"Everything"

This track has been on heavy rotation. I found this album at a time when my world was crumbling. Even though it's a powerful album for empowering women; I find it to be evocative and thought provoking, and I certainly made an emotional connection to it. You throw some cello into a track, and you have my attention... a total sucker for it. "Man", ironically titled given the message throughout the disc, was Neneh's third full-length, though it's domestic U.S. release either never happened, or was years delayed. She had already been written off in The States. Ridiculous timing, because as her light faded, her production team and her home town were about to strike hard at the throats of the American music scene and set it on it's ear. Go!Discs unleasehed fellow peers Portishead and Tricky, and dumped introduced trip hop to the masses. A scene that had already taken hold in the U.K., many of the acts emerging from the bleak, industrial wasteland of the town of Portishead. It was a melange of the youthful disenchantment that was the Seattle/X-Gen scene, and the underbelly of an acid generation that preferred glowsticks to plaid. It unleashed a new wave of brit-pop influence, and the acid/psychedelic culture evolved with many sounds, trip hop certainly included amongst them. It also began to shape the NY hip-hop scene, bringing in samples other than jazz.. alumni such as Beastie Boys and Moby certainly took notice and ran with it.

"Man" is a severing of expectation and being a slave to the music industry. Thrown to the wolves, and unfairly criticised on a professional and personal level, Neneh chose a measure of seclusion to focus on her family. And emerged with renewed strength, angst, and self-worth. She speaks so eloquently about love and hurt; about passion and betrayal; and eqaully about the type of love that's important to one's happiness and sanity. You can't help but fall in lust with her as she describes masturbating to her own reflection, but there's nothing narcississtic about it - it's empowering. That confidence is infectious and intoxicating. At the same time, you fall in love with her because she sings so sincerely about love of family, and love of self. How easily she could be bitter and hateful, but she teaches healing and taken care of yourself... a powerful message I am attempting to embrace...



Everything, anything I see
Anything, everything I feel
Everyday anytime I know
Anything everyone has to go
Champagne lingers in my glass
The party's over
I see my reflection, sipping
And it reminds me
I'd like to see you
Having more fun
If you can
I look at you
But it's me I see
It's everything I know ( it's me I see )
It's everything I feel ( it's me I see )
It's everything and everyone around me that I see
Everything is real
Everything I feel
In my mirror
I see myself
In that mirror
Inside myself
Sometimes I feel it coming to me
Thinking of you when I'm looking at my body
I can touch myself with my own understanding
My resolution to be broken
That I see now
And it's me I see
It's everything I know ( it's me I see )
It's everything I feel ( it's me I see )
And it's everything and everyone around me that I know
Everything is real
Everything I feel
No real solutions
In clipping from the past
I see my reflection at last
Books full of pictures
Remembering the blasts
Times consequences
Makes me go fast
And it's me I see
And It's everywhere I go
It's me I see
It's everything I see ( it's me I see )
And it's everywhere I go Yeah ( it's me I see )
It's everything I feel ( it's me I see )
And it's everywhere I go ( it's me I see )
It's everything I feel ( it's me I see )
And it's everything and everyone around me that I love
Everything is real
Everything I feel