Bob Dylan's dead dog poem for sale

A POEM about a dead dog written by a teenage Bob Dylan is to be sold at auction.

The verse, entitled Little Buddy and handwritten by the singer when he was 16, is expected to fetch up to $15,000 (£9,660).

Dylan was still going by his given name Bob Zimmerman when he wrote the two-page poem in 1957 during a stay at summer camp in Wisconsin, US.

Christie's auction house said the poem was about the murder of a boy's dog, and was "dark and mournful".

It reads: "I'll meet my precious buddy up in the sky / By a tiny narrow grave / Where the willows sadly wave."

Dylan wrote the piece for Herzl Herald, which was the summer camp's newspaper.

Lisa Heilicher, editor of the camp's Herzl Herald, kept the handwritten original, but decided to sell it to help raise funds for the camp.

She said: "I kept it with all of my stuff that I collected from camp. When I realised how famous he had become, I put it in a piece of plastic and stuck it in an encyclopedia."

Dylan himself authorised the sale, telling officials to "do what you want with [the poem]",

Beyonce on a mission to lose weight

Beyonce Knowles buys clothes which are too small for her as a motivation to lose weight.

The singer-and-actress, who is famed for her curvy figure, admits it takes a lot of hard work for her to stay in shape so she needs to have a goal.

She said: "I buy something too small and then say, 'I have a reason.' I need to wear these jeans or this hot dress."

The 27-year-old beauty also says her dream of winning an Oscar drives her on when she is working out. Talking about a painting in her gym which features the famous gold statue, she revealed: "I look at it, and I'm like, 'OK, I have to stay in shape.' "

Although she would like to lose a few pounds, Beyonce - who is married to hip-hop star Jay-Z - admits she wasn't happy when she shed 15lbs to play Deena Jones in 'Dreamgirls'.

She added to Self magazine: "I felt very chic, like a model. But it didn't look natural for me. I didn't feel very sexy or feminine, and I didn't have much confidence because I didn't feel like myself."

21st Century Breakdown Green Day

I had a hard time accepting this new album, as I loved American Idiot and didn't think it could be topped . . . further, I wasn't too excited about the whole "Christian and Gloria" narrative, etc. But I've found that, with repeated listens, the songs have really grown on me. And the narrative is so loose, and Christian and Gloria are referenced so infrequently, that there were times when I forgot I was listening to a "rock opera." This album is not as fun as American Idiot, it is more contemplative and introspective. And, with a few exceptions, it doesn't have the light-heartedness of earlier Green Day material. That's why you have to give it some time. The guys wanted to do something a little different (heck, they've been at this for 20 years). I personally feel like this album came from the heart, and that's why I listened to it two to three times to let it grow on me before making up my mind about it.

The following songs are my favorites:
1) Horseshoes and Handgrenades. I think this song has the most menacing "f$#k you" energy of any Green Day song ever. East Jesus Nowhere is also quite good, for similar reasons.
2) Last Night on Earth. I'm not usually one for ballads, but this one is very beautiful. It was written by Billie Joe for his wife . . .
3) 21st Century Breakdown. This hook grows on you, it has a sunny, grooving quality to it even though the lyrics are kinda pessimistic.
4) "Before the Lobotomy" also starts out as a serious ballad . . . again, not my favorite type of music usually. The track morphs into something else and then the ballad material returns, but set to a backbeat and distorted guitars. It sounds very powerful at the end.
5) Restless Heart Syndrome . . . another haunting ballad that improves with each listen.
6) 21 Guns. This has a great "everyone put your lighter in the air" vibe. I think this will sound excellent live.

There were other good moments on the album, too. I'm just getting too tired to type more :) And, at the risk of beating you over the head with a stick . . . give this album 2-3 listens and let the material sink in. You will be glad you did.

Shakira

Singer, songwriter. Born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll on February 2, 1977, in Barranquilla, Colombia. With a Lebanese father and Colombian mother, Shakira honors her Latino and Arabic heritage in her music. She wrote her first song at the age of 8 and signed her first record deal at 13. After her first two albums flopped, Shakira took the reins of her third album, becoming involved in every aspect of its production. Released in 1996, Pies Descalzos, meaning "bare feet," sold more than three million copies. The album featured her trademark sound, a blending of Latin, rock, and Arabic musical styles. It sold more than three million copies and the follow-up record, Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (1998)—which translates as "Where are the thieves?"—reached the top of Billboard's Latin charts. Based on the success of her albums, Shakira became a music superstar in the Spanish-language markets, known for her strong vocals and incredible hip-shaking belly dance moves.

While hugely popular in much of the rest of the world, Shakira had not yet achieved a major record on the U.S. pop charts. She moved to Miami with her family to further her goal and taught herself to write songs in English. She enlisted Emilio Estefan—of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine fame—to act as her manager and producer. Her first English-language album, Laundry Service (2001), provided Shakira with the success in the United States that she longed forthe album was number three on the charts, selling more than 200,000 copies in the first week. The songs "Whenever, Wherever" and "Underneath Your Clothes" were both big hits.

Shakira returned to the top 10 of the albums chart in 2005 twice. She first released the Spanish-language Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 in June, which was followed in November by English-language Oral Fixation, Vol. 2. She received the Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album for Fijación Oral, Vol. 1, her second time winning such an honor. Previously, she had won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album for 2000's Shakira: MTV Unplugged.

Besides her busy career, Shakira created the Pies Descalzos Foundation to help children in her native Colombia in 1997.

Always

This romeo is bleeding
But you can't see his blood
It's nothing but some feelings
That this old dog kicked up

It's been raining since you left me
Now I'm drowning in the flood
You see I've always been a fighter
But without you I give up

Now I can't sing a love song
Like the way it's meant to be
Well, I guess I'm not that good anymore
But baby, that's just me

And I will love you, baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always
I'll be there till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don't rhyme
And I know when I die, you'll be on my mind
And I'll love you - Always

Now your pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some that made us laugh, some that made us cry
One that made you have to say goodbye
What I'd give to run my fingers through your hair
To touch your lips, to hold you near
When you say your prayers try to understand
I've made mistakes, I'm just a man

When he holds you close, when he pulls you near
When he says the words you've been needing to hear
I'll wish I was him 'cause those words are mine
To say to you till the end of time

Yeah, I will love you baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always

If you told me to cry for you
I could
If you told me to die for you
I would
Take a look at my face
There's no price I won't pay
To say these words to you

Well, there ain't no luck
In these loaded dice
But baby if you give me just one more try
We can pack up our old dreams
And our old lives
We'll find a place where the sun still shines

And I will love you, baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always
I'll be there till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don't rhyme
And I know when I die, you'll be on my mind
And I'll love you - Always

"Sleeping In My Car"

I'll tell you what I've done
I'll tell you what I'll do
Been driving all nite just to get close to you
Baby Babe - I'm moving so fast
You'd better come on.
The moon is alright
The freeway's heading south
My heart is going Boom!
There's a strange taste in my mouth
Baby Babe - I'm moving real fast
So try to hold on
Try to hold on!
Sleeping in my car - I will undress you
Sleeping in my car - I will caress you
Staying in the back seat of my car making up.
So come out tonight
I'll take you for a ride
This steamy ol' wagon
The radio is getting wild
Baby Babe - we're moving so fast
I try to hang on
Try to hang on!
Sleeping in my car - I will undress you
Sleeping in my car - I will caress you
Staying in the back seat of my car making love, oh yea!
Sleeping in my car - I will possess you
Sleeping in my car - certainly bless you
Laying in the back seat of my car making up.
The night is so pretty and so young
The night is so pretty and so young
So very young...
Sleeping in my car - I will undress you
Sleeping in my car - I will caress you
Staying in the back seat of my car making love to you.
Sleeping in my car - I will possess you
Sleeping in my car - certainly bless you
Laying in the back seat of my car making up.
I will undress youI will undress you.
The night is so pretty and so young.

Roxette Biography

Band members include Pelle Alsing, (born June 6, 1960, inStockholm, Sweden), drums; Vicki Benckert, (bornOctober 17, 1960, in Stockholm, Sweden), guitar, accordion, backing vocals; Marie Fredriksson, (born May 30, 1958, in Ostra Ljungby, Sweden), vocals; marriedMickeBolyos; children: Inez Josefin; Oscar Mikael; Per Gessle, (born January 12, 1959, in Halmstad, Sweden), guitar, vocals;married Asa Nordin, 1993; children: Gabriel Titus; Anders Herrlin,(born September 17, 1961, in Halmstad, Sweden), bass guitar;Jonas Isacsson, (born June 10, 1959, in Umea,Sweden), guitar; Clarence Ofwerman, (born November 22, 1957, in Stockholm, Sweden), keyboards; StaffanOfwerman, (born September 8, 1962, in Stockholm, Sweden), keyboards, percussion. Addresses: Record company- EMI, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019.

Initially bogged down with comparisons to 1970s pop giants Abba, the members of Roxette became international superstars with the release of their second album Look Sharp! in 1988. Like fellow Swedish Abba, Roxette did produce a number of worldwide number one hits, but showed their own knack for composing infectiously catchy pop songs. Continuing with several albums that were almost as commercially successful, Roxette was warmly treated by most critics, who found guilty pleasure in the band's well-crafted tunes. After the somewhat disappointing album Crash!Boom! Bang! in 1994, Roxette retreated from the studio with a number of compilations, remixes,and re-releases, but announced that an album of fresh material would be offered to the world by the end of 1998.

Although rounded out by a number of studio musicians, for all intents and purposes Roxette is the duo of guitarist/vocalist Per Gessle and platinum-haired lead vocalist Marie Fredriksson,who met in Halmstad, Sweden in the mid-1970s. Both of them struggling musicians, Fredriksson's primary influence came from jazz artists as diverse as the mournful chanteuse BillieHoliday and the improvisational outfit Henry Cow, while Gessle was thoroughly caught up in the style of American and British New Wave and power pop groups like Blondie and the Romantics. "With new wave, it was okay if you hit the wrong note," Gessle told Musician's Mark Rowlandin 1991. "I think that was the attitude that made you start playing guitar, because you're not really influenced by your school or parents."

Gessle and Fredriksson both made names for themselves with two markedly different recording careers, with Gessle writing wry lyrics for a pop band, and Fredriksson creating three solo albums of somber female vocals. However, by the mid-1980s the two friends decided to takeadvantage of their seeming incompatibility and formed Roxette in hopes of creating catchy, flashy pop music. "I don't think Roxette would ever have happened if Marie's and my records had been sort of the same," Gessle reflected to Rowland. "Marie had never had that type of song to sing before. And for me it was equally - opposite." In 1986, Roxette cut their debut album for EMI Sweden, an outing of twelve tracks recorded in their native tongue, entitled Pearls of Passion. The record yielded a number of hits in Roxette's homeland, including "Svarta glas" ("BlackGlasses") but was not released to the rest of the world.

After a successful domestic tour in 1987, Gessle and Fredriksson decided to broaden their appeal by switching over to English, the language spoken in the crucial U.S. and U.K. markets. The resulting album, Look Sharp! was released by EMI in 1988, but initially failed to catch on outside of Sweden until an American exchange student gave a copy to a radio station in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The song "The Look" almost instantly became a national radio favorite, paving the ground for the official release of the song to rocket to the top of the U.S. pop charts.

Look Sharp! had finally found a place in the heart of American listeners, who embraced the energy of Fredriksson's delivery of "Listen to Your Heart" and "Dangerous." On the whole,even the most jaded music journalism welcomed Roxette's crackerjack ability to produce catchy tunes during a relative drought of pop music. Critics like Musician's Jon Young made no great claims for Roxette as innovators, however. "Not surprisingly, Roxette's music tends to fall apart when examined closely," Young wrote in June of 1989. "The playing (or programming) never transcends anonymity, and for all the sound and fury, the songs are eerily passionless. Which of course misses the point entirely. Rather than presuming to offer meaning or substance, Look Sharp! merely wants to join the modern media din. But it is kinda fun." Such equivocated praise comprised the overall flavor of most of Roxette's subsequent reviews.

After a popular European tour, Roxette began work on their follow-up to Look Sharp! and along the way decided to re-record one of the stronger cuts from Pearls of Passion, "It Must HaveBeen Love." The duo was so pleased with the strength of the ballad that it was the intended centerpiece of their next album, but instead it was integrated into the soundtrack for the 1990 filmPretty Woman as well as becoming a number one single. Soon after Gessle found a forgotten note left on a table reading "Hello, you fool! I love you," which became the lyrical hookline for another song equally worthy as a title track. The scrap of whimsical dialogue was transformed into the song "Joyride," the first single of the 1991 album of the same name.

More than Another Abba

Since the release of Look Sharp!, Roxette had been unduly compared to the Swedish groupAbba. Aside from their Scandinavian heritage and penchant for crafting international hits, Roxettehad little resemblance to those earlier legends of icy-cool pop, and some critics began to point out the discrepancy upon the release of their new album. "Overall, what ultimately defines Joyrideare the performances, and that marks the most important difference between Roxette and Abba,"J.D. Considine wrote in Rolling Stone. "By emphasizing its sense of personality, Roxette delivers more than just well-constructed hooks; this music has heart, something that makes even the catchiest melody more appealing."

While Roxette did not seriously depart from their established style with Joyride, the album did reveal an influx of new idea sources such as hip-hop and classic rock. Gessle himself made it clear that a credo of easygoing pop still ruled his songwriting efforts. "[T]he trick is not to think too much about it," he told Musician. "Try the first thing that pops into your mind, if it makes sense. If it's work, skip it. But if you have lots of instrumentalists and soloists, it makes the whole album much more interesting." In the final instance, the public's acceptance of Joyride's selection of pop songs and ballads exceeded that of Look Sharp!, with the title cut and the single"Fading Like A Flower" scoring heavily on sales charts.

Hot on the heels of Joyride, Roxette launched a 108 date world tour that spanned four continents, piecing together a collection of live cuts and ou ttakes entitled Tourism: Songs from theStudios, Stages, Hotel rooms, and Other Strange Places along the way. While the album's success in the U.S. was limited, it eventually sold over four million copies worldwide. This was perhaps the first indication of Roxette's falling out with American audiences, but throughout the globe their popularity was still immense. Having become the biggest Swedish stars since Abba, the membersof Roxette were commemorated by their country's government when Gessle and Fredriksson's faces were cast upon a series of postage stamps.

Roxette enjoyed a several year hiatus after their world tour, inciting talk of the band's breakup. Roxette dispelled such rumors with the release of Crash! Boom! Bang! in 1994, an album recorded in a number of locations that included London, England and Isola di Capri, Italy. For many critics, however, the record was not worth the wait, and largely faulted the higher number of tunes sung by Gessle. "As with the duo's previous work, Crash! Boom! Bang! hits its best notes when Fredriksson is at the mike," judged People magazine. "Her vocals on the ballads'Run To You,' 'What's She Like,' and the title song are more subtle and graceful than her partner's grating, affected rasp." Entertainment Weekly's Devon Jackson was in agreement,writing that "[i]f only Per Gessle had let the charged up Marie Fredriksson sing vocals on all 15songs, Crash might've qualified as an unqualified guilty pleasure."

Maintained Status as International Stars

Although sales of Crash! Boom! Bang! were not disastrous, it was Roxette's weakest performance to date, especially in the American market. Despite having initially courted U.S. listeners, Roxette began in turn to shy away from America, skipping over the country during their 1994 tour. For the rest of the world, Roxette were still hot property, as illustrated by the demandfor their 1995 compilation release Don't Bore Us, Get To The Chorus! With its title aptly summing up Roxette's pure-pop-or-nothing philosophy, Don't Bore Us was a greatest hits cumremix package that sold over four million copies, even though EMI decided not to release it in the U.S.

Over the next few years, Roxette kept a lower profile than ever, surfacing only for an occasional repackaging of previously released material, including a collection of hard to find B-sides and remixes, Roxette Rarities, and the 1997 reissue of Pearls of Passion, the original havingbecome an expensive collector's item. Roxette took one step further away from the English speaking world with the 1996 release Baladas En Espanol, a collection of twelve of Roxette'schoice ballads re-recorded in Spanish. Still superstars across Europe and South America, Gessle and Fredriksson announced that a new Roxette album would be completed by the end of 1998.
Roxette's Career
Band formed in 1986, in Halmstad, Sweden, by Gessle and Fredriksson, signed toEMI Sweden; releaseddebut album Look Sharp!, 1988; contributed "It Must Have Been Love"to the Pretty Woman soundtrack, 1990; released Joyride, 1991; given their own postage stamp bythe Swedish government, 1991; sold over a million copies of Crash! Boom! Bang! sampler throughMcDonald's fast food chain, 1994; released greatest hits album Don't Bore Us, Get To TheChorus! worldwide, except in the U.S., 1995.