Posted by Bel. The time is 5.21pm here in Wellington NZ
Your favorite song
"Glory Box" by Portishead, from their debut album Dummy.
This live version is pretty chill-giving:
I first heard the song in the movie When The Cat's Away, which is directed by Cédric Klapisch. When I was young, my mum used to take me along to the movies with her whenever something interesting was screening. The 'film festival' proper never made it to our hick town, but some arthouse releases did occasionally, and it felt like such a treat to 1) be chosen by my mum to go along with her to such a distinctly adult event and 2) watch films that I was pretty darn sure were Not Appropriate For My Age.
When The Cat's Away is one such example. I didn't realise it at the time, but it was my introduction to a French director whose work I would come to love (The Spanish Apartment, Paris, etc - sorry, Lou, I know you don't care) and an actor who I was one day destined to marry and have super cute Frenchie babies with...
Less than a few years later, my longest-known friend Jane, who had been and gone and lived in England and returned, was very much established as the understated bastion of cool. She disappeared off to Wellington (THE FAR AND DISTANT LAND OF) one weekend for a "gig". This was not something we did. I've already covered how one of the subversive acts of my younger years was going to the cinema with my mother, right??
Anyway, Jane is back at school on Monday morning, cooler than ever and still not aware of it, and she is nice enough to lend me the CD of the band she went to see. It is, of course, Portishead, and I do, of course, spend the rest of my life kicking myself for never again having the chance to see them live.*
She also did pretty much the same thing with Radiohead. I have not felt such shame until I found out my "beloved" (I hated him for quite a while for this) saw Nirvana live.
*Portishead are infamous for being wary of performing live and toured minimally before breaking up. They reformed like 10 years later, just recently, releasing what has to be one of the most hyped and most disappointed albums I have ever experienced.
I was in the front row of that gig! Beth Gibbons jumped off stage into that area in front of the barrier to grab a smoke off someone - she was *this* far away from me!
sorry.
Gahh! Yes, that's the one - I remember Jane telling that story. It seemed so immeasurably cool at the time. And still now, too.
*sob*