SOUNDTRACK: HALEY BONAR-Tiny Desk Concert #570 (October 11, 2016).
Haley Bonar was born in Canada but raised in the U.S. She 
is a folksinger with a country leaning (but without the twang). For this Tiny Desk, Haley plays acoustic guitar and sings lead. She had a keyboardist who sings great harmonies. And behind them there’s a guy playing electric guitar (with great echoed effect), a bassist and a drummer.
“Hometown” has a great catchy chorus (well, and verse too). It’s upbeat but melancholy at the same time. There’s a very cool echoed slide guitar solo in the middle of the song.
Bonar doesn’t speak much, expect to joke about the appropriateness of the second song. “Jealous Girls” is slower and moodier. (“Jealous girls don’t have no fun unless they’re sure they’re the only one). The middle section of this song is really cool, the way it changes the mood. She doesn’t play guitar on this one, but there’s some great lyrics at the end of the song:
And you turn up your guitar
In another shitty bar in another shitty town
And you wonder when you’ll wake up
Yeah you wonder when you’ll wake up
From this long distance daydream of
Playing while girls scream
Alone in a hotel
Like piss in your ice cream
I love that the way this end part is sung and played it seems like it’s going to transition to another part. But that’s just the end.
“Called You Queen” is a fast folkie song. I really like her delivery on the verses. The chords for the chorus are fairly obvious but are really catchy anyway. It’s a really good song. The abrupt ending (with a hint of echo on the guitar) is spectacular
I didn’t know Bonar before this set, but i really liked it.
[READ: March 9, 2016] “Gold Boy Emerald Girl”
Yiyun Lee had a story in a 2008 May issue of the New Yorker as well. I have enjoyed pretty much all of her stories. This one was quite different from the others in that the whole story has a feeling of inevitability to it. And yet it was a kind of gentle inevitability that almost didn’t seem to be there. Or something.
The story is about two adults, Siyu, 38 and Hanfeng 44. The opening paragraph tells us that she was raised by her father and he was raised by his mother.
Siyu knew Hanfeng’s mother because she was a Professor and Siyu worked for her a while ago. But the Professor is now retired and Hanfeng has moved back home after a stint in America to live with her.
And we see now that the Professor has set the two up on a date.
The story is told in a very gentle, unhurried way, as befits the story of these two who have taken their time with thee lives. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 