Don't dream It - Be it!

September 17th was a very important, very exciting day for me. 

That evening, across the country, there was a live broadcast of the anniversary show for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It marked 40 years of corsets and stockings and time-warps.

The show itself was superb. Stunning in an unconventional way (I expect). But few people understand exactly what this show means to me.

I’ve been watching the show regularly (at least once a fortnight, if not more) for years now, all throughout my adolescence. When I first saw the show however, I was very young, maybe 13.

Now, when I was 13, there is no denying that I looked just like some dorky, spotty, mousey little kid. I was tom-boyish and lacking any form of girly frame. I was very, very uncomfortable in my body, I was very worried about trying to be sexy, and I was very worried about trying to be myself. I wasn’t very popular at school, and I definitely wasn’t considered very attractive.

My self-confidence, my ability to believe in myself, and believe I could be anything I wanted to be, was practically non-existent.

And then, I watched Rocky Horror, and I fell in love.

Now, Rocky Horror is all about freedom. The freedom to be whatever you wanna be, and to be proud of it.

“Don’t dream it – Be it!”

This message became more and more important to me, the older I got, and the more I watched the show.

It helped me realize that sexuality, promiscuity, confidence, your own body, were all things you shouldn’t be afraid of or ashamed of. I still struggle with these things everyday, but I gain a little confidence with every smile I get, and it really helps.

Tim Curry – love of my life and the most famous Frank-n-Furter of all time – is absoloutely my hero, because he is the pinnacle of all these messages. His character portrays such confidence, and sassiness and shamelessness, that it’s just impossible not to fall in love with him. I nearly always weep at the end when his character dies, because I don’t care how psychotic he was being, he represents the death of freedom – he is the very image of freedom, and they kill him, because they deem him unfit for society.

This film means so much to me, that when I had the chance to finally see the broadway version on stage, of course I was gonna go for it. But then, there was a problem.

I loved Tim Curry so much; as he played the role I’d known and fallen for years ago. I was worried that someone else (namely David Bedella, who takes on the role in the version this time round), just wouldn’t give me the same feeling of passion deep down in my soul. I’m very faithful to Tim Curry, he is tremendously important to me and my growth and development as a person, that I felt wrong going to root for someone else in his place.

Classic Tim...

...versus the "newcomer." (photo from loganriehl.com - not mine)

It was a very real moral dilemma, that honestly kept me awake once or twice. But I decided to give him a shot, and see how it went. I do not regret that decision.

Although I will always stick by Tim, David Bedella stepped into the shoes of this legend (he he!) remarkably well. He carried it in a very different way, but still managed to exude sass and sensuality perfectly (well, near perfectly). His performance of the role gave me a great deal of joy, and as it usually would, even though I know what is coming, I cried when he performed his final song and then was killed. It was incredibly emotional for me, just as it always is.

Not my photo - taken from google (credits to Nathan Amzi as far as I'm aware)

And the other wonderful thing about going to see it in the cinema, is meeting other people with just as much of a passion for it as me. These people cheered and heckled just like you would at any Rocky show – we were united, together in our enjoyment of something age old and wonderful, that must have been inspiring people for generations. We met another couple dressed up in the foyer, who loved our costumes so much that they gave us cool little badges to keep, and took photo’s of us. We got stopped in co-op on the way home for a photo opportunity as well.

Now that would never happen in everyday life, obviously, but do you know how good it feels that you can make someone smile like that? Where people would usually just look down and ignore you, they’re engaging with you – and it’s because you are part of a tradition that forms around freedom and confidence. You are putting on a mask, but maybe, just maybe, you are just putting on a true form of yourself? 

That’s how it feels for me. It feels like I’m releasing the person I’m really meant to be, and for one night, for just a little while, I was without shame, without anxiety, I was just in my element.

I’m moved to tears as I write this, for several reasons I suppose. One is the utter feeling of joy and exhilaration that comes from the experience itself, and then another is the sadness that it has passed and might not happen again for another 10 years.

Then there is another, all together more heartbreaking reason (for me anyway). It’s because, no matter how hard I dream and wish and try, it is a very real likelihood, that I will never ever meet my hero, and I will never be able to thank him and know him and finally settle that bit of my being to rest. My one real dream in the world, if I could do anything for a day, I’d love to spend even just 10 minutes with Tim Curry. To even be in the presence of this icon of sexual and emotional liberation, this wonderfully sexy, beautiful, amazing man, would be the most indescribably wonderful thing for me; it would lay a lot of my passion to rest, it would satiate my soul (at least for even a little while).

I write endless e-mails and letters that I mean to send, but then I begin to think, ‘well what’s the point? I’m sure it’ll never get to him anyway’. It breaks my heart, but that’s the truth. I wish to every known possible deity that the chance that he would read it were wide enough that I could try, but I know it isn’t – because I know he values his privacy. It has been many, many years since he performed that role, and he has played tonnes of successful rolls since, that I’m sure, given his age and health, he’d rather forget about it all. 

Tonight I saw a video of him during a get-together with the old cast. He only spoke for a few seconds, and he struggled I guess, but he was alive and well, and it was just a small moment of joy, because he was there, and he was just as wonderful as he always was – always is.

The dream is still there. It’s still alive, and I cling to it, like a comforting blanket that has that annoying itchy label – a constant reminder that it’s wonderful, but still not attainable.

Don’t dream it – Be it.

So if you’re out there Tim – Thank you, so much; I wish you all the health and happiness you have given me. 

and me.

My idol...

Top 20 of my favourite songs of all time...

"Music was my first love it'll always be my last..."

  Music, as many of  you well know, is a very very important part of my life. As such, when rather recently, a good friend and fellow blogger posted a blog about his top 20 favourite songs EVER(!), of course I immediately began thinking, and in thinking, it became a challenge... 

So it took me a few days of agonising thought, but I made it, I nailed down 20 songs I'd class as my all time favourites. But then came the real challenge.... I had to order them.... (dun dun DUUUNNNN!!) 

So that took me another day, and it's still jumping about a little now, but if I don't get this done now, I never will! 

So here it is, my top 20 - most of these songs are my favourites because they mean something special to me, so much like my blogging friend (I have no original idea's), I have added a little bit of blurb for each song, as best I can, we all know I blabber a bit: 

20) Cherry Bomb - Joan Jett 
A couple of the artists on this lists are also subjects of my girl-crushes; Joan Jett is one of these. She, in my world, is the purest representation of cool - androgynous, rock 'n' roll, bad-ass and beautiful, she is just... wow. She also happens to have inspired a bit of my recent fashion choices. But what I love most about her is her tenacity. She got rejected by 23 record companies, before starting her own record label to release her single "I love rock 'n' roll", which is pretty awesome in my world. She is one of the rock goddesses of our time, and there are pitifully few - and I feel this song, whilst a cover, sums her up perfectly, and I can't help but head bang to it. 

19) Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
Awh Amy - one of the 27 club, a wonderful, soul full, bad ass vocalist in a world of ever developing pop-tastic crap - I remember my father first buying the album when it came out, and he played it all the time, loudly praising her, and her individual, bad ass, rebellious style, it was probably the first "modern" album I'd been allowed to listen too, and it was beautifully refreshing and in keeping with my music tastes back then, and still is today. I miss Amy, she could have gone on to do so much more, but who knows... maybe she'd have been taken over by managers and producers and been twisted into a pop-tool, which was just not her style at all. 

18) Pretty Green Eyes - Ultrabeat
Many of you will know that my music interests span many genre's, and one of the most popular is, sadly, trance and club tunes. I know, I know, I'm a horrible person... But trance and club music just has such a wonderful beat, and those sick bass drops man, how can you resist?! :P This is one of my favourite dance anthems, because I remember it (again as a little kid) often being played in my uncles car on our adventures across the Cornish coast and countryside, with my uncle's scary, fast driving swaying me all over the place, and the bass system just delved deep into your bones, shaking them in their sockets - to this day that's my favourite sensation, that beautiful deep reaching bass. I re-discovered this song about a year ago, and the second I heard that first line, it hit me in the gut, just like a flashback; I get it every time I listen to it. 

17) Feels Like the First Time - Foreigner
Not only is it one of THE most classic rock songs, it's also just an awesome, great song! Something about Foreigner always makes me want to listen over and over on a 72 hour loop until I'm sick of it and can't listen to it for a couple of months. This song is wonderful, and has a very funny personal connection that I don't feel is appropriate to share with y'all.

16) Give Me Novocaine - Green Day
I love me some Green Day, and all their wonderfully spun lyrics - This song is one of my favourites, for when I'm having a bad time, I like to lie back in the bath and listen to this at full volume, the beat, the lyric pattern, it helps soothe my ravaged soul.

15) Home - Foo Fighters
I love Foo's, of course, and my all time favourite album (of theirs) has to be echoes, silence, patience & grace  - It's so wonderfully beautiful, each piece wonderfully rock out or hauntingly beautiful, and of that album, this has to be the most beautiful song - wonderfully simple for a Foo's song, beautiful lyrics, and just... blows me away every time.

14) Endlessly - Muse
Muse are, shamefully, rather a new addition to my music library, simply because I liked them, but never got around to listening to an actual album. However, when I finally listened to 'Apocalypse Please', I was having a real high of a day, and it was freakin' great - The whole album flows so so well, and each song is a great masterpiece, separately or as a part of the entire composition. However, my absolute favourite, the one I could listen to over and over and never get bored, is this one. The lyrical structure is just superb, and it's kinda trancey in a way, a real feel-good song... kinda perfect for the man I love (he totally won't read and see that, such a loser :P)

15) Harp for My Sweetheart - Archie Bronson Outfit
This is also a wonderfully beautiful song - an acoustic version of the original, which is also strangely beautiful although a tad thrashy for my liking, it's lovely, and I think conveys the tone of the lyrics better than the original. I love listening to it late at night, when I'm having a rough time, or a crap day. My mother played this one day in the car, and I missed the title, and I searched for years trying to remember, until recently it got played again, since then I've been catching up on the bands other bits and pieces, and I love it all... mostly.

13) Nicest Thing - Kate Nash
The thing I love about Kate Nash, is she's like an odd-ball version of Lily Allen, who oddly didn't make it onto this list, although I feel I prefer Lilly more... Kate has a great, fun tone and her songs are all quite poppy and dancing and funny and good for feel good listening. This is my favourite because it stands apart from all that, it's quite different from the Kate Nash I know, and because I relate quite strongly; I think deep down, everyone wants to be loved, needed and wanted as much as Kate does in this song - I know I certainly do, always wishing, hoping that someone you love is thinking about you, getting frustrated when you don't get a chance. Maybe not so often anymore, but I certainly used to relate to this song very strongly.

12) I Don't Care - Transvision Vamp
Wendy James.... I mean PWHOAR! Another one of my big girl crushes, she's wonderful. I have loved this song for many years, it's another song my mother played when I was very set on what I liked in terms of my own music tastes, but I can recall listening to the tape and warming towards it, and then years later I re-discovered it, and loved it so damn much I listened to it for about a week solid. I love a lot of stuff Tansvision Vamp did, and they were so wonderfully 80's, and Wendy's voice is just a little of, which is unconventionally great-sounding. I love it when she does her little screamy bits (technical terminology coming out here :P ) I just love this song, for the primary reason you can just get up and jump about, tossing your hair like - you guessed it - you don't care! :)

(And she really is very gorgeous that girl..... *swoons*....)

11) Roll the Woodpile Down - Bellowhead
I was sent this song in a conversation about how much I was sure I didn't like folk music. I had tried, and I was just sure that it wasn't my thing. So my very folk friend sent me this, and I clicked on the link and carried on doing whatever I was doing, and then it stopped buffering and started playing, and I stopped in my tracks. Some songs have a very deep reaching feeling, it's kinda like falling in love I suppose. I listened to that song 17 times in one night, and still frequently listen to it on a loop. It is one of my all time feel good songs - I know if I need a pick me up, this song will do it for me, and I'll be dancing withing seconds of that opening instrumental. It makes me grin just thinking about it.

10) Memphis Soul Stew - King Curtis
This song is higher on the list mostly because of it's sentimental value. I don't like listening to it perhaps as much as I do some other songs on this list. It's important to me because it marks a very memorable occasion with my father; One day, when we came home from school, my dad put on a different record to this one, and played it reasonably loudly, but not earth-shakingly loud. We lived in a split house, so the upstairs was a different flat, with a couple living there, at this point in time, they were childless. They'd already come down and complained to me alone about my father's love of playing music, which had annoyed him. On this occasion, the man came down, and rather aggressively told my father to turn it off completely. My father, a fairly unreasonable man at times, instead chose to place this record on, and play it at full, bone shaking volume. He also played 'soul man', so loud that I got the worlds most intense headache. We danced around the living room laughing, me clutching my ears at time (and I like my music LOUD). They never complained again. This song always reminds me of that moment with my Daddy.

9) Take Good Care of My Baby - Bobby Vee
Again, It's so high on the list because it reminds of my dads and my afternoon's in the pub with him, scrounging money to pop in the jukebox, when all I ever played was this song and Lily Allen "Smile". Used to drive the regulars nuts, but I definitely stuck to my favourites when I was a kid. I still wasn't brave enough to dance back then.

8) Rape Me - Nirvana
Probably one of my grittiest favourite songs. Nirvana fans sometimes get a bit of stick for misinterpretation, but I feel that Kurt wrote a song so boldly obvious to tackle such a stupidly ignored issue. Rape was a little smoothed over back then, and to an extent still is. This song is so angry, and just so obvious - it's just screaming "Go on, do it! Because you can fuck me over, hurt me, beat me and ruin me all you want, but you are the monster; you are the mess; you are the ass hole; you are what is wrong with the world; and you will get what is coming to you, and when that happens, it'll be me that's raping you! You will be gotten back!" And it's a real powerful song, written by such a wonderful, complex man - a real statement for an issue that a lot of people just glazed over or made excuses for. It's also so brilliantly angry, and when you're in that mood, that's what you need.

7) My love Is - Holly Golightly
I've never actually seen the woman, so I don't know how she looks- but she sounds damn beautiful! This is definitely my favourite Holly song, the first one I ever heard on a album given to me by my wonderful Godmother Nikki, who seemed to just know what to give me that year for my birthday, because I fell in love with her. I lost touch with most of Holly's music for years, and then, once again, recently re-discovered them, and I'm just as in love now as when I was 10 :) This song also makes me think of my wonderful man, and my endless wealth of feeling for him.... *mushy moment over*

6) Nice Guys - Kev Jumbley-whats-his-face and others
I'm adding this as a wild card. This song is utterly hilarious, but also has a very personal connection. I was first played this song by a "boyfriend" who loved anime, showing me anime music videos, and I loved it so much, now that whenever I hear it, I can't help but laugh and think about him. It's also just quite a good song :P I also like to send it for my man when he's failing to be enough of an ass hole.

5) Ball and Biscuit - The White Stripes
I have no real big reason I like this song, I just really really do, it's got a great vibe, and I often use it for my own odd form of meditation. The whole album works well for it.

4) Closer - Nine Inch Nails/Asking Alexandria
I first heard this song as the pop goes 90's version of it, which I absolutely loved, listened to A LOT for about a month. I was then sent the original version by a friend, and loved that too. To this day, I can't decide which I love most, and they/it has since formed a very personal connection for me, which again is a bit silly to talk about here. I get the oddest looks when I sing it near old ladies in my little girl voice.

3) The Road to Hell - Chris Rhea
I have loved this song since my daddy used to play me the extra long version when I was very little. I still listen to it when I go to bed now. It's such a timeless, great song, real bluesy and soulful and wonderful. The higher up/lower down my list I get, the less words I have for these songs.

2) I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
I was strangely in love with this man when I was a little girl. I have since realised he is a bit of a man slut... and a bit dead... But his music still remains as amazing, and slightly crazy. One of the best voodoo blues musicians of our time, and this song, over all the versions that have ever come to light, remains my absolute favourite - I sing it everywhere, and when I'm alone, I enjoy doing the weird screamy bits... I'm a freak, I know.

1) *drum roll please!* *drum roll noise of some sort*



....



You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
Classic rock was always bound to win, and AC/DC is about as classic as it comes - these vintage geezers have blasted out head-banging tunes for years and years, and none do I love more than this song. It took a lot of deliberation, but I remembered when I first discovered this song, and that same feeling of falling in love, multiplied by a thousand - I'd stay up all night every night, gripping my headphones against my head, trying my hardest to make it loud enough, but that's where I went wrong - it is one of those magical songs that'll never ever be loud enough. There is never a time I don't want this song; never a time where I don't want it as loud as it will go. I think this song will probably be the death of me, and I'd die freakin' happy.

Well that was one of the most stressful challenges of my entire life....
I think I'll go take a lie down....
Wait, I forgot to add-!!...

Thanks for reading, as ever :)