holy fuck!

so uh.

anyone who's reading this probably knows me well enough to know i CAN'T stand the damn celtic craze. or, for that matter, any sorta thing that takes some culture and makes it a fad to be indulged it. you know what i mean. where someone has like 1 drop of american indian blood and suddenly they're out worshipping the sun and moon and getting in touch with their "inner brave", blahblah.

okay, i'm digressing massively. point is: i can't STAND the celtic craze.

BUT.

for the first fucking time?

i understand it. my GOD do i understand it.

there's this song - ailein duinn? sung by meav? and...holy shit.

first time i listened, i was just...in shock. cuz it starts out all new agey celtic - you know, with the harp and the flute thang on top of this low pulseless bassline, and like...all mysterious otherworldly. you're (i was) expecting some stupid lyrics about like. druids and bards and shit. dismissing it already.

and then

it quiets.

and this girl's voice starts: and it's not english. it's GAELIC.

and you gotta understand i've never actually HEARD gaelic before. not sung in long sloping lines like this. it's just FLOORED me. i was like. wtf? what's this? gaeli--ohhh my god, this is pretty.

it's such a beautiful language. it's so flowing. i mean, in english, you have pretty discrete word-units in sound; one does flow into the next, but the vowels tend to be pretty short and there are a lot of sharp consonants.

not this, man.

gaelic is like...okay, maybe it's just this chick's voice? but it's clear and just flowing. not many sharp consonants. not many gutturals, either. a lot of "sh" "ch" "hh" sounds, too - these rounded vowels, all long, and just - all of it is so rounded and liquid.

oh my. god.

i'm in love. i'm not kidding. her voice is just incredible, singing this song. it's the way it lilts. it makes you think of oceans and birds. i don't know why, but just - like, green misty cliffsides near the ocean, sort of like in northern california, with seagulls swooping.

i'm ranting completely disjointedly. i can't put my thoughts together on this.

it's the way the lines of the song slope. the way they lilt - there's this one part that just sends shivers up my spine where her voice is just...buoyed, like a bird on the wind. you know what i mean. you've seen it, the way a gliding bird can kind of drop from one thermal to catch the next up?

that's how her voice is.

it just...soars up on an updraft, falls, and catches the next right up again.

same note held both times. but the difference in the surrounding notes - the first is major, the second minor - is so, so, so beautifully crafted that the tone is completely different the second time around.

aching.

oh , my , god.

i could WEEP. hahaha. okay, maybe not, but. it's aching.

meav is an incredible singer. you don't even notice all of it at first. it's just the absolute clarity of her tone. it's so sweet and...

you know, i've always heard people say so-and-so's voice is clear like a bell? this is the first time i understand. just. so beautifully delineated, without being rigid. and the way she curls her tongue around the sounds...

...it's fucking sexy, man. hahaha. oh man, i know, i know. everything goes back to sex for me. but you gotta wonder, if she can curl her tongue around a syllable like that--

okay no, i'm not gonna go there.

it's just the breathy-but-not-gaspy way she sings. she lets the words breathe, gives the gaelic breathiness its room, but still enunciates so. carefully. and doesn't cut them off. and. it's just. aaagh.

i can't say it enough! i'm just repeating myself like an idiot, but:

her voice. the song. it flows. it flows together.

FLOWS! like WATER. and SOARS. like a gliding BIRD.

i love this song. i mean, i absolutely love it. from the first line, it just sucks me in. and she has such...precise control over what notes she hits, and how. that's a rare thing in singers today. not many can modulate the tiny, tiny differences between notes. there's more than one way to hit a C#, or a Eb. it's not the hitting it. it's HOW, from which angle, whether you're just a liiiittle bit sharp or a liiiittle bit flat, and how long you dwell, how much breath you give it, how much body.

and the way she does it is just pitch-perfect.

i speak of singing like i knew how to sing. i don't. i'm just kinda deducting it from listening to her. that's how good she is.

i need to find CDs by her, man.