According to lithub.com (a great website by the way!!!), when Alexander Pope declared his love for writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu the picture below captures exactly what happened. The poor guy...I can imagine exactly how he feels.

a good song for your Friday...

I will gladly embrace any new song that sounds as good as this one. This is such a lovely listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uYXw_rHHDE

Part of trying to find the part of yourself that you feel you have lost is getting back to the things that once made you so glad to get up every morning and greet the day with enthusiasm. This song is really, really appropriate for today:


 "The Swing Of Things" (a-ha)

You say the world's an eventful place
You give me news
I don't want to know
You say that I should care
That I should speak my mind

Oh, but how can I speak of the world
Rushing by
With a lump in my throat
And tears in my eyes
Oh, have we come to the point of no turning back
Or is it still time to get into
The swing of things

Let us walk through this windless city
I'll go on till the winter gets me
Oh, "sleep..." you wrote "sleep, my dear"
In a letter somewhere

Oh, but how can I sleep with your
voice in my head
With an ocean between us
And room in my bed
Oh, have I come to the point where I'm losing the grip
Or is it still time to get into
The swing of things

Oh, when she glows in the dark
And I'm weak by the sight
Of this breathtaking beauty
In which I can hide
Oh, there's a worldful out there
Of people I fear
But given time I'll get into
The swing of things

Yes, when she glows in the dark and
I'm struck by the sight
I know that I'll need this for the rest of my life

What have I done
What lies I have told
I've played games with the ones that
rescued my soul
Oh, have I come to the point where I'm losing the grip
Or is it still time to get into
The swing of things

Apple Music continues to have albums pop up in the "heart" section that pleasantly surprise me. a-ha's "Hunting High and Low" showed up today and I could not help but listen to the whole thing and remember how much it spoke to me when I was in high school, sophomore year. I received it on vinyl as a birthday present from my best friend at the time and remember thinking it was the neatest, most beautifully moody thing I ever heard.

Even more effective, though, was their follow-up album Scoundrel Days which I think still sounds as good as it did back way back when. AllMusic's review captures it quite well:


by Ned Raggett:

While not quite as strong as the band's debut, Scoundrel Days is still a-ha succeeding as a marketed "pretty boy" band which can connect musically and lyrically as much as any musical sacred cow. The opening two songs alone make for one of the best one-two opening punches around: the tense edge of the title track, featuring one of Morten Harket's soaring vocals during the chorus and a crisp, pristine punch in the music, and "The Swing of Things," a moody, elegant number with a beautiful synth/guitar arrangement (plus some fine drumming courtesy of studio pro Michael Sturgis) and utterly lovelorn lyrical sentiments that balance on the edge of being overheated without quite going over. Although the rest of the disc never quite hits as high as the opening, it comes close more often than not. A definite downturn is the band's occasional attempts to try and prove themselves as a "real" band by rocking out, as on "I've Been Losing You" -- there's really no need for it, and as a result they sound much more "fake," ironically enough. Other songs can perhaps only be explained by the need to translate lyrics -- "We're Looking for the Whales" isn't an environmental anthem, and neither is "Cry Wolf," but both also don't really succeed in using nature as romantic metaphor. When a-ha are on, though, they're on -- "October" snakes along on a cool bass/keyboard arrangement and a whispery vocal from Harket; "Maybe Maybe" is a quirky little pop number that's engagingly goofy; while "Soft Rains of April" captures the band at its most dramatic, with the string synths giving Harket a perfect bed to launch into a lovely vocal, concluding with a sudden, hushed whisper. The '80s may be long gone, but Scoundrel Days makes clear that not everything was bad back then.

Sometimes, I just feel like I am going to tell the person I like I like her, which is not something I could or should ever do. I know this may sound incredibly odd, even nonsensical, but I feel like telling someone besides myself will keep me from saying it to her one day in an unguarded and really off moment. I do not think I would because I would be too afraid to and yet, somehow, the fear (that I will somehow tell her) is also there. And, so, I think of my blog as a way to safely send it out there, no matter how silly that may be. It really is so hard to care about someone you are not supposed to...