What's on your mind? Once.

What's on your mind? Better yet, what should be? ..what's on mine? MUSIC, Ramadan, Mockingjay, Fifty Shades of Grey, Czech Republic, Vietnam, arts.. and food :)

For the past months, my hands have been full with moonlighting here and there; whereas now that the kids are on a two-month vacation, it's summer and Ramadan is fast approaching, I could say that I have and will have the luxury of time for whatever! Strangely though, it's almost as if I had already forgotten how to deal with this much time! 

So much so, that I found myself enjoying Marketa Irglova's & The Swell Season's kind of music.. only enjoying at the beginning but grew fond and kind of obsessed with it now. Goodness! How could I be so into them?! ..not that the music is bad or there's nothing extraordinary in it. In fact, I find it very refreshing (Swell Season's), personal and touching (Marketa's). However, I do not always go into digging even the tiniest details about singers or celebs. Blame it on the free time! :p

And so, I've got a lot to say about them. 

Have you heard of the movie "Once"? I'm guessing a lot of you haven't. Well, I don't blame you for that. It came out as an independent low budget film back in 2006. I've only seen it over a year ago. I must say, though, that it was a very lovely movie about music! So what's the connection?

Here's the clip from the movie, please give it a bit of your time :)

Song: Falling Slowly
Won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards

for the movie Once

The movie featured Glen Hansard (Irish) and Marketa Irglova (Czech) who were known later as the musical duo "The Swell Season". In real life, the guy was from an Irish band while the girl was only a high school student back then. They made the movie without any expectations of getting anything out of it! True enough, the movie came out to be really simple - the lead characters have no names; the supporting actors were their friends and family; the cameras were rented; there were no permits for filming; the passers by never knew they were in the scenes (as long lenses have been used).. and yet there was something about it that captured the hearts of many. 

It was known later that both shared the same feelings that time. Moreover, what made it special I guess is that the songs used, played and sung in the movie were all theirs. They composed it, gave it tunes and rendered it realistically in the movie very well! Such gifted people!

Here's one of their slightly upbeat song as a band:

Here's Mar after four years with the album 'Anar'.. going on her own kind of music, which I absolutely adore! ..And touring Asia on my birth month (sigh!)
I particularly like the lyrics in her songs.

We Are Good

Early morning, rising with the sun

Resting where the sky meets the earth

Feeling the first rays of sunlight reaching into my soul

Where they reinstate the sense of my own self-worth

If you're not good, you're bad
That's far too black and white
Behold the glorious sun in all its radiance bright
It too, at times, is obscured by the thick blue veil of night
Still the moon and all the stars continue to reflect it’s light. 

And so it is that we are good

Though we do not always do as we should

We lose track of right and wrong

And we’re not always standing strong

But still don’t you wanna believe

In things that eyes do not perceive

Like our light shining from within

That in a battle with our darkness can win 

The gates of heaven open up before me

As my heart is given wings and flies

Leaving all pretense behind, everything is crystal clear

Even the worry of uncertainty subsides

They say that time will come for us to be reborn

Into the newness of unity that has been torn 

Into duality, into “it’s us against them”

It’s from a place of fear that all our conflicts stem

We’re almost there, but not yet, still the stage is set

For the play we may enact according to our contract

That we may both you and I, with everybody in our home up high

To awaken from our deep and long undisturbed though hardly peaceful sleep

If to look is to know the grace, which you bestow 

Upon those that you would raise into a kind and loving gaze

Then to look is to see everyone as good as they can be

I love Broadway, but I'd be equally happy to see people like The Swell Season or Mar perform live! I'd willingly pay even if it would be costly! Hence, the frustration of not being in Singapore or Seoul this August!!!

Anyways, if you're lovin' them, here they are again, live :)