Women, Music & Me

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I don’t know happened… Perhaps it was Sunshine’s introspectiveness that got me thinking, or it could be a song I heard on RSI the other day… In any case I started thinking about women with whom I was in a relationship at one point or another (i.e.: considered them my girlfriends). Even funnier: I didn’t feel bitter about it. Just memories. The fact that in my head every one of them is connected to a specific song is only a testament to me being a rather sick person (especially due to the fact that I’m tone-deaf and have no rhythm). But here they are:

M #1 – was my first and since we were both young it lasted for an appropriately long period (it really did). But all good things must come to an end and this song was the definition of the end of that particular relationship


J #1 – ah yes… the love, the pain, the suffering, the waiting… To be honest, I’ve partly myself to blame, since I was too blind to get the message (“let’s just be friends” interpreted as “maybe there’s still hope” – silly me ;)), but this one made a lasting impression – as did this relationship


M #2 – it lasted for only a brief period, but I’d say I finally got a whiff of the “real life” – just like this song


T – This too lasted briefly, but it was liberating in a way. Both mentally and -yes- sexually. So it’s no wonder this one almost always brings back memories.


J #2 – Fiery and yet we weren’t on the same wavelenght. But I remember how she partied to this music.


L – Ah… From heaven to hell – and then back to reality. This relationship was a true roller-coaster ride. And then it was no more


I was never romantically involved with P. – although I could’ve been, had I been thinking straight at the time. Things might have gone better (or worse, who knows). Sometimes I can’t help but wonder, what if… And this song usually gets me thinking about those fateful couple of days.


And now for something completely different: To make up for this rather boring post I will give away one (1) prize for the first person which will (in the comments, obviously) give correct titles of the songs and names of performers. Where there is more than one performer of the particular song, you are required to give both (or all) of them.

This one should be easy so I will cut y’all as little slack as possible 😀

Published by

pengovsky

Agent provocateur and an occasional scribe.

55 thoughts on “Women, Music & Me”

  1. j01 – Predin in Lačni Franz – Čakaj me
    j02 – Lenny Kravitz, Mr cab driver
    l – Magnifico, A. Vuica – Duet
    m01 – Tracy Chapman, B.B. King – The thrill is gone
    m02 – F. Sinatra, My way
    p – Dire Straits, Romeo & Juliet
    t – Magnifico, Ljubljana-Portorož

  2. Congratulations, Andraž!!
    … It wasn’t such a long walk, was it? 🙂

    Send me an e-mail – my address is here, so we can work out the details. You just won yourself a bottle of Balbi Shiraz 🙂

  3. Well, since I have most of the mentioned songs on my playlist it was not so difficult. 🙂
    I guess it would be easy for most of the visitors, I was just lucky to stumble upon your post sooner.
    Well, the email is on the way.
    Have a nice day!

  4. It would be even more predictable if my post about my ex boyfriends would cause this. 😉 I did exactly the same as you did now a few weeks ago. I wrote a resume about my past (failed) relationships. And it was the same for me. No bitterness, just memories. 🙂 And I’m also tooootally tone-deaf. But I at least have the rhythm. 😀

    About J #1: “too blind”, not “to blind” probably. 😉 And the “lets’ just be friends” misunderstanding is a mistake men often do. My bad memory about this is that usually I was the mean one after the revelation. Because I should have know. It was so obvious. Everybody knew he liked me. Blaaah. 🙁 I guess you have learned this one the hard way. 😉

    About T: Have you ever thought for a brief second that you wouldn’t be so picky and/or determined about who you want (and hence had probably more chances to start a relationship), if it wouldn’t be for this relationship?

    About L: I guess I wrote enough about the roller coaster relationship on my blog. 😉 So familiar. So exhausting. So over.

    I will generously let someone else win the contest. 😀 I’m at work and I would feel guilty if I spent some time searching for the titles and artist. 😉

  5. Hehe, it took me too long to finish my post. I though I’ll be the first one. Congrats! 😉

  6. The interesting part is (well, reading blogs and others’ experiences it isn’t so interesting at all, at least not any more 🙂 ) that most of my memories is linked to the past by means of little reminders. I can remember places, people, emotinos, names, circumstances, dates, clothing and various other details.
    A lot of the reminders are unusual words, there’s lots of music linked to the events (just like you link your partners to different songs and it has the strongest emotional context), other reminders are strong colors and combinations of them.
    Smell triggers memories of deja-vus, mostly from my dreams.
    Give me a detail from my past and I’ll tell you what we had for lunch. 🙂

    All I can sum-up from these facts is that it’s worth drawing no finite conclusions. Keep the memories, enjoy them. Don’t regret your past, because it’d meant you regret yourself.

    Hello Sonček, we meet again. 🙂

  7. In the retrospect and for a simple observer, it looks like a load of good and useful experiences tied to some good music… So, do you know which ones you’d like to repeat in the future?

  8. A picky person might say “a bit of this, a tad of that…”. But when you listen to a lot of music and when you listen well, you see that the principles are the same, it all shares the same root.

    Everybody should create his own music. Reflect his own beat.
    Music comes from a relationship, not the other way around.

    I believe there are songs you wouldn’t notice if it weren’t for the person next to you. Later, you’re linked to it forever.

  9. Andraž, I can only agree with everything you say: it is poetic and (all the more) true at the same time 🙂

    What I was asking about, is only: through relationships one does get to know oneself well enough to develop taste and distaste for certain tones, rhythms, refrains… But I’d say you are right again: there is no plausible reason why one should TALK about it.

    As to songs being connected to persons or events: yesterday I argued with some people about the priciple of something, per e-mail, and I chose “mojih 5 minut” as the subject – I’m afraid I sacrificed a good song for a bit of ideological bickering 🙂

  10. @alcessa: To be honest – none of them. I tend to think that if the trend continues (i.e: linking a person to a song) it will be a new person with a new song.

    @Andraž: I’m not sure if the principles are always the same. If they were then I guess one would find oneself in a viscious cycle, trying to (but repeatedly failing to) create “the ideal relationship”, with total disregard for the partner. Which I find rather selfish. In my case the woman-song link is only a vehicle for understanding the variety life brings. I think, at least 😀

  11. Pengovsky: sounds good 🙂

    But Andraž is probably right about one thing: it often happens that one gets stuck with identical/similar principles (as far as relationships are concerned) and, with a bit of bad luck, they are not good. They can also be pure fairy tales. And yes, many people “abuse” their partner the way you describe above. Unfortunately.

  12. @alcessa: Maybe it’s a dare, maybe it’s a misunderstanding, but I’m not writing about specifics because it would take an awful lot of time for me to put it right at this moment. I’m also at work, stealing moments. 😉 But I’ll take the time necessary later, ok?

    @pengovsky: I agree with the following: don’t treat your partner as a puzzle YOU have to get together. Don’t stand in front of him with a notepad and pencil to compare him/her with your checklist.
    Experience differences, learn and get non-addicted to any of them. They are equally important.

  13. @alcessa: The principles I was referring to were the principles of music. There’s rhythm, harmony, beat, … You can analyze ever song and at the end you can break it apart and get the basic parts. Can you filter them out, pick the best ones and create a new song?
    You could create a new song this way, but my bet is you wouldn’t like a single second of it.

    On the other side, you cannot create a partner the same way. And that’s why it would be a waste of ones’ life to reject every other possibility that doesn’t match your ideal one hundred percent.
    Try to concentrate on the best parts of a single individual and if it isn’t really vitally important for you, let the bad habits go, let other people care about them, if they’d like to.

    It’s the same for those people that stop at the first sign of a bad or even slightly unacceptable behavior, because they won’t get the chance to find out which are the best parts of such an individual and experience them.

    Once you get used to such a person (with differences from your ideal), there’s always time to talk about other stuff, if you find him or her enough acceptable for your life through the good qualities.

    Summary? Patience. Confidence in thyself.

    I liked the smile of my ex partner. She instantly became a child when she smiled and she wouldn’t hide it. I enjoyed every laugh with her, for her, even when I was in a bad mood.
    I liked the decisiveness of the other. She’d hold on through hurricanes to accomplish the goal. I respected her for that, because she wouldn’t whine and blame others when things went bad.
    I liked the sex with another one. The only thing that mattered when we were having sex were… well, the two of us and our ability to enjoy each other.
    I liked the spontaneous ideas and energy bursts from another one. She was like a volcano full of ideas for activities.

    I could go on and on. And most of them shared the main melodies, but there was always something different.

    Now I believe that many of us already have most of the described qualities, one just needs a fellow person to wake them and nurture them.
    That’s my main point. Focus on the good parts.

    Smile, I’ll smile with you. Get wild, I’ll be the one to accompany you. Be sad, I’ll support you but on the inside, my tears will flow with you.
    Get nasty, I won’t answer. Get raging, I’ll be raging more.
    Why? It’s my character, so I’d better concentrate on the good things.
    I know I’ll try to talk first, but once you show that bad things matter more than good ones in a relationship, I’ve no longer faith that you wish to remedy things.

    The hardest part of the whole process is to let go of just one quality, when you’re not confident enough in yourself that you can find combinations in other people.

    Another summary? Don’t hold on to the ideas you don’t like and don’t let them ruin your day.

  14. @Sunshine: Re your first comment: “too blind”, obviously… Don’t take it personally, but I (and many other men too) find the “let’s just be friends” approach degrading. Why? Because it’s a euphemism for “I don’t love you”. We may be fragile, but we’re not pussies. We can take it. And once you’ve been in love with someone, you cannot immediatelly switch to just being friends.

    About T: Actually I think it’s the other way around. Had I not been in this relationship I would have stayed fixed withing certain patterns – something Andraž and Alcessa elaborated later on

    About L: I don’t mind the roller-coaster ride in a relationship. But only if the foundation is sound. If it’s not, it’ll end in a train-wreck.

  15. As for the music I’d like to repeat… Every song triggers the memories of the past in me, but my intentions and my mood in the present don’t change. I have no “songs black list”, I like them all. 🙂

  16. Andraž:

    yes, I basically talked about music, too. Before I mentioned that I’m talking about relationships. (Because there is also the music of one’s own life story, for example.)
    What I didn’t say is that I’ve been sticking to more or less the same tune for the greater part of my life and still can’t stop wondering, how many frills and thrills it has to offer. New beats, the familiar tune underneath. Possibilities to join in or keep quiet and listen.

    And as you/I said: it is not necessary to talk (you say analyze the tune, I used the word talk) about it into detail…

  17. Fuck… I just realised that I didn’t erase the ID3 tags so that the artists’ names are displayed in the player… Well, still… rules are rules and Andraž gets his prize. Which is (in case you’re wodering) a bottle of Balbi Shiraz

  18. Erm…
    *A is peaking around the corner, notices P’s expression*
    Ouch.
    Pulls her lawyer’s business card from the pocket and throws a quick glance at it.Defiantly steps forward, like a big girl she is now.
    Erm…
    Suddenly notices there is a naked woman hiding behind P. Puts on her sunglasses and goes away, laughing

  19. @P: Pha, now you tell me about the tags! 🙂
    What, did the doll give you a break? 🙂
    In the future I should check the material you send, not just merely listen to it. 😉

  20. Don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally. It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. 😉 Do you need to hear “I don’t love you” to know she doesn’t love you? When she says “let’s just be friends”, she probably means it. Obviously she likes you, but not enough/not on the important areas to be her partner. So is it weird that she still wants you around? Totally different story is whether you’re capable of that right after you’ve been hurt or not. Most people are not, and that’s normal and ok.

    You say one thing, the other person expresses his/her preferences. If you say I like green color some will answer “well I don’t” and the others will respond “I prefer blue”. So if you say “I
    love you” the other person will respond “well, I don’t love you” or “I would prefer if we’d be friends”. Both statements are related to what you said. And both can be true. You just prefer to hear the latter. 🙂

    About “About T”: I was basically just thinking out loud.:D I too have discovered many new things, points of view and preferences from my relationships. But not all of them made my life easier. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to not know so well what I want. To not be so demanding. I know what I had. Now I want more. 🙂 And I know it will be freaking hard to find and that scares me sometimes.

    About “About L”: I absolutely adore roller coasters (and Roller Coaster Tycoon)! 🙂 But I hate roller coaster relationships. Honestly… I think that if foundation is solid roller coasters don’t happen. You have a few quarrels. Bad days. Some stupid misunderstandings / misinterpretations. Quiet days. Adaptations. All that is “easy come, easy go”. But you don’t look back to realize it was mostly terrible and painful fights with some peaceful time in between.

  21. I was thinking “roller coaster” in a broader sense of the word. With L I did things I always wanted (in all aspects) because she was (perhaps still is) rather wild. But it came at a price. And as the foundation wasn’t solid enough, the relationship broke down.

  22. I don’t know. She panted a lot and was beeping continuously… It’s been a while since my CPR training and I forgot what exactly that means…

  23. That you should disconnect the wires, because beeping is probably annoying as hell. 😀

  24. :))))))))))))))))))))))))
    You’re insane! I’m still gasping for air. 😀 This was a good one. What the hell.. this was a GREAT one!

  25. Are you trying to get me aroused? I mean, first the earplug fetish and now you flatter me? That’s a potentially explosive combination, you know 😉

  26. Oh, that’s nothing! Wait till I start (ab)using other precious knowledge about you that I got on your blog. 😛

  27. A. peaking around the corner, noticing there is no one there. Ančka lies there, the unwanted greyish piece of rubber she is.

    Pengovsky? Sunshine? Are you there?

    Murmurs:

    Where have they gone? What are they doing? And why not?!

    Puts on sunglasses and goes away, laughing

  28. @Sunshine: Take your best shot… or rather your best stroke (me being dirrrrty *slaps himself on the wrist*)

    @Alcessa: Laughing, or knowledgably humming and whistling? 😉

  29. Arsen recorded it circa 1999, but in cooperation with Zoran Predin who also translated it. So you can hardly talk about copying 😀

  30. You’re listnening?! Wow! 😀 It’s a new version Predin recorded with Mirjam Kalin, a mezzosoprano at Ljubljana Opera house. It’s from his new album “Čas za malo nežnosti” and we have it on “powerplay”

  31. Well, at 16.26h I “turned on the radio” (I have some work to do and occasionally like to have some music in the background), so, I only just clicked on Play and I got confronted with a version I hadn’t heard before 🙂
    Also, I like such duos… RTV Slovenija had a video of Vlado Kreslin and Neisha singing Njen trenutek prihaja which I enjoyed very much….

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