LCY Listens: New Mumford!(?)

I've said it once before, and I'll say it again. Mumford and Sons are my Beatles. I love their music more than any other artist ever (including Dave) and I love it all. Not one song I don't like. Plus they seem like the coolest dudes ever. Vests and all. My only complaint is that they don't do enough love songs. White Blank Page is a top three for me (along w/ Below My Feet and Where Are You Now?).

So to my delight, I was on youtube and saw this song - "Hold On To What You Believe" - in the recommended videos. I don't know where this song came from or why, but I'm glad it exists. It's not on either of Mumford's albums... apparently it's from an EP(?) - Love Your Ground. (Clearly I'm well versed in the music industry lingo.)

Doesn't matter. It's amazing. And it's a love song w/ great lyrics. At least, from what I was picking up they were great. I couldn't find the official lyrics anywhere so I took it upon myself to transcribe them.
You're welcome!

CORRECTION: I just saw this video was posted in 2010. So new, it is not. But it's new to me!

i cant promise you that i wont let you down
and i cant promise you that i will be the only one around
when your hope falls down

but we're young
holding flowers in the windy field of this war-torn world
and love
this city breeds the plague of loving things more than the creators

i ran away
i could not take the burden of both me and you
it was too fast
casting love on me as if it were a spell i could not break
when it was a promise i could not make 

what if i was wrong
what if i was wrong
what if i was wrong

but hold on to what you believe
in the night when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight
and oh hold on to what you believe
in the night when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight

and now this land means less and less to me without you breathing through its trees
at every turn the water runs away from me
and the halo disappears
i'm not whole when you're not near

so what if i was wrong
what if i was wrong
oh, what if i was wrong

but hold on to what you believe
in the night when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight
and oh hold on to what you believe
in the night when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight

so hold on to what you believe in the night

word on the street

pursue magic

image via @trent_tweets instagram

words worth reading, illustrated by photographs of Jay and BK

poignant thoughts on love and marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert as portrayed by the almost ridiculous sweetness that is Sean (Jay-Z) Carter's and his wife Beyonce Knowles Carter's relationship

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of it.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you.”

“Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistuinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody—so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present that you become an almost invisible necessity, like air?”

"This is intimacy: the trading of stories in the dark. The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship."

all words by Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

photos via I Am Beyonce

words worth reading.

Some people meet the way the sky meets the earth—inevitably, and there is no stopping or holding back their love. It exists in a finished world, beyond the reach of common sense. 

- Louise Erdrich

image via

word on the street.

sigh.

word on the street

all good things to believe in.

as seen in the kate spade boutique on oak street

words worth reading

Need to call attention to my new favorite Tumblr page, Ring Them Bells, written by the clever and epigrammatic Elizabeth Duszynski

Once we stayed two weeks on a barge in France. Despite our digs, dilapidated as they were, our time in Paris was magic. We rationed our food, couldn’t afford a single trip on the Metro, spent our afternoons traipsing one end of the city to the next by foot—but still. Just try to have a rotten time in France, I dare you.

A history lesson: Long ago, some 6,000 to 10,000 years, the first blue-eyed baby was born off the coast of the Black Sea. A genetic obscurity that I will attempt to solve after I’ve eaten my lunch. The question remains: How advantageous is a blue-eyed gene? Hypothesis: Very.

It occurred to me yesterday, mid lunchtime stroll, that I have always considered taking a walk in high heels to be a valid form of exercise, akin to running on sand or lifting weights under water.

Every so often I find myself in front of the dairy case at the grocery store imagining how nice it would be to ring up the cat and ask him to please check if there are any eggs in the fridge. But would he do it? The chances are slim.

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

words worth reading

I finally saw Midnight in Paris. Which means for 94 minutes straight, I was smiling like a giddy child on Christmas morning. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, rent it tonight. It captures my favorite city in a way I've never seen before. The plot was brilliant, the music had me tapping my toes, and the writing! Well, see for yourself. Here are a few of my favorite lines from Woody Allen's beloved homage to the enchanted City of Lights.

"Adriana: That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me."

"Ernest Hemingway: I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. Until it returns, as it does to all men, and then you must make really good love again. Think about it."

"Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.
Gil: No, you can't, you couldn't pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe."

"Gil: Can you picture how drop dead gorgeous this city is in the rain? Imagine this town in the '20s. Paris in the '20s, in the rain. The artists and writers!"

For those of you who won't be making it to Paris today, allow Mr. Allen and me to take you on a little tour:

And because no one can deliver that Hemingway line quite like the actor did:

words worth reading

For women everywhere. An ode to the words of Nora Ephron and the photographs of Jamie Beck, two of the most talented creative minds New York City has ever seen.

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”

“I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.”

“Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”

Have a fantastic weekend, ladies.

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4

words worth reading

A few of my favorite excerpts from Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin:

“When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You might grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn't a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume that it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for granted, which might be the very thing so dear about it.”

"Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn't even pay attention to at the time, a place that you didn't even know had a particular smell."

"“You’ll never regret being a good friend.”

“Every couple has two stories - the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version best left alone.”

“Surely he knows we are all watching. That I am watching. It is always that way when you are in a group and someone decides to go for a swim or walk to the water. The ocean is a giant stage. It is natural that the others watch, if only for a moment."

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

words worth reading

a favorite excerpt from "Dear John Letter to My 20s" by Erin Gates

One very important thing you’ve taught me Twenties, is that life is messy. It’s never the way you pictured it would be and it never will be. It might be better or it might be worse - or perhaps just totally, unexpectedly different.

You can’t predict how you’ll feel or what will happen tomorrow. I think the most important lesson you showed me, and late in the game at that, is that trying to mold my life using the strict rules and assumptions I set out with will never work and will only create hostility and unhappiness. I learned from you that the “not knowing” is what makes it beautiful and exciting.

But with that said, big changes, or maybe just small ones, await and I’m kind of psyched to see where they take me.

photo source

words worth reading

I continued to think about the “Future Me” and what I would think of the present me. And Future Me had a bit of advice. He said that we are living in a home, eating applesauce, wearing diapers and all I have are my memories. Don’t screw them up. Spend time with your friends and family, because those are my favorite memories. Stop spending so much time on the little stuff, you can barely remember that anyway. Travel more, you will love Africa. Take a few chances, but not too many that you look like a moron (and you are approaching that level so be careful). Enjoy your successes and indulgences, you will see that guilt is a waste of time. Do things for others without the need for acknowledgment or reciprocation (you will get both in spades anyway). Be happy for others who are more fortunate than you, help those that aren’t, respect both equally. Do things you normally wouldn’t do every so often, those are some fun memories. It is okay to cook and do the dishes, but make sure you say thank you when someone does for you. When you get here (the future) you don’t want to have settled.

We could all benefit from calling our Future Me’s every once in a while. We need that reality check of how most of this won’t matter even a few months from now, much less years. We need to live a little more for the moment. That doesn’t mean go crazy. It doesn’t mean bounce your last check. It doesn’t mean shun stability and responsibility. It doesn’t mean pack up your shit and move to Nepal. It means to do things you will be happy to look back on. That may mean taking the stable job for some, or going with the start-up for others or even leaving it all behind and going to Nepal for a few. Life isn’t black and white. There is no need for you to be stable or reckless…you can be somewhere in-between. You don’t have to married by 28. You don’t need to have kids before you are 35. You don’t need to have your career all set by the time you are 40. Life is different for everyone and very few of us live up to the expectations we set for ourselves or other set for us (and those that do probably feel unfilled in some way). Take life as it comes, change it as you go, and stop worrying about where you are now…just enjoy that you are here and moving forward. It takes some people a few years, others a life time. We all get there.

by Andrew Gates

good words.

good words.

good words.