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Obama wins. Democrats win all around. Two Republican congressmen voted out in the Orlando area.

It’s a beautiful day!
u2-Beautiful day

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Not only that, she is pretty darn cute!

Check out the video from She and Him’s first album, Volume One: “Why Don’t You Let Me Stay Here.”

The duo has the enviable problem of trying to follow up St. Elsewhere and its smash hit “Crazy.” It’s like Springsteen trying to follow “Born to Run.” “Crazy” not only topped the charts, it competed for Grammy’s. Gnarls could have gone down a one-hit wonder with that song alone.

But Gnarls gives a great follow-up with a retro song that beckons back to the 60s, Funkadelics, and Soul Train. Check out Justin Timberlake as a dopey TV host.

Here are the lyrics:

I would rather suffer sweet silent solitude
Deathly defiant from drowning out
Filthy sounds stumbling, ugly and cruel
Between the lips of your beautiful mouth

Deep down within me words move in phases
Frozen and still until they decide
To melt and drip over the pages
Until that moment they live inside.

My words enjoy the feel of the paper
Better than me, lay with your consonants
Once they get going they never waver
And they slip in between your if, ands, and buts.

When my words are hiding between the lines
Then i’m afraid they won’t hear me call
What if they fail me without a sign?
What if they hardly surface at all?

Screaming and throwing your weight around
My words choose knowledge over politics
You can’t kill my words ..they know no bounds
My words are strong and they don’t make me sick.

They still remain my only companion
Boiling truth to the very end
They’ll never ever completely abandon
Ever give up the paper and the pen

For those who never venture over to YouTube or have been in a cave every time the IPod commercial played, now you know why Feist is emerging out of the Canadian indie music scene to become an international star. You can see why Apple chose the video for the launch of its IPod video.

Like Madonna and Shakira, Feist makes very good songs with a limited vocal range and even better videos with her looks and screen presence. She is not the dancer that either Madonna or Shakira is, but few singers are. Feist shows great moves in “My Moon My Man” and “One Evening.” She also has great fashion sense. Check out the jacket in “My Moon My Man” and the stockings in “One Evening.”

But even a good singer with a great song can make a terrible video. That’s definitely not the case here. Everything comes together in “1 2 3 4,” Feist, her sequin blue outfit, the dancers, and the lighting. Patrick Daughters directs this video, made in a warehouse somewhere around Montreal. He has worked with Feist on others, including “My Moon My Man.”

I’ve watched the video countless times. In spite of different angles and dancers appearing and disappearing, I could not pick out any cuts whatsoever. After watching the making of the video, I found out there was none. It was all shot in one take with a camera on a remote control arm.

Obviously, it’s one of the more popular videos on YouTube, and it shows the site’s influence. Feist would get little airplay on most radio stations. Were it not for YouTube and the IPod commercial, I would have not heard of her. Now she’s one of the most played artists on my IPod.

I can only echo the comments left on YouTube – “simple yet beautiful,” “AWESOME!” “cool!”

While I keep debating on other women, Emmylou Harris is definitely on the list. She just turned 60, let her hair go gray years ago, and wears simple clothes and little makeup. Yet she still looks better than most women half her age and sounds like an angel.

My favorite Emmylou song is “Queen of the Silver Dollar,” which was written by one of the my heroes, Shel Silverstein. But Emily has made it her own.