Yesterday I finished Neil Gainman’s Stardust.
In the edition that I’ve got there’s also a prologue to Stardust; The Story of Wall.
It’s just a few pages but it’s about a girl who’s out on a field and sees a magpie land beside her. Then comes another one, and another one, and another one until there are seven of them.
It the book the girl remembers a rhyme that goes like this:
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for girls,
Four for boys,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told
As I read the rhyme I realised that that is also part of one of my favourite Counting Crows songs, A Murder of One. This got me thinking that they must’ve gotten the rhyme from somewhere and perhaps so did Gaiman, unless of course he actually wrote it himself, I find that somewhat unlikely though.
Since I can’t a find a good answer to this question on google (all I found there was people debating whether the rhyme went up to ten or not, something I seriously doubt the original rhyme does but that’s a different story) I’m now stretching out to you, my few, earnest readers in an attempt to clarify this. So the question is, who originally wrote this rhyme and how does it actually go?
This Wednesday evening I went to Debaser Slussen and saw Saybia in Concert.
I was supposed to see them last year but they canceled so I was really looking forward to this.
The first time I saw Saybia (and the only time before Wednesday) was back in 2003 I think.
They played at Hultsfred in a small arena that took only 1000 n the crowd and had a low ceiling that provided us with a great atmosphere. That is to date still one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen and I had never heard them at all before it.
So back to Wednesday.
As you understand I had some great expectations when we arrived and when I left I was indeed very happy.
I’m not really sure how I can summarize the show so I don’t think I will.
However I will mention the fact that I love their mix of old goodies with new material. I didn’t recognize all songs they played since I mainly listen to songs recorded pre 2003 so I really woke up and came to life when they played those songs. And they did play quite a few of them.
When they came back for their encore and played I Surrender I knew that this concert had made it into my top ten list of all times. It was pure magic.
The only downside was that it was almost a bit too dark so you couldn’t really see the bands faces which is something I like to do because that really gives you that feeling that the people on the stage are actually no different from you and me, they just have a skill that we don’t.
I just got back from the Coldplay concert in The Globe Arena. My legs hurt after standing in one spot for nearly three hours but I’m satisfied still.
We bought the tickets to the concert months ago and shortly after I told my sister I was going to see them and her spontaneous thought was “boooring”. At that point I didn’t really disagree with here. I’m not a huge fan but one of my friends convinced me to go along (it didn’t take much to do that) so I did. And I don’t regret it.
They never played Trouble from Parachutes and that disappointed me a bit but not much since I wasn’t really expecting them to and I would have wanted it to last a bit longer, I always do after a live concert but just over 90 minutes is a tad short. Besides that it was a great show. Their music came alive unlike when you listen to their CDs that, at points, can almost make you sleepy. Combine this with a great show where lights and video played a big part and you have one helluva party.
I did record two short bits and I’ll see if I can get them up here when I’m not in bed, otherwise i just might blog some youtube clips just so that I can sneak in on the blog and watch them every now and then
