I’m not even a Reylo shipper (I just thought they would be revealed to be relatives, not an anti-shipper) but that LOOK on Kylo’s face. I may be reading too much into it...but there was...such a gentleness there.
THE LATE SHOW (A parody by yours truly sung to the tune of Copacabana)
Inspired by Harry Styles and James Corden rocking it all week on @latelateshowcbs ! Harry was a natural in the comedic skits and it's so great to see him collaborate with James. I hope it will happen again.
This morning the first song I heard was Michael Jackson’s Love Never Felt So Good, and it reminded me of when I was younger and waking up in the morning was the bane of my existence. My mother would come into my room and put on my MJ music on full blast.
“It’s Michael, time to wake up!” she’d insist.
As annoying as mornings were, this did the trick. I’d awaken instantly. Moms know best, don’t they? Today I can only reminisce about these memories. My mom is gone, and that’s the hardest pill to swallow. It keeps me awake at night. The one person who knew me best, saw me through my flaws and my dark side, and loved me anyway, that person is gone. Yet little things like this, hearing Michael on the radio, remind me of the good times.
I just listened to the entire album and I’m so proud to be his fan right now.
It’s making me emotional, it’s a very grown-up record this one. It’s making me realize that he grew up before our eyes, and for a lot of us, we grew up with him too. Only he’s now on his own and flexing his artistic muscles, as well he should.
I’m excited to see the direction he’ll take with these songs on tour, and frankly, 10 songs have left me wanting MORE.
Ever since New York I just keep clicking on that Harry Styles Snapchat filter so I can hear Woman this is how far I’ve gone it’s a sign of the times he’s such a sweet creature I’m moving to Carolina.
When I watched the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, I was immediately taken with the soundtrack — I even wrote about it here. It’s still one of my favourite film soundtracks, and always will be.
A lot has happened since the first film, not only in the fictional realm but in my life too.
(Spoilers Ahead for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2!)
Peter Quill had an awesome mom who shared her love of music with him. Peter Quill lost her.
I couldn’t possibly have related to that in 2014, but now my own awesome mom who shared her love of music with me is gone. There were some parts in the film that hit awfully close to home, like Peter’s recollections of her. So I cried a lot, laughed a lot, laughed while crying even. Still, I left that cinema hall uplifted and I know it’s because of the music.
That’s true in real life. Music has been my constant. My therapist. My home — because my definition of that word has changed. I can always go back to my music and it won’t let me down. And I realize that my strongest connection to my mother is through the music we loved listening to. Come to think of it, Mom enjoyed the first film’s soundtrack just as much as I, in particular — Hooked On A Feeling. We both agreed that we preferred Blue Swede’s version to the one by B.J. Thomas — because the latter lacked “ooga chakas”. Up the volume would go. Ditto for 10CC’s I’m Not In Love.
There was never a moment in my life that was without music — and that’s only because of my mother. For one thing, she ALWAYS had the radio on. We had a radio in every room — even the kitchen. When the radio wasn’t on, she would lament that it was too quiet. Last year she was obsessing over YouTube and Spotify — excitedly searching for her favourite songs. I’ve kept her account intact, just so I always have a record of the songs she was listening to. When you lose someone you grasp at just about anything to keep them close. On my bad days, when all I want is to talk to her, I find refuge in songs.
Like Peter, my mom got me my first Walkman as a kid in the 90s, and believe me when I say it was with me constantly. Following that was the mp3 player, which also was a companion that always had a place in my bag/pocket. Now we have music on our phones, and I can’t imagine not having my Spotify playlist a click away.
When people prioritized packing clothes for trips, my mom and I would get excited about what music to bring to play in the car. It started off with cassettes back in the day and progressed to CDs. My car only has a CD player, no USB port, so I still love having CDs. We had this ritual until our very last trip together, which was sadly a few days before she died. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody on that trip, she really loved that song. I can still remember the first time she heard it because I was singing this line:
“Mama, I don’t wanna die,
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all”
I’ll never forget the horrified look she gave me after I sang it, it was almost like she thought I meant those words. She asked me to play it again, and that kickstarted her Queen fandom. There was eventually an unwritten law in our house that whenever a Queen song came on the volume would be eardrum-shatteringly loud. I always loved that we influenced each other’s music tastes. As a child, a lot of time spent in record stores (bookstores too but I’ll save that for another post!), so we both accumulated a lot of cassettes. I’d listen intently to her cassettes whether it was The Beatles, Shirley Bassey, Tammy Wynette or Jim Reeves. She indulged me with soundtracks and VHS tapes of Disney films and musicals, and lots of Michael Jackson.
So when Peter Quill’s Walkman is destroyed in the film — my reaction was quite visceral. When the Walkman is later upgraded, I almost wanted to fist-pump. Peter isn’t Peter without his music, we saw that in the first film. Here we see it’s now a shared sentiment — with even Rocket requesting a little background music. Heck, even the baddies get in on the music, with one character quoting lyrics and interpreting them his way, in a telling scene.
It’s a testament to the power of music, be it for dancing, romancing, villainy or heroism. Or purely for joy. Joy is such a foreign concept to me lately. But encapsulating myself in a cocoon of music is sometimes the ONLY way I can get my mind to quiet down, and forget the pain. It’s my only shot of joy on days when darkness attempts its hostile takeover.
Yesterday when I watched the film, I tapped my feet, sang along, and grooved to the music, because it felt good to do so. And boy, have I missed that feeling. Plus, I’d like to think if I had the soundtrack to Vol 2 playing, and my Mom was here, she’d turn up the volume for Brandy and Come A Little Bit Closer, and we’d be singing out loud. So for my Mama, I won’t stop singing along, or tapping my feet, or dancing. Or turning up the volume way too loud, for that matter.
“The tabloid press are bastards, and you’ve got to have rhinoceros skin to deal with that kind of ignorance mentality. They do it simply to sell papers, because bad news sell, not good news. They simply make it up. If they don’t have anything, they just make it up. I’m nothing like the way the tabloids have painted me out to be, nothing. Nothing like that. They’re the ones who are crazy. They’re ignorant. I always say to my fans, ‘Let’s have a tabloid burning. Let’s make a big mountain out of tabloids and just burn them.’ The real fans who love me know that garbage isn’t true. They know. They’re smart.”
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