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Favorite and least favorite MonaLisa Twins songs
With most of the bands, duos and solo artists that I’ve purchased albums from over the decades, it’s easy to pick out my favorites. The consistent quality of all the MonaLisa Twins songs makes that a much tougher job with their music. I’m going to select my 3 or 4 favorite songs from each CD along with my least favorite song and invite you to do the same:
From Orange: Still a Friend of Mine, That’s Life, Count on Me, Close to You. There are many songs bunched up- I love both of the Sebastian songs, No More Worries Company- it’s a great album with many excellent songs. The song I listen to the least is Sweet Lorraine.
Beatles and More: Revolution, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, God Only Knows, This Boy, The Last Time (okay, so my counting isn’t so good!) and I also love In My Life. The song I listen to the least currently is For What It’s Worth as I’ve grown to like Friday on My Mind with more listens. I’m not that keen on Johnny B. Goode.
When We’re together: The Wide, Wide Land, Won’t You Listen Now, This Boy is Mine, Nothing is in Vain. The song I listen to the Least is All About Falling in Love.
California Dreaming: Love all 3 of these songs. The exceptional cover of Hotel California by two 14 year olds is one of the most surprising recordings of their career. California Dreamin’ is incredible- much better than the original and I also love San Francisco. The growth from the 2007 concert is amazing!
Live in 2007: Twist and Shout, Wonderful Tonight, Der Kommissar (the most unique song in their catalog- much better than any other recording of this song), All My Loving. My least favorite is Wild World.
Love the new recording of I’ll Follow the Sun and I also love Morning Has broken. And I can barely wait to hear Hey Bulldog! Whew- feel like I just finished War and Peace.
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12 Replies
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My favorite cover of theirs is, hands down, God Only Knows. Simply beautiful. Of their originals, I like both albums of original songs, and while I feel the songwriting on Orange is overall better than When We’re Together, (not surprising, the twins are older, more experienced writers now), my two favorite originals are on the first record, “I Don’t Know Birds That Well”, and “June”.
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My favorite cover of theirs is If I Fell…..really like it when Lisa points the bow at us..that was a great touch to the video. From Orange there are many songs to like: Still A Friend, Close To You, and Count On Me. Sweet Lorraine is so quirky nd unexpected!! Really like it. From When We’re Together I like just about all of the LP. Mike.
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Favourites:
From Orange: Still a Friend of Mine, Count on Me, Close to You, Sweet Lorraine.
Beatles and More: Friday on My Mnd, Drive My Car, Day Tripper, The Last Time (love Lisa’s mesmerising Brian Jones guitar riff and Keith Richards lead break and Mona’s passionate vocals).
When We’re together: The Wide, Wide Land, Won’t You Listen Now, I Don’t Know Birds That Well. All accompanied by beautiful videos. Also love the ‘Nothing is in Vain’ video.
California Dreaming: Love all three of these songs. Hard to believe they were only 14. They look like they had a wonderful time doing the videos.
Live 2007 Concert: Wonderful Tonight, Der Kommissar, Mr Tamborine Man, Love is All Around.
Favourite Videos: ‘Bus Stop’, ‘You’re Going to Lose That Girl’, ‘The Last Time’, ‘The Wide Wide Land’ ‘Won’t You Listen now’.
Favourite Radio Broadcasts: ‘Catch the Wind’ on BBC Manchester.
Least Favourites: Can’t think of any at the moment.
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Great selections, Howard.
I don’t mean any disrespect when picking least favorite songs. I’ve noticed that a number of fans love Sweet Lorraine and Lisa mentioned being especially proud of the lyrics- it doesn’t quite connect for me (yet). My least favorite Beatles songs are probably Wild Honey Pie, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and All Together Now.
But i really like the twins version of Maxwell- so go figure.-
Well, Tim—you see–the joke in ALL TOGETHER NOW–is that bands have forever said all together now to get the audience to sing the chorus of the song. But their Chorus is ALL TOGETHER NOW so that is what the audience repeats (though it’s them repeating) and hahahah I got you Tim cuz you already knew that.
GOD ONLY KNOWS is a Brian Wilson masterpiece and the girls?ladies?chics?birds? —they do an amazing job. Same with California Dreaming.
You are correct Tim—HEY BULL DOG is a killer rocker and I’d love to hear the girls do that.
From memory—i think GOD ONLY KNOWS was Brian Wilson’s response to RUBBER SOUL. He took that album personally and had to top it. But Paul indeed went ballistic over GOD ONLY KNOWS and the whole PET SOUNDS album and invented SGT PEPPERS album which Mon and Lisa do justice to as well.
But I’m no dumbo–I like ANYTHING Mona and Lisa sing. (i’m still trying to make up for being an whining infant)
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I only discovered the MonaLisa Twins a couple of months ago but as I am recently retired, I have plenty of time on my hands and discovering new MLT material is currently my favourite past time. That being said, I haven’t listened to their albums enough yet to really determine which are my least favourites. I guess like others on this post, it will eventually become obvious as it will be the ones I listen to least. Definitely no ‘filler’ on their albums though. Two incredibly talented and totally loveable ladies who seem to be so well balanced and genuine. A real credit to Papa Rudi and stepmum Michaela.
Regarding least favourite Beatles’ songs, I know where you are coming from Tim. Those songs you mentioned are not my favourites either, but the MonaLisa Twins version of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ just adds that something special and along with the excellent video, it takes on an entirely new life for me.
You seem quite aufait with the Twins work Tim. Wondering if you can help with my enquiry regarding videos of their 2007 Concert. There are 24 tracks but I can only locate 14 YouTube videos. I’m wondering if there are videos somewhere for ‘Der Kommissar’, ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘Smoke on the Water’? Mona has already advised me why they haven’t produced a DVD of the concert. Not being involved in the industry I don’t understand the complexity of the copyright and royalty system. She did however advise me that YouTube videos were much less complicated to publish. I’d rather not bother her again with one of my lengthy posts. I’m sure both Mona and Lisa are going to be very busy trying to deal with correspondence at the moment.
Cheers, Howard. -
Hi Howard,
I’ve experienced the same thing with the Live Album. I’m not sure why those songs aren’t available on video but I’m so pleased we have the audio. Like you, I was fascinated by the info that Mona shared about the DVD and the extra costs to release it
There are some really neat things on that first album. Lisa does most of the singing and although her voice is precious, she sounds like a teenage girl on many of the cuts. Their accent is much heavier on this album than anyplace else. I happen to love their accent but from a pure musical point- there’s an incredible step up on the California Dreaming songs.
Don’t get me wrong- I love this concert and am blown away by the recording quality- Rudolf is a wizard! For 2 13 year olds, doing their first concert- well, these girls are the MonaLisa Twins!Der Kommissar is an amazing recording and I hope a video of that will surface. Well, I know I didn’t answer your question but I still enjoyed talking with you.
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Hi Tim
‘she sounds like a teenage girl on many of the cuts.’
It’s easy to forget that she is just a teenager, and only just at 13. That’s what impresses me. So professional and confident at such a young age. Like you I love their accent and hope they don’t end up sounding like all their new Liverpudlian compatriots. Just amazing how good they are when English is their second language.
Presently watching their ‘If I Fell’ video. Their harmonising is just sublime. Have you noticed how Lisa goes low like John when Mona goes high like Paul.
I take your point about California Dreaming being a step up and yes, Rudolf is a genius. The twins are fortunate to have a father like him with his talent, skills, resources and total commitment to supporting his daughters dreams, even if it might be at the expense of his own. I certainly think he has made the right decision though (yes, there is self interest on my part here). The lovely Michaela is obviously a great support too and I have no doubt her contribution is far more significant than what is obvious to the average punter like us.
Hopefully some more videos from the 2007 Concert will pop up.
Nice chatting with you.
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That was the wonderful surprise of MLT’s latest music….such a variety of quality songs. I can remember the days of buying an album for one good song. We started out on Youtube hearing their Beatels & other covers. We recently made the plunge with ‘Orange’. The ‘Orange’ album has delivered many great tunes we’ll be listening to over & over.
It’s always interesting how one person’s least favorite is another’s top 5. We just love the heartbeat-like feel of Sweet Lorraine, along with the guitar and bass that leads into the chorus harmonies & trumpets. That’s one of the top MLT songs we replay often. I remember the feel of hearing Rubber Soul & Revolver for the 1st time…..that’s the same feeling I had when hearing ‘Orange’…..thinking in a positive way, “They’ve changed & grown!” Of course we’ve always liked McCartney’s vocals & arrangement on Maxwell Silver Hammer…though understand even John L. derided that one.
It is comical actually, as I told the sons, “Hey, you guys have to listen to these 13 year old girls on Youtube singing some Beatles tunes!” Later, that day I said, “Oh wait, they’re 19.” Even later we laughed as I said, “Just found out they’re 21.” I think it was the next day when we found they were really 24. I was afraid to look the day after that for fear that they might have already retired. LOL Please tell me we’re up-to-date on their age now. 😉
We HAVE come a LONG way in the past few weeks.
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Geez…pick a needle out of a haystack why don’t ya with this Q…lol…ALL SONGS ARE EQUAL FAVES…but sometimes yes…it can vary….as to which songs I’m drawn to more ….and …I’m just going to leave it at that…????☮️✌️????????????????❤️????
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This is a tough question, almost like trying to pinpoint my favorite Beatles song. I guess my least favorite would be People Are Strange simply because I never much cared for the song in the first place when The Doors did it. Maybe I’d like it more if it was Mona doing the drum solo. One song from Orange that I don’t see on anyone’s fav/not fav list is Club 27. I simply love that song but then I love the whole album. But what is really cool is how on the album they go from the edgy and heavy Club 27 to the beautiful ballad of Still a Friend of Mine. That in and of itself shows their diversity in style. As for the video covers, the one I go back to more than anything else right now is Hotel California. It simply blows me away. But my favs change daily. For a while it was Bus Stop which I still love, but right now I can’t get enough of HC. But the thing is I love all of MLT’s music and the only band I could ever say that about was The Beatles. Oh and BTW, I don’t consider Revolution #9 a song. And one more thing, I cannot wait to hear the twins do Hey Bulldog and I hope they have as much fun at the end as John and Paul did. In fact, I hope that’s their next video. A very underrated song that got buried in the Yellow Submarine LP along with George’s It’s All Too Much.
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Favourite? Perhaps Count on Me from Orange. Favourite cover: Friday on My Mind. Least favourite: The Future from Orange. Not sure that even counts as a song.
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