Comforting Sounds

WE stood in the shrill electric light,

Dumb and sick in the whirling din

We who had all of love to say

And a single second to say it in.

"Good-by!" "Good-by!" -- you turned to go,

I felt the train's slow heavy start,

You thought to see me cry, but oh

My tears were hidden in my heart.

- Sara Teasdale

Back in KL now.. ahh, the familiar heat and humidity..... or rather, aghhhhhhh.. :P I was stone tired by the time I arrived because I didn't get any sleep on the 12-hour flight (well, I didn't really try to do so..). How did I occupy myself on that long stretch of time spent more or less confined to a 2x2 ft space (the seat next to me was empty and I had a window seat)? I watched a teen movie on figure skating called "Ice Princess", not once, but TWICE; watched the same National Geographic extreme sports feature, not twice, but THRICE; read the inflight magazine from cover to cover (and decided to filch it because there was a good world map near the back); read the entertainment guide and shopping catalogue from cover to cover (sad!); ate approx 3 turkey ham-stuffed rolls and had countless cups of orange juice offered by the cabin crew between dinner and breakfast (*burp*); read all the issues of (After)life in Gothland that Mo got for me, plus the free issue of Boneyard (all v.v.g.); went through BJ: The Edge of Reason to find amusing passages with which to comfort myself.

The truth is though, I profoundly miss F already.. have since the moment I had to check in and we had to part. If I feel this way now, how do I endure not seeing being able to see, to hold him for months on end? I know we've done it before, but I doubt I'll ever get used to it..

Now, as I've gotten about 2 hours' sleep in the past...48 hours or so?.. I think I will get some sleep. If I have the energy, tomorrow I shall write more about the flight.

One more thing... I spent the afternoon compiling a new playlist for my radioblog.. something to hopefully make up for the long drought. Thus without further ado, I'd like to present Siryn's selection of old bootlegs, covers, b-sides and unreleased songs from one of the greatest bands in the world, Radiohead! :) And the set begins with....

Nobody Does It Better (live) - Here is my absolute favourite version of this Carly Simon cover. Thom declares in the beginning that this is one of the sexiest songs that was ever written. I concur.

Black Star (live) - A favourite that always sounds good to me no matter how much time has elapsed since my last listen.

Sing A Song For You (live) - Sweet, morose Tim Buckley cover. Unreleased.

Lucky (live) - This is not just any live version, but the one with Michael Stipe on vocals, just for you REM fans.

What is it that You Say? - Early Radiohead; can be found on "On A Friday" demo tape.

Lozenge of Love - Contemplative acoustic track named after a line from a poem. Thom's voice takes on a somewhat luminous quality here..

Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong (live) - This grows on you. Listen to the lyrics. Love hurts?

Maquiladora - Early rawk from our favourite Oxford boys. Pretty darn cool.

Wish You Were Here - Thom York and Sparklehorse cover Pink Floyd. According to GreenPlastic.com, Thom sang his part over the phone from his hotel room, and those extra bits you hear in the background were from the TV in his room. I think this is the right file, though it doesn't really sound like Thom... good song anyway. :)

True Love Waits (live) - This is very likely a bootleg from 2001, when the band started playing the track on their live sets. Beautiful song with seemingly bizarre but oddly touching lyrics. Another favourite of mine.

Creep - And last but not least, a suitably slacker-angsty acoustic version of the song that gave the band their break, and gave thousands of geeks (or geeks-at-heart) around the world an anthem. Enjoy.

Note: This is the actual order of the playlist; I tried numbering the tracks but they still won't be arranged in the order I want. Oh well. Have fun anyway.