I think that some things should be left unexplained to retain their mystery. If we examine everything, things either lose their charm or we cease to wonder. But I cannot get this song out of my system. Some days I play the CD just to listen to this one song. What is it about this song that is so enthralling? The lyrics are good but not extraordinary. I don’t know Western classical music and so I can’t talk about notes here. It is the combination of words, music and voice in this song that transports me to somewhere else.

After all this, you can imagine my glee when I found out that Pink Martini is performing in a nearby city, also by accident. I got the best tickets and made a grand date out of it. It was a surreal experience for me to listen to them in person. Of course, they opened the concert with Amado Mio, and that gave me goose bumps and I was at the edge of my seat. Everything that happened after that was anti-climactic. But this group is good – if you like variety in your music. They can sing in different languages – French, Spanish and even Serbian. Even though I don’t speak any of these languages (and maybe because of that), they all sounded authentic to me.

After the concert, the band was meeting with the audience and signing the CDs. I went and got some cash and stood in line for about an hour to get it autographed. The whole band was there and talking to audience (yes, that includes me!) and they were all so nice. It was an experience that I will remember forever.

If all this has made you want to listen to this song, check out the Pink Martini radio on their webpage (under Sympathique album). Better yet, find out when they are playing somewhere near and go see them in person. I tried to attach an audio link to an mp3 file I have on my computer but could not figure out how to do it. If anybody can help, it would be appreciated.
Do you have songs like this? Care to share them?

Some truly random thoughts to justify the title (I am going to start doing this once in a while as a friend pointed out that the blogs don’t seem random enough. See, I do pay attention to suggestions once in a while!).

Kutti Update: Kutti (our pet dog) has not been letting me sleep in peace the last couple of nights. One of our neighbor’s dogs is barking a lot at night (don’t know where the neighbors are) and that seems to agitate Kutti. So she starts barking in the house and yours truly has to take her out. It is very touching to see Kutti run towards that neighbor’s fence and bark with that other dog as a show of support. But it is disturbing (literally) to wake up a lot in the middle of the night. Because of this, I have been snoozing my alarm and getting up later than I planned to.

Love Monkey: I read somewhere that Love Monkey is like Sex and the City (SATC) with guys. Sex and the City is a show I love to watch (again and again) and so I decided to watch Love Monkey this week. Sorry to say that it didn’t even come close to SATC but was interesting in its own way. I like Tom Cavanagh from the show Ed, and thought the subject matter on recording artists and scouts was new.

James Frey Drama: I find the whole James Frey episode to be silly. If you haven’t heard about this, James Frey is the author of a memoir called A Million Little Pieces, which is about an addict going to rehab and all that follows. Apparently, this book was first sought to be published as fiction but the publishers did not want it. Then the book was described as a memoir and published, but we don’t know what changes were made to the book itself. I don’t understand how a book can be changed from fiction to memoir just like that. But it is an example of how a book is judged only by its cover. And why would anyone say that they went to jail, when they really didn't?! This underscores the reason why I don’t like to read non-fiction (memoirs included) as there will always be an embellishment when one tries to put something in writing. So, for now, I am sticking with fiction and expect everything written to be subjective and biased and tweaked (we are human, after all, aren’t we?).