XL REPUBBLICA - how Mika keeps himself busy ;-)

[Fran]

Your husband is a wise man, wiser than us anyways....

 

He can see things as they are; we can't. He's not blind by the Mika hope.

[RAK1]

I don't understand what "make you close on yourself" is supposed to mean. I think I will wait for the original text to decide what I think about any of this because they aren't his words.

 

Maybe in the original text it might be "close in on yourself" that's what I thought it meant when I read that.

[Christine]

Maybe in the original text it might be "close in on yourself" that's what I thought it meant when I read that.

 

Hmm, maybe, but what does that mean? Usually you feel closed in on by external people and pressures, not yourself. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of "close yourself off".

 

Where is the English version??

[Lucrezia]

I don't understand what "make you close on yourself" is supposed to mean. I think I will wait for the original text to decide what I think about any of this because they aren't his words.

 

Maybe in the original text it might be "close in on yourself" that's what I thought it meant when I read that.

 

Hmm, maybe, but what does that mean? Usually you feel closed in on by external people and pressures, not yourself. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of "close yourself off".

 

Where is the English version??

 

Sorry i didn't understand how to translate that sentence in English... I try again: in Italian is "La paura ti fa chiudere in te stesso": it means that the fear leads a person to refuse contacts with the outside world.... I wanted to use the expression "Withdraw into oneself" but sincerely i wasn't sure that it was the right translation

Unfortunately, the Italian version is very summary so sometimes it's hard to understand the exact meaning...

 

*Waits for the English version...*

Edited May 1, 2012 by Lucrezia

[RAK1]

Sorry i didn't understand how to translate that sentence in English... I try again: in Italian is "La paura ti fa chiudere in te stesso": it means that the fear leads a person to refuse contacts with the outside world.... I wanted to use the expression "Withdraw into oneself" but sincerely i wasn't sure that it was the right translation

Unfortunately, the Italian version is very summary so sometimes it's hard to understand the exact meaning...

 

*Waits for the English version...*

 

Withdraw into oneself, sounds about right:thumb_yello:

[silver]

Maybe in the original text it might be "close in on yourself" that's what I thought it meant when I read that.

 

Hmm, maybe, but what does that mean? Usually you feel closed in on by external people and pressures, not yourself. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of "close yourself off".

 

Where is the English version??

 

I think it's close in on yourself in the sense of folding up, curling into a little ball to protect yourself from the outside world.

 

But it's probably something different in the English version

[lollipop161]

I think it's close in on yourself in the sense of folding up, curling into a little ball to protect yourself from the outside world.

 

But it's probably something different in the English version

 

Eventually they will use the word "shy"

[Sabine64]

I really love Lukrezia´s translation but I hope to find the original text when I come home from work tonight. Last time we got it the same day of the release, didn´t we?

[Shine]

Thanks a lot Lukrezia for your translation

 

Waiting for the original version I've grasped the general sense of his article and I love it.

He's so persuasive when he writes about himself and I'm also familiar with the feeling of withdraw into myself like many of us...

[robertina]

I keep on checking their site, but the Pulcinella one is still on.

[mikahepburn]

He never lied.

He said that the album is coming out this year. We just don't know the exact date.

Maybe he means december?

Anyways, December is before the July next year is it?

My husband made a comment the other day. He said;

"Mika's album will probably be out in the summer, but I don't know which summer it will be when TOOL comes out."

 

LOL! Well said

[nevil]

A new XL column on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/mikasounds

[nenartus]

I like to read it here.

MIKA

 

NEW XL COLUMN

 

Its 8am and I'm sitting in front of my computer. I have just received a message that unless my article is delivered within an hour, I will miss the issue. My head hurts a little for I drank two glasses of a cheap Australian wine with too high a sugar content last night and my brain hurts because I'm now on my fourth subject matter for this column. I thought to write about Bullying but it got too dark, I thought to write about marijuana as I've been practically living in the studio with a group of the funniest stoners you could come across. I even started writing about tomato sauce, don't ask why. But now I realise, that as I come to the end of recording my album, an album which has taken so much to make, I will write entirely about me.

 

Its fair to say that as I am finishing this third album, I am in a very different place to when I was finishing the second. After the success and change that came with my first album I found myself in a very strange place. On the one hand I had made it. Not just because of the records doing well but because I had come through undamaged, or so I thought.

 

From the age of 13, I went to the prestigious Westminster school in London. This ancient school was built around a beautiful courtyard at the footsteps of Westminster Abbey. My main concern however was often trying to figure out how to get around school without being noticed. My main obstacle was the courtyard, as to get from my locker to the music centre where my piano was, I actually had to cross it. Once there however, I would write. My aim was crystal clear; I wanted to figure out how to write melody. Melodies that stuck like glue, for I knew that these were power. No matter who you are, we are all prone to falling for a melody. The music centre was a small building with a narrow corridor, with many doors that opened on to small cubicles where all you would find was a piano and a chair. Others would be practicing difficult classical pieces, but I pretended I was in the Brill building in 1960s New York, where the likes of Bacharach and Carol King would be competing in similar rooms, trying to write the perfect pop song.

 

As people started to find out what I was up to, a very strange thing happened. Friends and teachers started grouping around trying to help in whatever way they could. My friends would help perform my pieces, listen and criticise. The school librarian would lie, saying that I was working for him two afternoons a week, just so I could have more time to write my songs. My scandalous French teacher, a former Mr Gay UK contestant who would share his experiences in drug dabbling, would listen to my music, tell me his stories, give me guidance and cover for me when I was late. My English teacher, now a famous theatre director, would give me roles to play in her shows and even started a magazine with me. I was a loner with a secret army behind me and I couldn't have done it without them. Years later, at the Royal College of music the same thing happened all over again.

 

After the first album I felt disjointed and alone. I booked myself a room at the legendary Olympic Studios and stayed there for 6 months, writing at the piano and recording endless demos. At 2pm every day I would walk over to the fancy Italian restaurant across the street and eat, often alone. I missed my cubicle and upright piano but most of all I missed my gang. I missed tea with the librarian who had now moved away, the inappropriate banter with my French teacher who had died, and the arguments with my English teacher who was now famous. I missed my friend Alex playing my top lines on his dodgy oboe and singing duets in classical falsetto, like we did in Over My Shoulder. My songs were for and about them. I would write about myself to make them laugh. I would write about Billy Brown to make my French teacher embarrassed. What was I supposed to do without them?

 

I got through it and made a beautiful album, full of textures and melodies, but somewhere in all the music my friends were missing. After two years of touring and a horrific accident in my family, I swore that I would fix my problem and find my gang. I broke hearts and fell in love again, and travelled around fighting for sessions and looking for freaks. I found them, lots of them. I didn't want to make the album in isolation, and if the Brill building no longer existed then I would make my own version using the internet and a lot of air miles. I found unknown people online to work with as well as famous ones, and in the end made this album with all twelve of them. Funny thing is, it has never sounded more like me. I wrote about them, stole their stories and wrote about myself for them to laugh or even to make them sad.

 

Fear leaves you isolated, isolation in turn creates more fear and fear leaves you closed. A little part of you dies, and not until you take the risk and open up to others can you find a way out of it. This album is called The Origin Of Love and is about a man who only grows up once he rediscovers the boy he used to be.

 

EDIT: Some of the things are clearer now. I really appreciate the way he shares his thoughts. This one is really...

Edited May 2, 2012 by nenartus

[robertina]

wow:shocked:

 

 

no comparison with the italian version! who's that bloody translator?

[Christine]

Oh jeez that's a whole different story, just as I thought. Were huge chunks of it missing in the magazine?

 

I once came across that publication he is talking about that he started at Westminster. Think it was called "Pink" or something. Can't remember.

 

I'm pretty sure there was some marijuana happening at Olympic Studios as well so some things never change.

[robertina]

Oh jeez that's a whole different story, just as I thought. Were huge chunks of it missing in the magazine?

 

I once came across that publication he is talking about that he started at Westminster. Think it was called "Pink" or something. Can't remember.

 

I'm pretty sure there was some marijuana happening at Olympic Studios as well so some things never change.

 

it helps in the creative process

[suzie]

I once came across that publication he is talking about that he started at Westminster. Think it was called "Pink" or something. Can't remember.

 

Yes, it was called Pink, after Westminster pink, of course .

The whole idea of that magazine sounded very Mikaish: going against the rules, being proud to be different and looking things from a different perspective. Apparently, it was full of spelling mistakes on purpose. I'd love to see a copy of it. I once read that there was an interview with a strip dancer in one of the editions - wonder who wrote it .

[Christine]

Yes, it was called Pink, after Westminster pink, of course .

 

Yes! We gave him braces that were pink and navy and he said they were his school colours.

 

The Elizabethan is quite possibly the worst place to explain why

P i n k came to be, since it is precisely because of this consummately professional magazine that a group of consummately unprofessional students decided to start a new magazine. We created Pink

to cater for the messier and more ridiculous elements of

Westminster life: a magazine that people felt they could write for

without being edited by the staff room.

 

While The Elizabethan is tidy and authoritative, our first issue of

P i n k had spelling mistakes, wonky staples, incorrect page numbers

and even had a libel letter sent to us within the first week. Despite

all this we sold out after every single print run. The ‘Sex in the

Sixth Form’ column quickly became the most loved and most hated

item, often seeming to find its way onto the walls of fifth form bedrooms. ‘OI!’, a space where students could anonymously voice

their opinions, caused controversy for its cruel and somewhat arbitrary condemnation of rowers, rude boys, proto-hippies and conformists. P i n k was always occupied with some sort of battle. There

was one painful day for example, when our fluorescent pink, slightly sinister, 4’6’’ papier-mâché bunny was kidnapped and decapitated. When I close my eyes at night I still see the mangled remains

of our beloved mascot.

 

Over the course of the year, Pink magazine interviewed a real-life stripper, the cast of the National’s production of ‘Blue/Orange’,

Harriet Walter, Lee Marks (the man who owns ‘Spymaster’), Helen

Bonham-Carter’s brother, and, wait for it, the legendary ‘Daphne

and Celeste’. From the very beginning there were a lot of people

who put time and energy into Pink. Ellie, Natasha and Julia organized our lives in the ‘sorted’ page, Rory Scarfe analysed the latest

films, Ed Saunt analysed sport and Mary Nighy desperately tried to

teach us about culture. Greg Pallis managed to

convert a fair number of people to pop in his renowned music

pages, at one point famously claiming that ‘Hit me Baby One More

Time’ was the best song ever.

 

Creating a new magazine in a traditional school was not plain sailing, especially since we wanted to build the foundations for something that would last as opposed to printing a one-off spoof.

 

However we had a lot of fun creating Pink and it’s nice to know that

when our year exits Westminster School we will have left, for better

or worse, something more than graphite behind us.

 

Sounds about right.

[Marilyn Mastin]

I like to read it here.

MIKA

 

NEW XL COLUMN

 

Its 8am and I'm sitting in front of my computer. I have just received a message that unless my article is delivered within an hour, I will miss the issue. My head hurts a little for I drank two glasses of a cheap Australian wine with too high a sugar content last night and my brain hurts because I'm now on my fourth subject matter for this column. I thought to write about Bullying but it got too dark, I thought to write about marijuana as I've been practically living in the studio with a group of the funniest stoners you could come across. I even started writing about tomato sauce, don't ask why. But now I realise, that as I come to the end of recording my album, an album which has taken so much to make, I will write entirely about me.

 

Its fair to say that as I am finishing this third album, I am in a very different place to when I was finishing the second. After the success and change that came with my first album I found myself in a very strange place. On the one hand I had made it. Not just because of the records doing well but because I had come through undamaged, or so I thought.

 

From the age of 13, I went to the prestigious Westminster school in London. This ancient school was built around a beautiful courtyard at the footsteps of Westminster Abbey. My main concern however was often trying to figure out how to get around school without being noticed. My main obstacle was the courtyard, as to get from my locker to the music centre where my piano was, I actually had to cross it. Once there however, I would write. My aim was crystal clear; I wanted to figure out how to write melody. Melodies that stuck like glue, for I knew that these were power. No matter who you are, we are all prone to falling for a melody. The music centre was a small building with a narrow corridor, with many doors that opened on to small cubicles where all you would find was a piano and a chair. Others would be practicing difficult classical pieces, but I pretended I was in the Brill building in 1960s New York, where the likes of Bacharach and Carol King would be competing in similar rooms, trying to write the perfect pop song.

 

As people started to find out what I was up to, a very strange thing happened. Friends and teachers started grouping around trying to help in whatever way they could. My friends would help perform my pieces, listen and criticise. The school librarian would lie, saying that I was working for him two afternoons a week, just so I could have more time to write my songs. My scandalous French teacher, a former Mr Gay UK contestant who would share his experiences in drug dabbling, would listen to my music, tell me his stories, give me guidance and cover for me when I was late. My English teacher, now a famous theatre director, would give me roles to play in her shows and even started a magazine with me. I was a loner with a secret army behind me and I couldn't have done it without them. Years later, at the Royal College of music the same thing happened all over again.

 

After the first album I felt disjointed and alone. I booked myself a room at the legendary Olympic Studios and stayed there for 6 months, writing at the piano and recording endless demos. At 2pm every day I would walk over to the fancy Italian restaurant across the street and eat, often alone. I missed my cubicle and upright piano but most of all I missed my gang. I missed tea with the librarian who had now moved away, the inappropriate banter with my French teacher who had died, and the arguments with my English teacher who was now famous. I missed my friend Alex playing my top lines on his dodgy oboe and singing duets in classical falsetto, like we did in Over My Shoulder. My songs were for and about them. I would write about myself to make them laugh. I would write about Billy Brown to make my French teacher embarrassed. What was I supposed to do without them?

 

I got through it and made a beautiful album, full of textures and melodies, but somewhere in all the music my friends were missing. After two years of touring and a horrific accident in my family, I swore that I would fix my problem and find my gang. I broke hearts and fell in love again, and travelled around fighting for sessions and looking for freaks. I found them, lots of them. I didn't want to make the album in isolation, and if the Brill building no longer existed then I would make my own version using the internet and a lot of air miles. I found unknown people online to work with as well as famous ones, and in the end made this album with all twelve of them. Funny thing is, it has never sounded more like me. I wrote about them, stole their stories and wrote about myself for them to laugh or even to make them sad.

 

Fear leaves you isolated, isolation in turn creates more fear and fear leaves you closed. A little part of you dies, and not until you take the risk and open up to others can you find a way out of it. This album is called The Origin Of Love and is about a man who only grows up once he rediscovers the boy he used to be.

 

EDIT: Some of the things are clearer now. I really appreciate the way he shares his thoughts. This one is really...

It's a beautiful article. It makes me all misty-eyed. I can understand how he feels because, for much of my life, I too have often felt left out of things. If I made a friend, it never lasted, for one reason or another. I think when that happens, it's natural to think there is something wrong with YOU, and to close in on yourself (as he said)

I also think if you are very talented, people can get jealous, or nervous of you. Maybe that happened with Mika. I could imagine that people either flocked to him, or avoided him like the plague, depending on what their perceptions of themselves were. For example: If they felt that he made them feel inadequate about themselves because he's so brilliant. The people who flocked to him probably had confidence in their own abilities, and were happy to help nurture his.

I like to think I'd have been one of his friends in those days.

I really love the article. It speaks to me on so many levels. I'm so happy that he's in a good place now. I can't wait to hear the album!

[krjsantos]

It's a beautiful article. It makes me all misty-eyed. I can understand how he feels because, for much of my life, I too have often felt left out of things. If I made a friend, it never lasted, for one reason or another. I think when that happens, it's natural to think there is something wrong with YOU, and to close in on yourself (as he said)

I also think if you are very talented, people can get jealous, or nervous of you. Maybe that happened with Mika. I could imagine that people either flocked to him, or avoided him like the plague, depending on what their perceptions of themselves were. For example: If they felt that he made them feel inadequate about themselves because he's so brilliant. The people who flocked to him probably had confidence in their own abilities, and were happy to help nurture his.

I like to think I'd have been one of his friends in those days.

I really love the article. It speaks to me on so many levels. I'm so happy that he's in a good place now. I can't wait to hear the album!

 

Well said!

[kath]

Thank you very much for the translation.

[Lucrezia]

wow:shocked:

 

 

no comparison with the italian version! who's that bloody translator?

 

Oh jeez that's a whole different story, just as I thought. Were huge chunks of it missing in the magazine?

 

It's incredible!!!

 

They deleted soooo much pieces of the column!!!! Journalists....

[Christine]

They deleted soooo much pieces of the column!!!! Journalists....

 

Maybe that's what he gets for pushing their deadline too far.

[nas]

Yes! We gave him braces that were pink and navy and he said they were his school colours.

 

 

 

Sounds about right.

 

i loved reading about the magazine - where'd u get that excerpt from christine?

 

and i finally feel content with the new column! another piece of great writing

[SjoerdvWijk]

Our writing genius