Work in progress. Started this one late last
year, but sometimes the words don’t come to
you until you’re ready.
“They say be careful with everything you do
offer these warnings and cautionary tales
make me afraid to choose
but why go apologize
for things that fit just right
I’ve got to go, the world is mine tonight.”
[cover] vertical horizon’s “sunrays and saturdays”;
Sometimes, I get really nervous when I’ve had possibly too much time away from a place. It’s usually because when I come back, I’m not entirely sure where to put myself.
It kind of reminds me of how it was when I still did the handful of lives I did before. The location is the same, you have your designated cheering squad scattered around the room — but there are a few unfamiliar faces in the crowd.
That element of “newness”… that can be a little nervewracking.
(Okay fine, a lot. ;p)
That seems a bit silly when we consider that this space is supposed to be my little slice of the Internet, but I think that sometimes it’s only human to want to get a feel of things. So. Hello, let me reintroduce myself:
My name is Noelle. My friends call me Noey. I love to sing.
—-
I usually ramble about the covers I do in conjunction with people in my life and things that go on in my life. This is because each song that I pick up and learn usually resonates with me and my thoughts and certain events that happen.
But sometimes songs “get” to us not because the situation is exactly the same. Sometimes, it’s because something in the song speaks to us of where we are now.
Vertical Horizon’s “Sunrays and Saturdays” is a song about two people going their separate ways. They were in love, but they aren’t anymore. Or at least, not the way that they thought they ought to be. But it’s not just about: “Hi, I love you, goodbye now.”
It’s more: ”Things didn’t turn out the way we both wanted it to, but that doesn’t change the fact that love was there and still is, and that’s perfectly okay at the end of the day.”
And also, it’s… I suppose it’s also about how while starting fresh is really scary and not always easy, it is vital that you learn to to trust that everything is going to be okay.
Because it will.
All you need is a little faith, enough courage to ask for hugs when you really need them, and all the good things that will remind you to you smile.
i should be turning in for the night. i have work in a couple of hours.
except that… i have all these emotions running through me right now.
there are days when i am very bad with words. these days are usually when they matter the most; when i really, really want to say something and have people get what it is i’m trying to express.
days that i’m afraid i’ll say them wrong and then no one except me will understand what it is i wanted to put down. because it means to much to get it right. to reach out and say: hey. you mean the world to me.
i had a conversation with one of my longest and oldest friends earlier yesterday aftenoon. she and i have known each other since we were kids hammering out songs on two different pianos in an auditorium that is there still, but not quite the same. our conversation went like this:
Her: one song can change you
not everyone gets to go to narnia
you know
some of us get to listen to a song
or a band
or read something
and get transformed
while being in the same place
it may take months?
but it’s pretty much
the equivalent of any change you can find in a story book
i don’t know if i’m making sense
but
Me: no you are
and i am a mess at work
haha my makeup
(don’t say sorry)
Her: i just know that things can change you
when people can’t reach you
Me: (i put this on so that the damn thing could be ruined)
Her: ahahah, make-up
there is nothing wrong or weird with wanting to tell them
that their song made things happen for you
there is nothing wrong with having to sing it
there is nothing wrong with being touched
=====
months ago, a health scare in the family got me thinking: it’s been over a decade, noelle grace. maybe you’ve got it all wrong. maybe you… maybe you’re pushing for something too hard. something that’s not meant to happen. maybe you should just stop and give up. set aside that keyboard. put away the words you match to the white and black keys.
and then. well. hey. the universe throws a curveball in the guise of five amazing boys. and then something somehow clicks into place. and you realize: you can’t. not yet.
how can you when you see them push and push and go out there, focused on their dreams. how can you say that you find them that amazing and not try.
again. and again. and again. until you get to where you need to be.
so, yeah. no cover this week from me.
just a thank you. and a song.
=====
[original] “SALISI”
music: Noelle Pico ; lyrics: Noelle Pico, Mags Forto
just like a wake-up call two seconds too soon
when i am startled out of sleeping and washed over in blue
and my heart’s chasing this unnamed, fleeting feeling
that’s gone off there with the evening
as the sun peeks all over you
and like a half-remembered dream i keep on thinking
that i’ve messed up all the details that brought together truth
and this ‘we’ of ours, a word left untranslated
i wish i’d seen it, i would have seized it
freeze-framed it so i wouldn’t have had to fall
it was all sleight of hand, accidental trick,
this crime of opportunity,
my pockets emptied of affections
i cannot really afford to really feel
and what is worse is i can’t blame you,
i can’t get mad or even shame you
for an unintended something
that neither of us would have known
and i wonder do you see a half-made memory of me
your eyes, that smile, your voice — calling out my name
and i — i wonder how it’s fair at all to want to say goodbye
we’ll chalk it up to déjà vu
this love from me
to the ghost of you
and me and everything
that we could have
ever tried to be
let’s not define ourselves
by what we’re not,
maybe one day
we’ll time it right
but for now let’s breathe
and let go
at the count of three
Source: SoundCloud / sheisnoelle
[cover] jimmy eat world’s “the middle”;
i was supposed to have this up a few days ago, but recording at home in the dead of night can be tricky—
—especially when everybody and then some drives through the streets going vroom vroom prompting the dogs in the neighborhood to wake up to howl at the moon right when you’re on the final verse (i swear, i would either like a mute button for the world or for a sound-proof room, either will do).
i’ve been riding something of an emotional roller-coaster this week, so getting this song down just right was very important to me not just because this was a present i was working on for someone very special, but because i wanted this to be encouraging and happy and hopeful — something that can be hard to convey when you’re not sure of where you stand.
it’s good to know though, that in our lowest of lows, the people who love us best will be there to remind us that they are there and that they love us, even when we don’t feel like we love ourselves very much.
so this song is brought to you by the first december rain from over here in the otherwise sunny manila, philippines. and i would like to dedicate this to my big sister, cyn.
happy belated birthday, my love.
I picked up Caroline Lufkin’s music after a friend realized that I was rediscovering OLIVIA (yes, they are sisters) and recommended that I give her a listen. I have a handful of favorites, but this particular remix of the track “I’ll Leave My Heart Behind” tugs at me, in particular.
I have friends who live on different shores — whether this is less than an hour away or so many hundred miles, the mere fact that I can’t call you out for catch-up time at my favorite coffee shop is something that I am acutely aware of.
Some of you, I grew up with in high school before you moved far away, some, I had the privilege of sharing conversation and hot chocolate with in college before life took us elsewhere. Some, I may have never seen face-to-face, but as it is with like-recorgnizing-like, distance is just space between friends whether this is an arm’s reach of that gap bridged by the Internet and all it’s contraptions.
One thing is fixed though: My heart is with all of you, no matter where you are.
===
I’LL LEAVE MY HEART BEHIND
CAROLINE (Caroline Lufkin)
24 hours til take off
And our last kiss good-bye
24 hours and I’ll be off
Off to see the world
Heart-strings pulling in me
Heart-strings pulling in me, in me
So I’ll leave my heart behind
Along with moments in time
Cause my heart won’t find
What it needs here
It all leads back to you
My heart behind
Behind
Flying through the clouds the air’s so thin
And I look back to the ground
Hoping I’ll awake to break this dream
But we have landed safe and sound
Heart-strings pulling in me
Heart-strings pulling in me, in me
So I’ll leave my heart behind
Along with moments in time
Cause my heart won’t find
What it needs here
It all leads back to you
My heart behind
I’ll leave my heart behind
I’ll leave my heart
I’ll leave my heart
I’ll leave my heart
Behind
[cover] girlyman’s “shape i found you in”;
this song came by special request. a very good friend of mine, who has known me since my freshman year of high school, introduced me to the original version of this about a year or so ago.
i always thought that it such a beautiful and yet, somewhat poignant song, especially given the subject matter.
often, we hear talk about how love is something that startles you out of silence; like fireworks lighting up the night sky. it takes you by surprise and sweeps you along, filling your vision with all that brilliant, bright light.
but there are rare times that it comes a different way: tentative and hesitant in the deep dark; careful, not out of fear for you, but for itself. because love can do that, creep inside of you and find a place before you are even aware of it.
[cover] savage garden’s “to the moon and back”;
i think it’s been over a year since i posted any covers, so you’ll need to forgive me for being a little rusty. live-recorded at home, in the dead of night with my trusty rufio and the ipod touch.
this song goes out to a couple of my friends. you all know who you are.
i might be making some changes around here *gestures to webspace* because i realized that half the time, i postpone posting because i’m too preoccupied with getting a ‘finished sound’ (this is something i could hypothetically manage… if my bizarre work/sleep schedule wasn’t what it was and real life concerns weren’t so pressing).
so anyway, this is a first in a series of posts that will be tagged as outtakes: upstairs in the workshop. this is something new so bear with me.
i’m hoping to make full use of tumblr’s audio post option to create a timeline for my works-in-progress (just to say, i have a to-do list as long as the stretch of ortigas, thereabouts).
the posts i share here will include me rambling and stumbling over notes and songs and whatnot. it won’t be pretty or polished and you’ll hear a lot of ambient noise in the back, but it is something i want to do and share with all of you who’ve shown an interest in my sound. like a… virtual diary/pseudo!podcast whathaveyou. lmfao.
now, without further adieu—
notes from the workshop: you may have heard mention of SALISI over here. this is essentially my first… conceptual piece, wherein i try to get across the meaning of the word that i’ve used as a title. many thanks to my lovely marguerite, who spent the early hours of a morning to help hash out the stuff that needed to be said in order for the music to take. i hope you guys like this sample.
—N.
“Stability, intellectual peer and monster sex machine,” is how Downey describes his wife. “And she runs the show.”
“The missus and I work incredibly hard to stay current with each other, to be kind to each other, to ignite each other when we can,
OH WHOA WAIT HOECHLIN IS SEATED AWAY FROM THE CAST TO SIT WITH BRITTANY SNOW that’s just so cute and sweet ;u; ♥
