Ballad from Haim has timeless quality

Modern classic: Alana Haim takes centre stage for the final verse of the
song Halleljuh, flanked by her older sisters Danielle and Este

If there's one song from 2019 that will be remembered long after the curtain falls on New Year's Eve, it must surely be the newly-released lilting ballad from Haim.

Alana Haim begins the third and final verse of Hallelujah with these poignant words: "I had a best friend but she has come to pass, one I wish I could see now."

It is a song that evokes the style of Simon & Garfunkel, and Fleetwood Mac. However, it carries a charm and resonance of its own and the hallmarks of the timeless classic it is likely to become.

Musically, the stripped-down song is mostly confined to the acoustic guitar picking of Danielle Haim, who also does the largest portion of the singing, although the third and eldest of the Haim sisters, Este, delivers the second verse.

It is the blend of clean harmonies, clear voices and acoustic treatment that so effectively creates this moving ballad. Alana's heartfelt lyrics and the mood of the song are unencumbered by any distractions.

I'll say no more about the song, because it is something that will hold different meanings for each listener, and it springs from a personal story from Alana's life, which she has shared on social media. I have included a link and a copy of the story - in her own words - at the bottom of this blog post.

However, I recommend that before delving into the song's background you listen to it fresh, and let your own thoughts be moved by the mood and sentiments.

Enjoy also this remarkable video, made by talented and multi-Oscar nominated filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. I love the closing scene where Danielle walks from the cinema, with Este in the ticket sales box, and Alana fixes the signage above.

The video for Haim's Hallelujah:


Below is the tweet from Haim (pronounced HY-im), written by Alana, and including her telling of the background to the song and the loss of her best friend.

As I previously mentioned, the song has such graceful power I recommend listening to it first, and possibly many times over, before reading on to learn the genesis of the lyrics in Alana's own words.

We have a song called hallelujah coming out on Monday. It’s a song about family, love, loss, and being thankful for it all. It’s hard to talk about my verse in the song but I wanted to open up about it so here i go... pic.twitter.com/0KqdNx7syq

— HAIM (@HAIMtheband) November 16, 2019

For ease of reading, here are Alana's words from the twitter images:

It’s a song about family, love, loss, and being thankful for it all. It’s hard to talk about my verse in the song but I wanted to open up about it so here i go…
I went through a really dark time when I was 20. I woke up on a hazy October morning to find out that my best friend, Sammi Kane Kraft, had passed away in a tragic car accident. It was a loss that changed my life forever.
Sammi was my everything, and coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t here, that I couldn’t call her, I couldn’t hug her, I would never see her bright smile and sparkling eyes ever again broke me.
It’s strange but I started thinking about all the milestones in my life that she would never be a part of – like us wanting to celebrate our 21st birthdays in Vegas, or planning all the festivals we wanted to go to around the world, or knowing that when I walk down the aisle at some point she won’t be standing next to me as my maid of honor.
I had always wanted to pay tribute to her in some way and I could never put how important she was into words. It felt like there were no words in the dictionary to encapsulate how special she was. Losing her put a lot of things in to perspective for me. I was so lucky to have my sisters at this time in my life.
There was a point where they didn’t know what to do or say or how to help and them just being there as a shoulder to cry on or as an ear to talk to got me to slowly recover. I’m not the same, I’ll never be the same. The me before took love, friends and family for granted. Now there won’t be a day that goes by where I don’t tell everyone I love how special they are to me.
Though I miss her everyday I know she’s still here sending me little messages, little signs everywhere I go. I always look up and go I hear ya Sammi Sam! Love love love love love you too

No need to cuss, Del Rey's album elevates

Supersized: Lana Del Rey appears as a giant in the video for Doin' Time.
The video is part homage to Attack of the 50ft Woman.

Don't go looking for wall-to-wall sweetness and light on Lana Del Rey's latest album, because you won't find it.

Yes, she is one of the most talented and significant singer-songwriters of her generation, and her star continues to rise with increasingly accomplished work. She's written and recorded achingly beautiful songs, some are on her latest release - one of the best albums of the year. And I will speak about these in a moment.

However, on first listening to Norman F***** Rockwell, which was released in September, I felt she'd overplayed the cussing. The title track is one of five from 14 that contain choice language. That's excessive in a world where the impact of f-bombs has been hugely diluted through overuse.

Is cussing a sign of the times? I was in an airport terminal bookstore recently and encountered multiple shelves of new releases featuring bold titles yelling things like "Get Your S*** Together" and "Stop F****** up in Life." As always, I studiously ignored them.

But back to Del Rey. On repeated listens I've come to enjoy all the tracks on NFR (as it was craftily titled in the store where I bought it). However, she would have been better served limiting the cuss-word impact. The track where the strong language works best is Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have - but I Have It, which includes a nod to Sylvia Plath. The mood and content is enhanced by the fearless expression of the lyrics.

Now for the other standout songs to which I alluded. The bulk are in the second-half of the album, although earlier on is Doin' Time, a rare cover version. It suits Del Rey's treatment, and presents her in a switched-up tempo and vocalisation that breaks away from much of the surrounding songs. An imaginative accompanying video for the song pays homage to the cult 1950s movie Attack of the 50ft Woman, and features a giant Del Rey walking through the streets of Los Angeles.

California is a song of relationship and longing, and an example of Del Rey's ability to evoke a sense of place and time, while The Next Best American Record is dreamy and timeless, with sound motifs that harken to the delightfully elegant Love from 2017's Lust for Life.

Another interesting song is Happiness is a Butterfly. You try to catch happiness, but like a butterfly it can elude.

But the best track of the album, that would be The Greatest. It has a haunting, melancholy appeal. The subdued feel nails the sentiments of lyrics such as: the culture is lit ... if this is it, I'm signing off ... the greatest loss of them all. The video for this track is also remarkable.

Norman F***** Rockwell is a new high point for Del Rey, with plenty to elevate the spirit. That said, I sense her best is yet to come.

Video of The Greatest:

New Star Wars - a train wreck or last hurrah?

What lies ahead? a scene from the trailer for
the final Star Wars story in the Skywalker saga

A second trailer has been released for what will be the final movie of the Star Wars saga that began 42 years ago.  So will the film be a last crunching pile-up moment of the train wreck delivered by 2017's The Last Jedi, or will it be an uplifting hurrah?

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is episode nine and the conclusion of the Skywalker story, which started in 1977 with the original Star Wars (later renamed Episode 4: A New Hope). That first movie set in motion one of the 20th century's major cultural and cinematic phenomenon.

Sadly, two years ago the franchise suffered the shockingly divisive episode eight, The Last Jedi. In December we shall see what can be salvaged from the wreckage, and whether what should be a cinematic climax like no other will manage to at least be a fitting finale.

The Star Wars story has spiraled downward dramatically in the past few years. Depending on your point of view that nosedive may have started with the opening segment of the current sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, in 2015, or been nailed by the calamitous storytelling and legacy mishandling of The Last Jedi.

How bad are things for Star Wars? Consider this: there is a real chance The Rise of Skywalker will not reach $1 billion at the box office, a mere four years after episode seven, The Force Awakens, became the third film in history to take more than $2 billion. For popularity to wane that suddenly and dramatically takes a lot of doing. Disney must be fretting.

For context, The Last Jedi did not attract multiple repeat viewings the way most of its predecessors did, and topped out with a worldwide box office total of $1.3 billion, while Star Wars spin-off Solo, released five months later, was a relative flop taking only $393 million.

A final hurrah: rebel spaceships, many recognisable from their
appaerance in the original Star Wars movie in 1977

It's true that financial success alone is no indicator of artistic merit and integrity, there are plenty of outstanding creative works that have made pitiful financial returns. But the Star Wars franchise was a seemingly indestructible cash-cow when, earlier this decade, Disney splashed $4 billion to buy Lucasfilm and the rights to create these new films.

The first half of the new trailer shows clips from each of the previous eight movies in the saga. Interestingly they are shown in order of their original release date rather than chronologically by the events they portray. What stands out is the clean, clear, and bright crispness of the original trilogy - a harking back to a more innocent escapist era and a magnificent story arc that stretched across those three movies.

We then see clips from the hit-and-miss prequel trilogy, before we pass into today's convoluted and muddled sequel trilogy, and finally a few short snippets of the upcoming movie. Very little is revealed, although there is another lightsabre duel between Rey and Adam Driver - sorry Kylo.

That slip, where I could remember the actor's name but not the name of the chief villain he portrays, is instructive of the major problem this trilogy has - and that is a crippling lack of character "buy in". This new movie might as well start with a blank slate, because The Last Jedi failed to develop any of the characters in meaningful ways and followed a preposterous storyline. It also managed to end with no compelling reason for audiences to return to see what happens next.

With no character or story arc to bind things together, this new trilogy is broken. The Rise of Skywalker for all intents and purposes is a standalone movie. And while it is too early to write off the new film, it is hard not to feel a sense of forboding.

Director and writer JJ Abrams has to find a resolution to a 42-year saga in a single film that was left high and dry by its immediate predecessor. There is some hope, because Abrams has shown flashes of skill, from Super 8 to his fairly steady handling of The Force Awakens. But what is required now is a tall order.

Only a genuine redemption of Luke Skywalker, one of cinema's most cherished heroes, is likely to save the day in the wake of this greatest legacy character's treatment in The Last Jedi. In this trailer and the first released earlier in the year, we get to hear his voice. This time we also hear the voice of Emperor Palpatine and the sinister breathing of Darth Vader, both of whom were thought destroyed in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

So to return to the question, what lies ahead? Will it be a final pile-up train wreck moment, or will it be an uplifting hurrah for Star Wars? Let's hope for the latter. Over to you JJ.

• The new trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Silly rule snatches defeat from jaws of victory

Not allowed: Learmouth and Taylor-Brown beat everyone but
were disqualified for crossing the finish line together 

Two triathletes battled for the best part of two hours in searing heat and beat an international field in a pre-Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games test event. Except they didn't.

Yes, they finished ahead of everyone else, but they were disqualified after raising each other's hand aloft as they crossed the finish line together. A rule of the International Triathlon Union forbids "contrived ties" and led to Jessica Learmouth and Georgia Taylor-Brown having their finishing times rubbed from the results in Tokyo.

The reason has been reported elsewhere and has sparked a debate on whether it was right or wrong. The decision was technically right, because the rule exists and outlaws such a thing.

However, it is the rule that is woefully wrong.

Before going further, consider also that even the "technically right" argument is leaky. In today's world a contrived tie in a timed sport such as triathlon is virtually impossible. There are high-spec finish line cameras and digital mat timing systems capable of separating finishers' times down to hundredths of a second. Indeed, Learmouth was initially given the victory as measured by such technology. The jointly-raised arms and side-by-side finish was a symbolic gesture of camaraderie and sportsmanship; Learmouth and Taylor-Brown are British teammates and training partners.

But on Friday, rule 2.11.f was evoked and the swiftest athletes on the day were denied coveted pre-Olympic podium positions and departed empty-handed.

So, the question is: does there always need to be an outright winner in a sporting competition, or can athletes act in the moment and split the honours if they feel the challenge has been equally met?
To the latter, I say yes.

In competition, a race to the finish is what happens 99 per cent of the time. But now and then something else occurs and we see another, equally valid side of sportsmanship, a spirit of humanity and a sharing of a euphoric moment. It can happen when two athletes, having beaten all others, are unable to break away from their last opponent. In an often wordless moment of spontaneity they acknowledge the equal accomplishment of the other and share the celebration, matching strides across the finish line.

In international-level sport such occurrences are rare, but when they happen the message sent can reverberate far and wide in a positive way. Many still remember the winning moment in the first London Marathon, in 1981, when Inge Simenson and Dick Beardsley had doggedly tried to break clear of each other during the 26.2-mile race, but crossed the finish line together.

Beardsley later said: "In a spontaneous show of sportsmanship, we grabbed each other's hand and almost in that instant we broke the tape. The photo made papers all over the world."

As a young teenager who had started road running seriously only seven months earlier, it encouraged me to see such sportsmanship at the highest level of my chosen sport.

I'm sure it will be the same for countless aspiring triathletes today who witnessed the sporting gesture of Learmouth and Taylor-Brown, although what could have been an empowering, life-affirming advert for the sport has been blunted by the disqualification decision.

Indeed, on Saturday in an Instagram post, Learmouth wrote: "Couldn’t have dreamt of taking the tape with G. Feel we showcased our sport in the right way, hopefully showing young athletes it’s not always dog eat dog."

And let us also remember the Olympic creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

The ITU should jettison its hard and fast rule and let finish line events take their natural and spontaneous course.

Video commentary after the event:

Lady Bird does justice to life's imperfections

Not eye to eye:'Lady Bird' and her mother and the strained dynamics of
their relationship are central to Lady Bird and its coming-of-age story

Growing up in an unremarkable place, and literally on the wrong side of the tracks, that's life's lot for Lady Bird, the titular character in the 2017 movie that delighted cinema audiences.

But this is a coming-of-age story, and Lady Bird is not about to let circumstances define who is she, or her destiny.

Lady Bird shows us the messy imperfections of life and family and of pushing against the restrictions of authority. However, it is also about looking to the horizon for fulfilment and a better life, the realising of true friends and who loves you ... and who likes you; watch for the subtle but defining distinction between the latter two as they bump together in the strained relationship of Lady Bird and her mother.

While it has been labelled a comedy-drama, this is much more a realism coming-of age tale. Don't expect laugh out loud moments because, while there are amusing turns, this film does not overly seek or play for laughs. Instead, it focuses on the heartfelt nature of a struggling family, particularly the friction between Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother (Laurie Metcalf).

Lady Bird also has a feeling of connection to places. Towards the end Lady Bird drives through the streets of Sacramento, California, seeing from a new perspective familiar places where she once walked - one step removed and moving on, but absorbing that connection with the familiar, with home.

Lady Bird is worthy of the praise it attracted from audiences. Four stars from five.

Ofiicial trailer for Lady Bird:

That time I tried to tricycle around Australia

Ready to roll: on the tricycle and
gearing up to ride around Australia

Not achieving your goal can be as rewarding - and sometimes more so - than reaching your target. This was brought home to me many moons ago after an attempt to cycle around the whole of Australia.

If the "me then" had read the opening sentence above, I would have shook my head in disagreement. Because being young and "bulletproof," everything was about clarity and absolutes or, as Yoda had said: "Do or do not, there is no try."

But hundreds of miles into the outback and many days ride from the nearest town, I pitched my small tent beneath another breathtaking Australian sunset and conceded that the trans-country ambition was slipping from my grasp. Fitness alone would not be enough; the biomechanical strain was causing one knee to holler ever louder in pain each day. Abandoning the endeavour was the sensible option. The evening sky, splashed with hues of yellow, red and mauve, seemed to belong to another world. I sat at the tent's entrance and pondered what it would mean to step away from the challenge. Was it a "try" that had failed, or was it a "do" that had reached an unavoidable early conclusion?

It all began by thinking big ... real big. Sure it would have been easier to drive around Australia, but my wages as a sandwich delivery boy in Perth would not stretch to buying a used VW camper van or a Ford Holden, however clapped out they happened to be.

Instead, the ride would to be done on a second-hand tricycle to which I'd roped two baskets where I could store my rucksack and tent and containers of drinking water. On this exact day 31 years ago, the story appeared in a local suburb newspaper of Perth. However, by that time I was already pedaling somewhere "beyond the black stump", to use an Australian idiom.

An awful lot of distance lay ahead. The total journey would nudge beyond 10,000 miles (more than 15,000km) if it included an excursion away from the coast to Alice Springs in the centre of the country.

End of the day: the bike unpacked beside the tent in
the sunset afterglow, somewhere in the Australian outback

My aim was to do a round number each day. One hundred kilometres, around 60 miles, seemed doable, although 80km turned out to be more realistic. The tricycle was not built for speed, and weighed down by provisions and gear, together with the topography, weather conditions, and a desire to rest and enjoy the constantly unfolding panoramic views, the journey was never going to be about ratcheting up numbers on a speedometer.

It was the start of the antipodean winter, which helped temper the outback's often excessive heat. All the same, it was necessary to rest during the hours of peak heat each day. As evening approached, I'd take stock of where I was and scan the surroundings for a secure location off the road and out of sight to pitch the tent and hide the bike.

With each passing day signs of civilisation diminished and the remote wilderness took over. The ground became drier and harder, to the point that tent ground pegs could barely be pushed more than an inch into the soil.

On the road: the vast emptiness of the landscape, and
my fully laden cycle during a rest stop on an empty road

The slow pace of the journey was perfect, allowing time to absorb the surroundings; places of mindblowing emptiness, unusual rock formations, the sight of emus roaming in the distance, or lizards - much closer - scooting across the road.

The days were broken into 10km segments. As each was achieved the reward was a rest in a shady spot, a huge drink of water, and a jam sandwich or two from the bread basket hanging in front of the handlebars. All around was the ethereal near silence of the emptiness.

I slept well at night, comfortably exhausted from the cycling. Ten hours of sleep was common, broken only when I awoke to the occasional noise of an unseen animal in the night rustling around outside.

But a week into the journey, and with only another hour of cycling needed to reach the next major population centre of Geraldton, I decided to save my knee from further pain and called time on the cycling ambition. The rest of this curtailed journey would be by foot and hitchhiking. It took me to the dolphins of Monkey Mia, the remote township of Carnavron, and then the stunning 14-mile long (22km) beach at Broome in the far north-west.

Aa a hitchhiker and foot-traveller I met fellow journeyers I'd probably not have encountered had I still been on the cycling mission. The memories stay with me.

No, I didn't achieve the goal on which I'd set out. But embarking on it in the first place and then allowing it to evolve into something else, led to something as rewarding.
So think big, go for it, but know that a course correction doesn't mean a fail - it more than likely will bring equal or greater joy.

Newspaper article: May 31, 1988

Tiffany is on song revisiting '80s hit

Joy reflected: Tiffany has re-recorded  I Think We're Alone Now,
which was a worldwide hit for her as a teenager 32 years ago

From the slightly unruly hair, to the worn and ripped denim jacket, Tiffany blends in with those around her as she strolls through the sand and along the promenade at Venice Beach, California.

Passersby go about their business seemingly unaware that in their midst is the former teenage pop star who recorded one of the most recognisable songs of the 1980s.

It is more than 30 years since she first shone. Now she is back with a re-recording of her smash hit, I Think We're Alone Now. The accompanying video shows her walking around Venice Beach and other parts of Los Angeles, and in England singing at the recording studio of The Kinks' Ray Davies.

The song, a bubblegum pop hit in 1987, is instantly recognisable to the older generation and even to some who were born later and have come across it in other places, such as in the 2012 movie Ted.

I Think We're Alone Now was written by Ritchie Cordell and dates back to 1967, but Tiffany's cover version is its most successful iteration.

Tiffany was very much part of the spirit of the second half of the '80s, and with the new recording and video she continues to exude positive vibes. The feelings are the same, but her voice is stronger.

Denim was her signature clothing back in the '80s and the video recalls this, although pointedly exhibiting the passage of time as she no longer wears crisp, fresh denim, instead it is a faded jacket complete with rips and frayed collar.

Tiffany appears happy and  comfortable revisiting the song from her youth. It is almost like a statement to old friends who have travelled through those same years and decades: "How are you doing? Hasn't life been a blast!"

Not only does it reflect the passage of time, this new version proves how this simple song has staying power.

Video: Tiffany's 2019 version of I Think We're Alone Now