By your side i can't pretend anymoreNow everything starts where it ends."
~Everything Starts Where It Ends
Lovedrug, Everything Starts Where It Ends
Dear fellow listener and occasional reader,
I want to thank you for stumbling upon this blog in whatever fashion you have. This will be our final post at this particular site, but that's better news than it sounds — we're moving to a shiny new blog with shiny new tools and hopefully going to get our thoughts out to a bigger audience.
Check us out in a few days at www.learninglovesongs.com where we'll be up and running from here on out. Plus, all our archives will be available there for future perusal.
It's interesting to look at back at my earliest posts and see how some of my favorite artists back then are still my favorites today. I still love dreamy delay, I still love gut-spilling bridges, I still love spine-tingling, hair-raising, fist-pumping hooks. But so much has changed about the music I love and who I am and this blog is a mirror for all of that — the songs that I needed in dark times, or the ones that I used to celebrate on the other side, they say something about the connection between music and listener, between artist and fan. That connection, I have learned, is one of the most powerful in the world.
I've learned a lot in the course of eight years. But with all the music there is in the world, I know I've only scratched the surface.
See you on the other side,
MD
"Hey now, we're wide awake and we're thinking My darling, believe your voice can mean something Say hello to good times Trade up for the fast ride We close our eyes while the nickel and dime take the streets completely."
First bike ride of the season took me on my favorite solo-cruise route - from Millvale along the Three Rivers trail, past PNC Park, around Heinz Field, across the bridge and down to Point State Park. The scenery changes quickly, the path goes from crushed stone to pavement to concrete with varying degrees of incline, and on the first free day I've had in awhile that just happened to the warmest yet, I could not resist putting on my headphones and going for a ride.
Shuffle did not fail me, starting with a strong run of modern pop punk.
"I'm safe, and who ever thought that was difficult? My nerves start to feel so frayed. I'm trying to turn things around, but instead I'll say 'Why do I feel so invisible? Good things will come my way.' I'm trying to turn things around, and I wait
'Till the day when I stop making big mistakes And the clouds, they roll out of this whole damn state I believe in a place and I wanna go Honesty will leave me feeling livable Once I change.
Now that I've found some time, all the pain won't bother me. I've wanted to find what my head keeps filtering."~Good Things
The Dangerous Summer, War Paint
The trail was full of so many people - solo riders like me, couples jogging, small groups of walkers or cyclists - so I knew better than to blast the volume and tune out. Never know when someone's speeding up behind you. I quit dodging the crowds for a bit when I got to the Point, and decided to stretch out and lay on the grass. Like divine intervention, or the mathematical realities of an 8-gig device, a sliver of "Clarity" arrived on cue.
I laid there for awhile, listening to the same song over and over again. I put the volume up and watched the clouds, watched the fountain, and stretched my feet in time to the staccato strings. I let the rest of the album play the whole ride back.
"I promised I'd see it again I promised I'd see this with you now. I promised I'd see it again, I promised I'd see this with you now.
I said, said, said it out loud over and over Said, said, said it out loud but it did not help I'll stop now just enough so I can hear you I stay up as late as it takes"
~Just Watch The Fireworks
Jimmy Eat World, Clarity
By the time I made my way back to the trail head, I was just sweaty enough, feeling tension-free and exhilarated by the spontaneous ride. I switched back to shuffle and found myself where I started,with "Suburbia" piping through like a boisterous old friend you haven't seen in awhile. Usually, I plan rides for certain early mornings or with friends. It's a scheduled activity. But today, with my bike fresh from a tire tune-up on the back of my car, I decided to deviate from my to-do list in favor of what felt right, and it was worthwhile. What a change of pace, what a pleasant reminder of the control we have over our own destinies.
I strapped my bike to the trunk of my car. I kept my headphones in.
"I’m not a self-help book; I’m just a fucked up kid. I had to take my own advice and I did. Now I’m waiting for it to sink in.
Expect me standing tall, back against the wall, 'Cause what I learned was It’s not about forcing happiness; It’s about not letting the sadness win."
~Local Man Ruins Everything
The Wonder Years, Suburbia, I've Given You all and Now I'm Nothing
"I didn't mean to leave you hanging on I didn't mean to leave you all alone I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to say. Merry Christmas, baby."
~12.23.95
Jimmy Eat World, Clarity
There's this one shade of winter sky that is my absolute my favorite. It is the lightest kind of dark, it looks grey tinted with green and brown and nothing, with the smallest specks of stars dotted here and there and everywhere, and it's the shade you get when the snow is thick and quiet, when the world is so covered in white the sky can't bear to be too dark. Really, it's science, something about water and light and reflection and living by a lake, but to me, it's poetry.
This song is that sky. That sky is my heart -- tonight, and most nights.
On this day, simply because I believe in honorary things, I listen to this song over and over again. It is like rereading a book I haven't picked up in years, every word a memory. Is there a more memorable four-line song in the past decade and a half? Holiday themes aside, the bittersweet longing that pours through this is palpable, and uplifting. I cannot name all the sounds here, both pedal and computer generated, but they resonate so brightly, so purely. They encapsulate the timeless sound "Clarity" is so known and celebrated for.
This song is quiet night drives on poorly plowed and briefly traveled roads, cutting across fresh blankets of powder. This song is headphones against pillows in the middle of the night. This song is the earliest memories of love in a heart still full and optimistic, to the latest pronouncements of pet names and regrets.
Given this title and the song's relevance in being better
than most every song ever, December 23 is sort of a de facto Jimmy Eat
World Day. I spent the day listening to "Clarity," "Static Prevails,"
half of "Invented," and all the B-sides I can find. It is a good way to
indulge myself to hang onto all these favorites, to lapse in the
layers. It is so good to rediscover old favorites and adopt new ones. Like remembering how much I love "Episode IV," and how I have yet another example to point to when I argue that sleigh bells are the best kind of auxiliary for mid-tempo tracks, like those hidden on this "Chase This Light" bonus track, which is wintry in its own right and reference. .
Twice today, two of my bosses asked me why I have been so quiet this week, and I struggled to explain. "You must be really engaged," one said to me today. "Not necessarily the word I'd use," I said, "Just trying to focus." Because try is all I can do when all my head wants is to head somewhere in the clouds, somewhere far removed from my heart and my blood and my body, somewhere with notes and words and the kind of pretty-sad thoughts that make sense to my mind right now. For this reason I could never, never get used to living without music, because it is how I can feed that need while (hopefully) leaving enough brain power to get through the day as the functioning, capable, even successful and determined, version of myself I am apt to be. Even my attachment to writing and words is flighty compared to the way I need to hear, need to listen to the works and creations of others when I must come back down to earth. Because words fail me often. Songs never do. At least, those of others.
The artists who've meant the most to me in this way are probably no more or less human than I am. They are probably no more or less emotionally strong, weak, troubled or triumphant than I am. They almost certainly, musically and artistically speaking, possess more talent than I. Perhaps that is what inspires me, what drives me to be better. Because who, or what, is to say that my own innate abilities couldn't produce something sufficient enough to satiate my own craving for notes and words and pretty-sad thoughts, let alone, god willing, those of someone else? Excuses are easy to find - initiative, ambition, follow-through, these are the markers of the successful creator, not the mulling and wishing and wallowing and waiting. Perhaps this sense of creative motivation is a philosophy to capture at the end of this year and carry into the new one. I think it is, anyway. It seems worth trusting. What's the worst that could happen? Besides, if you can't trust yourself, why should anyone bother trusting you?
"let me have the keys and you can take a rest from the lightless main street until the next who knows what there was to see before the light turned green there's so much hell to live the static or the science; don't know which is worse the dial isn't broken; that's the way it works to the new professionals irregular is normal it's all in how you pray not what needs to change don't get comfortable don't be sensible swing with all you have stop me if you can imagine we had canvas with the midnight cold dig our fingers in and then we'd watch the snow maybe i need stronger meds don't let those feelings in i can't get closer now matters straight across and just for me to use but there's always another choice; another way through the notes in progress float along over your candle song the game is how you play not who wears a ring don't get comfortable don't be sensible swing with all you have stop me if you can i'm on the losing side not every time i'm gonna lose this love of mine here are the words defined not one is mine why are we still so afraid the things we do deserve their rightful names don't get comfortable don't be sensible swing with all you have stop me if you can
~Be Sensible
Jimmy Eat World, Chase this Light
"Hey now, the past is told by those who win My darling, what matters is what hasn't been. Hey now, we're wide awake and we're thinking, My darling, believe your voice can mean something."
~Futures
Jimmy Eat World, Futures
The first time I heard those opening chords on this title track, from the computer speakers in the basement where I spent so much time alone listening to so many songs, I wonder if I knew I'd be playing it 10 years later.
The future looked exciting then, if not amorphous. I knew I had one, knew it was inevitable, and I knew what made me feel good: music, friends,writing, creativity. But did I know how those things would coalesce? Did I know the highs and lows to come would rival the best and worst I'd experienced in 16 years? Did I know how much I'd one day be able to make sense of myself, all the while holding onto the notes and messages and stories of those songs I took in at that very moment? Then, as now, I saw hope in what was to come, even if I didn't know how it would play out. I knew what feelings mattered and I followed them - ten years later, I've learned the importance of that.
I'd loved Jimmy Eat World for several years before this release. I'd already fallen in love with Clarity and already rattled off their name in the list of my favorite bands. This record was an anticipated arrival that did not disappoint, it carried hope and yearning and pensive struggle with some of the best hooks this band has created, while recapturing an alt-rock throne that cemented this band's legacy as royalty among a certain crowd. How many other bands can walk the line so well between assertive punk ("Pain," "Just Tonight") with radio-ready choruses ("Work," "Kill" ) and cinematic melodies ("Polaris," "23")? Who even has since?
I remember playing "23" and wondering where I'd be when I was that age. I remember singing it loudly in my car on that birthday, driving around Main Street with a friend who told me it was OK to sing. Hearing it today is funny. What I wouldn't give to be 23 again, to do so much so differently...but I suppose I must be happy it is this way, now, because once more there is a future ahead.
"You'll sit alone forever If you wait for the right time What are you hoping for? I'm here and now, I'm ready Holding on tight, Don't give away the end, The one thing that stays mine." ~23 Jimmy Eat World, Futures
On this one, every track is a memory. Every memory is a place, a person, a feeling. Every transition on this record is seamless and I find I can listen to it from start to finish and reflect kindly on the years that have passed. Friends, lovers and internal discord from different chapters of life are interwoven with Futures maybe moreso than most of my others favorite albums, because it has never stopped feeling present, never stopped being relevant. Beyond that, it is incredibly listenable, and interesting. These songs are confident and dressed just-so. This era was before the too-many-instruments, too-much-laptop sound really found a foothold, and Jimmy Eat World, with their smart parts and truly dedicated post-production, exemplified the best that rock music could be in that age. The auxiliary on this album is more than background effect. It is a supporting character, illuminating pop structures with higher depth. Mostly I think this record has beautiful tones, a warm heavy mood from the combination of great songs, great guitar and subtle production - timeless, timeless qualities.
The title track became an instant anthem, full of sentient optimism. It is probably my favorite song from this collection. I believe it is also timeless, because of the reality it captures. I think those opening chords are the perfect hint at the darker edges and fuller swells to come, I think they are a bold statement that commands attention. Such a Track 1 choice is risky, because you're trusting the rest of your album to match those first grand gestures - this is what separates Jimmy Eat World from other bands who try a big, open sound, is they can deliver it.
Of course I cannot talk about Futures without talking about the cover art, as iconic as any of the age. Pay phones, imagery that would return on "Damage," and the dim spotlight of loneliness. It is pensive, and perfect.
In continued tenth anniversary commemoration, here is the only song I know how to play from this album. I didn't do a very good job performing it cleanly, but it comes from a place of respect and admiration, and also, the heart.
"Don't think we're not serious,
when it's ever not? The love we make, it's give and it's take,
With only a few days left where that lyric can be relevant to my age and existence, this song has been floating through my head at regular intervals in recent weeks. Few bands have held as constant a presence in my life as Jimmy Eat World during the past decade or so, a testament to their timeless mastery of the American rock song and coming-of-age, accepting-of-age narratives. I will never tire of them.
This song, a better known track by fair-weather fans and a firm staple in any best-of catalog, is the ultimate kiss-off to self-doubt and procrastination. It also has one of the most memorable hooks, and opening cymbal hits, you'll find from the early 2000s alt-rock era. This song, with its undeniably catchy melody and backbeat, is about action, about being present, about showing up for your own life.
"Are you gonna waste your time
Thinkin' how you've grown up, or how you missed out?"
Spending a life waiting for something to happen is no life at all, not when the potential to act, to achieve, to love and feel and experience exists at the fingertips of those willing to reach for it. At a quarter-century of life, it is not too late to shape these dreams. Modern society seems to have these boundaries mapped out for us, suggesting when adulthood should kick in and when we should become the functioning cog we're meant to be, but life is far more messy than those broad strokes allow. We fumble and fall on the way to our destinations, we take one step forward and two steps back, then leap ahead miles in a single bound and stumble on the landing.
Still, what a comforting, inspiring reminder it is to know it's never too late to keep trying. All I need is just to hear a song I know.
"I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go. So come on Davey, sing me somethin' that I know. I wanna always feel like part of this was mine. I wanna fall in love tonight, here tonight. I wanna always feel like part of this was mine I wanna fall in love tonight."
~A Praise Chorus
Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American
What is it about the end that makes you want to go back to the beginning?
Maybe it's just me, but the end of 2013 seemed to bring more than usual flurry of lists. Too many rankings. Too much specificity - the top 10 albums commercially released, the top 10 albums you probably didn't hear, the top 10 songs, top 10 tours...music criticism has evolved(devolved) into a competition for all-encompassing coolness, or maybe it always was. As someone who truly believes the best music is whatever you find you're looking for it, I tend to have a difficult time sitting down and compiling these lists.
And yet, I have, time and time again. I try to go by what I loved the most, what spoke to me, rather than what is the most acclaimed or groundbreaking. This list comes with all the usual prefaces, that I probably could sit here for days rearranging the order of the pack, that I am probably forgetting some, that some are way stronger than others, that staying power will really prove me right or wrong....but honestly, this was a great year for music, and I loved how inspired I was by so many new songs, sounds and artists.
10) RVIVR- The Beauty Between
This album was a late year discovery for me, and it came in just in time. I caught their song, "Paper Thin" on NPR's best of the year list, and stopped everything I was doing to find out who it was. I could see how some might be misled by band name - not another one of those all-caps, weird-spelling things I don't know how to pronounce! No! But oh, how little I cared when I heard how kick-ass their record was. A rather lengthy LP of short little punches of punk rock to the throat topped up with a multi-song themed suite, all with just-right, good-enough screamed/shouted/sung harmonies, and clean, fast and furious guitar solos fueling my jealousy and drive to pick it up and plug in and yell my head off, Completely hooked on everything about it, this album is the one of the few my ears heard this year deserving of the phrase punk as fuck.
"Okay, I touch the ground/Send my roots deep down When it gets too loud
It's like a wrong way on a one way street
Promise to myself that I just don't keep You can hate me now/But I'll stick around Don't fit, full of shit, struggle with identity Try to find me."
~Wrong Way/One Way 9) Mansions - Doom Loop
If you haven't called Mansions a breakout band from their debut LP, "Doom Loop" should've done it for you. Anyone looking for proof that great rock musicians still exist need to look no further than this record, which was fairly cemented in my morning rotation. Sounds so good on speakers, loud and clear and content. I love how guitar-driven these songs are, I love the classic setup, I love how verbose the lyrics are and how unafraid of the dark the themes are, no matter how coherent the chords. A heavy, hearty sophomore effort from a band that, in 2013, found a solid place in my stereo.
"you’re out for blood in the older south picture yourself in your dad’s old house, alright the doors are locked and you can’t see straight you’re lost for good in that pitch black state, alright go on and hunt me down it’s way too late to turn back now.
i don’t hear it when you whisper in your sleep but every morning it’s just waiting there for me i got this feeling i can’t shake i got this broken heart that i just can’t set straight
no I can’t get away."
~Out for Blood
8) letlive. -The Blackest Beautiful
I still haven't let go of this record. It's as fierce and fresh as the first time I played it, on a night's drive back home from a friend's when I felt alone and pissed off at the world. It became a car record, then a working out playlist, and now it's just my entry into letlive., one of those bands that proves modern hardcore isn't just a bunch of skinny kids with skinny pants and skinny hair, that it's founded in the roots of metal: angry riffs and blood-curdling screams and being pissed off at the world. And yet, they find hooks, groovy moments reminiscent of metal bands before they were unintelligible, and the blend is as delightful of one as a listener as fickle and frustrated as me could hope to find. Plus they toured with Every Time I Die. Long live letlive.
"Taxi drive me to the endLet the meter run into the digits I can't spend The you'll drive me to the edge I'll stand upon the precipice and jump to pay my debt...goodbye"
~Virgin Dirt
7) Touche Amore - Is Survived By...
Someone said to me this year, "You like 16-year-old girl metal." That may be true, and I'm taking it as a compliment. I spent more time going to metal shows this year than any other genre, fueled in part by a 10-day jaunt in a van on a DYI tour, but it opened by eyes to what scenes today look like, sound like, feel like, and I liked it. I don't blog about metal a lot, because I like to blog abotu songs with lyrics I really relate to and I don't really listen to metal for the lyrics....but that is not the case with Touche Amore. They're all about the poetry, they're all about pushing the words out there and then raining down on them with layers upon layers of heavy, astmospheric sound. This record hooked me as soon as I streamed it, so full of questioning and legacy and daring in the face doubt. This song in particular fueled me on many a cold, confused day's drive.
"Does this mean that the words won’t come? Does this mean that I’m at my end? If my joy comes with the price of my love, I won’t pay if I have to pretend. There’s always a chance to relapse and fall back to the person I still fear is there. So if this ink will suddenly run out, I’ll refill if I feel the need to share."
~To Write Content 6) Daft Punk- Random Access Memories
I loved this album. I still love it. I play it when I happy, I play it when I am sad, I play it when my iPod has died and I forgot my charger and it happens to be in the disc changer, so I may as well listen to the whole thing through. Music is supposed to make you feel things, and Daft Punk knows how to do this without the listener any the wiser. This is not an album you simply take in, this is an album you have a conversation with, it speaks to you, provokes you. I'm not even sure what you call Daft Punk nowadays are far as genre goes, but I would not hesitate one moment to call them artists, especially when you hear about how much time, effort, and attention to detail went into this record. Complete pros. Kudos for showing them all how it's done.
"And we will never be alone again/'Cause it doesn't happen every day Kinda counted on you being a friend/Can I give it up or give it away Now I thought about what I wanna say/But I never really know where to go So I chained myself to a friend/'Cause I know it unlocks like a door."
~Instant Crush 5) The 1975 - The 1975
Fun, sexy, smart, bold - what to say about The 1975 that someone more well-versed than me hasn't said? This album soundtracked my summer, poolside with friends, curling my hair before heading out, hitting the gym hard, cleaning my apartment and letting the sun stream in the ceiling-high windows. From "Money" to "Robbers" the spitfire attitude of this album is rebellious, and yet contemplative enough to be hip, instrumentally, it's so *now* it's maybe a little ahead of its time, it just might be the pop of the future. I love how well they use simple parts on real instrumentals, occasionally dressing it up with some synth tones and interludes. It's hard to see why this record was passed up on so many other album of the year lists (leaving me to believe a lot of people paid to write about music have no idea what the hell they're talking about and let the accepted trends speak for them). I'll always associate this band with 2013, where life outside of work was spent adventuring and experiencing, curious and excited about the new ways to play in my new-found adult life while still ever-so-slightly keeping a finger on the pulse of the youthful past I'm not quite ready to surrender.
"And don't call it a spade if it isn't a spade. And go lie on the floor if you want. The first bit of advice that you gave me that I liked was they're too strong, too strong. Get in the shower if it all goes wrong. Yeah, If you wanna find love then you know where the city is."
~The City
4) Jimmy Eat World - Damage
Can Jimmy Eat World release an album that doesn't make it into my top 10? "Damage" is proof that, no, no they cannot. Nearly every review of this album makes a whole bit about how they're older and have lived more life than they did when they wrote "Bleed American" - well, no shit, it's called aging. And nearly every discussion of this band seems to include the brilliant observation that they can't make "Clarity" again - here I thought releasing the same album was what artists were all about! While "Damage" doesn't reinvent any wheels, it is cohesive, it is smart, it is melodic, it is all the things that make JEW a great band that's withstood the test of time. I've played "Please Say No" and "How'd You Have Me" enough times this year to place this album on a most-listened lists. As always with this band, timing is everything, and "Damage" gave me a lot to chew on for some time.
"You know I don't ever sleep, just starting at the ceiling I'm laid there beneath myself You should have to be somewhere else With someone just like me, nothing complicated All the feelings and fantasy Can you trust, can you trust That there's some things, you should never have, never known about"
~No, Never
3)The National - Trouble Will Find Me
You can't rank National albums, really, it's just not something you should do. It's like picking a favorite chocolate or something, they all are good in different, subtle ways while fulfilling the same underlying temptation. Devastation, acceptance, regret and sorrow all make appearances on "Trouble Will Find Me" and they're all addressed with the same curiosity and nervousness, the same awkward intimacy. The National is becoming ubiquitous as far as bands of this decade goes, and while their sound has quieted in a lot of ways it's gotten no less complex; in fact, it's only moreso, with shakers and auxiliary aplenty and experimental tones and timings. On this album, the band proves their mastery of space, balance and the ability to create moments that steal the heart and suspend it for as long as possible before letting it drop and shatter, and I love them deeply for it.
"Don't make me read your mind/You should know me better than that It takes me too much time/You should know me better than that You're not that much like me/You should know me better than that We have different enemies/You should know me better than that I should leave it alone but you're not right I should leave it alone but you're not right"
~I Should Live In Salt
2) Jason Isbell - Southeastern
Every now and then you hear an album that transcends so many boundaries, and Southeastern was one of those records. I first recall hearing about Jason Isbell through a New York Times profile, as trendy as that sounds, though I'd recalled the Drive By Truckers from occasional dabbling in the country songwriter genre. Nothing was like this record, though, where the storytelling is so pure and the chords so classic, even staunch no-country listeners instantly recognized its quality and capacity to be moving. Try listening to "Elephant" and not thinking back to your loved ones you lost too soon, who you saw in the throes of mortality and still manage to crack a smile. Isbell is the kind of guy who, when in front of a mic, moves everyone to listen, and something about the simplicity and purity of his songwriting makes me remember that the only way write well is to write honest, straight from the heart. It's unmatched, unpretentious, timeless, and just like it's supposed to sound.
"Once a wise man to the ways of the world now I've traded those lessons for faith in a girl Crossed the ocean, thousand years from my home in this frozen old city of silver and stone
Ships in the harbor and birds on the bluff don't move an inch when their anchor goes up And the difference with me is I've fallen in love Stockholm let me go home."
~Stockholm
1) The Wonder Years - The Greatest Generation
Can I say anything about this record I haven't said already? Maybe this: that it's a shame I haven't seen them yet. The Wonder Years are leaders of the pack as far as the pop punk genre goes, but my love for them comes from a place much more personal and private than any trend, ranking or pack mentality goes. This is a band that, over the last few years, has soundtracked my life and transitions in near-perfect fashion, channeling the same fears and doubts in an aggressive yet meditating sound. So many good moments on this album, solid chord progressions and tense bridges keep an ever present suspension that just pulls me in and doesn't let go. I start listening to this album and I can't put on anything else until I've heard the whole thing. Never once do The Wonder Years completely lose it, as much as Dan Campbell tells you he's going to, there's so much thought and restraint. "The Greatest Generation" is literary in concept, in craftsmanship and contains the best closer they've done yet. I'm glad this album came around at a point in the year when I needed something to scream to, when I needed something loud and fresh and familiar to escape to, and I have a feeling it'll be that way for years to come.
"Jesus Christ. I’m 26. All the people I’ve graduated with, All have kids, all have wives, All have people who care if they come home at night. Well, Jesus Christ, did I fuck up?
I’ve been looking for/Tears in the screen door. I’ve been waiting for/Another disaster.
And I was kinda hoping you'd stay. I was kinda hoping you'd stay. I was kinda hoping you'd stay."
~Passing Through A Screen Door
Honorable mentions:
Into It, Over It. - Intersections (Much as I love "Proper" I haven't given this a fair shake yet. But I will so here it is).
Deafeater - Sunbather (At least three people have told me to listen to this record. I haven't yet. Putting it here to give myself a reminder.)
Haim - Days Are Gone (Pop. Tastic. Love.)
Arctic Monkeys - AM (I only heard one song off this but I really liked it. so I guess I will check out the whole thing eventually).
Atoms for Peace - Amok (Thom Yorke is better than you, always.)
Cecile McLorin Salvant - WomanChild (Amazing artist. Amazing voice. She knows how to sing right from the soul and I love her for that. I need her on vinyl ASAP.)
Sainthood Reps - Headswell (Nu metal for life. I still like the first one better, but this guys have a great thing going.)
Scholar - Chose Adventure (So this friend of mine writes such great songs and his record is way cool.)
Paramore - Paramore (I really liked this record, it was so close to making it in my top 10! But there were enough songs I skipped compared to those I didn't, however, "Ain't It Fun" is definitely in my top 10 sing-a-long songs of the year).
A Day To Remember - Common Courtesy (I liked this album way more than I thought I would. Something very Four Year Strong about it that resonated with me. Also, the story associated with is one for the textbooks are far modern music industry is concerned, many lawsuits and label fights.)
"So what would you think of me now? So lucky, so strong, so proud.
I never said thank you for that, now I'll never have the chance."
I planned an update with my favorite albums of last year for this week, but plans so often change.
I lost a friend this week. Lost a mentor. We all did, those who had the honor of working alongside Pete. It feels like a hole. And it feels like a cruel, unwelcome reminder of how fragile life is, how we shouldn’t take any moment for granted and how we should seize the breaths we’re given and feel them deeply and fully, find the people we love and hold onto them tightly and sweetly…all those things you remember when you lose someone. And I feel all that that, on some level of higher thought, but at the forefront, all I feel is oddly numb...all I feel is delayed, like I woke up in 2014 to a brand new world I don't recognize, because I can never understand why it's always the best ones who have to leave.
There's more than one song out there about this feeling, but this is one I always come back to. It doesn't dance around the finality, it fondly remembers, it humbly memorializes the legacy left on one's soul by someone else. So far, those are the thoughts I've found comfort in, and I hope the rest of my friends do too.
The other day I was driving westward around 7:15 p.m., one hand on the wheel and the other on the iPod shuffle, pressing next every four or five seconds partly out of anxiety, partly out of getting fed up with the same old thing. I stopped on "23" to light a cigarette, then turned it up the volume and took it in.
The sun disappeared, slowly, throughout the song, behind the hills in front of me, at first all bright and blinding, then a coral-red glowing orb, then a peachy tint across the base of the horizon. It was a beautiful sunset - I don't head west often, so I don't this much - and this song was a perfect soundtrack to witness such a sight. Wistful and familiar, hopeful and just a little tormented. This song once sold me on "Futures" as an album and that Jimmy Eat World could make incredible music that wasn't "Clarity" and still meaningful. I kept it on the whole time, and listened to the album from start to finish, followed by "Invented" and "Damage."
That guitar riff is instantly identifiable, classic and clean and full. I love the atmosphere of the beautifully mixed in background chords, rising and falling and fading out just before the first verse kicks in. Same for the spacey, hazy,delayed tones at the end, it's pure feel and restraint in the production and in the playing. I love singing this, too, because I think it's one of Jim's best recorded performances as far as JEW ballads go - like his voice before the final guitar solo, where he brings it up at the end of the last line - he is very good with the subtle changes, changing a note or two here and there to give it just a little more depth to repeated lines.
"I felt for sure last night
That once we said goodbye No one else will know these lonely dreams No one else will know that part of me I'm still driving away And I'm sorry every day I won't always love these selfish things I won't always live Not stopping..."
So much about this song is so sad, and yet, it's incredibly wide-eyed and accepting. It's straightforward and short - sometimes, we think good songs must be incredibly deep and metaphorical, but this is a song that proves the most simple route is often the straightest, that the most direct phrasing can be the most effective. Especially when cloaked in so much dreamy production, the words could get lost if they were too busy.
"It was my turn to decide I knew this was our time No one else will have me like you do No one else will have me, only you" I remember hearing these words so fully, so clearly, back in high school. I was in a car the first time I heard it, too. Back then, 23 seemed ages away, I couldn't even imagine what my life would look like but I knew it would be nothing like what it was. I'd be older, I'd be smarter, I'd have it all figured out. I'd have direction, and the consolation wisdom of experiences. Now, 23 is a memory, just as tangible and forgettable as being 16 was.
Not sure if I'm all that different, but I know I've grown some. I know in many ways, that's for the better. But I also know old habits die hard. Still I love listening to this song today, as much if not more than I did back then. I think the more I hear it, the more I understand it - sometimes what we identify with in music or art is premature, and it is not until later in our life's experiences that we can fully comprehend its meaning. It still resonates, maybe in a deeper, different way, one that weighs a little more heavy on the chest than just a sad pretty song by a band I listen to all the time.
When I was 16, I didn't know what it meant to make decisions you consciously know will change your life. I didn't understand the gravity of loving someone, or how difficult it can be to make them understand, or how easy it is to find someone else who does. I didn't know what it was like to drive west, and not look back.
"Amazing still it seems I'll be 23 I won't always love what I'll never have I won't always live in my regrets
You'll sit alone forever If you wait for the right time What are you hoping for? I'm here, I'm now, I'm ready, Holding on tight Don't give away the end The one thing that stays mine
You'll sit alone forever If you wait for the right time What are you hoping for? I'm here, I'm now, I'm ready, Holding on tight Don't give away the end The one thing that stays mine..." ~23 Jimmy Eat World, Futures
I don't know why I'm surprised, but I'm pretty blown away with how much I enjoy this album. Jimmy Eat World, as any longtime fan will tell you, has no two albums alike, but you never really know what to expect, so I keep expectations minimal and have a blank slate...so what a surprise and comfort to find "Damage" as heartfelt and honest and heartwrenching yet also mature it makes me feel old and new at the same time.
Jim Adkins called this an "adult break-up" album in an interview somewhere, and I definitely get that vibe. There's a lot of regret and nostalgia here, but only small doses self-pity (something you learn is a waste of your time as you grow older). I'm really digging the whole record - the only thing I'd of loved to see is an epic closer a la "Goodbye Sky Harbor" or "Invented" and "Mixtape."
"Please Say No" is my favorite track so far, already have played it to
death. With a mix of acoustic and electric leads, soft background
harmonies, a climatic ending full of auxiliary and dreamy sounds, and
the mostly perfectly measured rhymes, it's classic Jimmy Eat World but
hardly stale, because the feeling is too fresh and the growth too
evident. I plan on buying the album and playing the hell out of it all summer long.
"If all you're really hoping for is peace of mind, Don't come to me with questions, you'll just waste you time.. Exactly what your'e looking for is what you'll find And all I see around me is a losing fight. Please say no, please say no Please say no, please say no No, no, no, no... Say anything you will Except how you'd have me still Say anything but no And I'll go, I'll go, I'll go."
~Please Say No
Jimmy Eat World, Damage
Something about new releases from a longtime favorite band speaks volumes about the confluence of the past and present. On one hand, there's the comfort of the familiar, but on the other, it's a messy meeting, because here you have these expectations and standards and you have no idea what you're going to get this time around.
"The way you pull me in sometimes, I almost feel The picture in my head is just too real. It's gonna be how it is, There's some things you don't change I'm done with telling myself that story
How slowly we built the walls, In years they pile on I will steal you back Funny how the smallest lie Might live a million times I will steal you back
Here we go, here we go, we'll take on so much pain To feel secure, or not feel anything I only pick a fight I know I'm sure to lose So how can I not hold my hope for you?
How slowly we built the walls In years they pile on I will steal you back Funny how the smallest lie Might live a million times I will steal you back"
~I Will Steal You Back
Jimmy Eat World, Damages
Personally, I'm excited for new Jimmy Eat World. Something about this track sounds very Bleed American to me, something very familiar in those chords getting held out and those straight-talk lyrics. I also love how guitar-heavy it is, glad that hasn't changed. But is it recycled? I'm not sure of the reaction this track is getting from their fan base so far, but I recall Invented seem to kind of fall on deaf ears (though I really loved it). A band that means a lot of things to a lot of people always will, but it doesn't mean they'll relate to the latest effort. I find I'm able to in this case, though. There's something mature about this track, a balance of impassioned frustration met with restraint and perspective. Although come to think of it, JEW has always had that feeling mastered (see Clarity).
Still, this isn't the same Jimmy Eat World from the early 2000s, because their sound has definitely evolved from its pop-punk roots to something far more adult, far more alt-rock and dare I say mainstream (in a good way!). But hey, let's face it, I'm not the same either, we've all grown. I almost love this band more now than I did then, knowing the growth and change between their albums is parelled in me.
"Everybody sing like it’s the last song you will ever sing...
Tell me, tell me, do you feel the pressure now?
Everybody live like it’s the last day you will ever see...
Tell me, tell me, do you feel the pressure now?"
~Born For This
Paramore, Riot!
Yes, yes, I'll get around to a "Best of 2012." But before I get all nostalgic, I'm looking forward to the future (foroncemaybeeverorinareallylongtime).
Next we're getting albums from *at least* two great bands - Jimmy Eat World and Paramore. I am very, very excited for both these albums. Been following JEW's recording process via Facebook (which I'll wax on about at some point, I'm sure) but just found out about Paramore today and I'm pretty stoked. For some reason, that was the news I needed to hear today (then I went home and learned "Turn it Off" acoustic).
"Brand New Eyes" was an amazing rock album and if you don't agree, you and I don't agree about what makes good rock music. I played the shit out of that record as a senior in college even if it was supposed to be for Hot Topic kids. The prowess of Hayley Williams is literally unparalleled from a female vocalist/lyricist in the last five years, in terms of technique, style, attitude, musicality and originality. She continually grows on me. The band, in the past, has been fucking solid as hell, incredible key changes and grunge-inspired riffs...they've definitely moved on from emo-land into a more polished sound over their LP catalog thus far....but, you see, half the band left after "Brand New Eyes." I'm having a hard time figuring out how this will change their sound (Hayley and Josh wrote most of the songs, as far as I know, and he is now gone). But change can be good for bands, sometimes it brings out the best that was being held back, and they've got one hell of a drummer lined up, so I'm guessing this upcoming self-titled is going to be pretty luxe.
I love that it's a self-titled despite the lineup change. To me, that says, "Hey, we're here, haven't failed yet, so why stop?" And, truly, Paramore songs are so redemptive, above almost anything else. After all that, I can hardly think they will fall flat because they have a new iteration. Bands do that all the time, really, and while it can result in low points (like that Asia record without Steve) it can be fruitful in terms of experimentation and/or audience expansion.
I do remember when I first heard "All We Know Is Falling" and was completely blown away. I think I was pretty jealous, actually, I was all "Why don't I front a cool rock band?!?!" (probably because I'm not nearly as talented and am pretty much seem to be a career out of being a writerly chameleon rather than a traveling troubadour. Shit, you may even find traces of that on this blog, hell if I know). Beyond that, though, I related intimately to the songs, they resonated perfectly and harmoniously with my restless heart and wandering head, body parts aching to be somewhere else other than where they were even though that was all they knew. It soundtracked a couple pretty poignant moments, if I recall. I remember thinking "Yeah, this band is cool. I hope they're successful. Sounds like they get it."
Looking at their success today, I'd say yeah, I think they do.
This song, in particular, makes me realize how fast the last eight years or so have gone, and yet, how many lifetimes have passed between them. Shit, I am feeling very old all of a sudden:
"And when we get home, I know we won't be home at all This place we live, it is not where we belong And I miss who we were in the town that we could call our own Going back to get away after everything has changed
Could you remind me of a time when we were so alive? Do you remember that? Do you remember that?
Everything has changed... Could you help me push aside all that I have left behind? Everything has changed Do you remember that? Do you remember that?"
~Franklin
Paramore, All We Know Is Falling
Given the pop/mainstream attention they've received, the 2013 iteration of Paramore will receive heavy attention from the usuals on the Interwebz in 2013 (and I'll probably click lots, sure). I don't want the band to turn into something that just supports Hayley Williams, because I like band dynamics more than solo act dynamics as a writer/listener/thinker, but honestly, I like her enough that I will continue to at least check out what she produces and see how it feels. My gut tells me it will feel great. There's a strong chance this will be the best Paramore record yet, if you're the type of person who believes change can set you free.
I'm really excited about music from 2012, but also for what will arrive in 2013. In the meantime, it is day-by-day, it is moment-by-moment, and it is as breathless, restless, contemplative and cutthroat as its always been.
Hey, I'm here, haven't failed yet, so why stop?
"I settled down a twisted up frown Disguised as a smile, well, You would have never known. I had it all, But, not what I wanted, 'cause hope for me was a place uncharted and overgrown
You'd make your way in, I'd resist you just like this. You can't tell me to feel, The truth never set me free, So, I did it myself...
You can't be too careful anymore When all that is waiting for you Won't come any closer... You've got to reach out a little more...
Open your eyes Like I opened mine It's only the real world, A life you will never know. Shifting your weight To throw off the pain Well you can ignore it but only for so long...
You look like I did, You resist me just like this.
You can't tell me to heal, And it hurts remembering How it felt to shut down.
You can't be too careful anymore When all that is waiting for you Won't come any closer... You've got to reach out a little more...
The truth never set me free, The truth never set me free, The truth never set me free, So, I'll do it myself..."
It's amazing, how many things manage not to change while everything else is spinning.
For example, I am still the girl who doesn't mind sitting home alone, discovering and dreaming and being in my own little wandering world. And yet, life happens, full of surprises and challenges and "too-good-to-say-no" chances, interrupting my chance to explore but exhilarating in its own fascinating, eye-opening and hopefully absurd way.
Sameness, stillness, is not bad after all that. So after a ridiculous week of too many press conferences and deadlines, way too many words in too few hours, too many beers and too much to process, I will sit here and listen to Jimmy Eat World, like nothing is new, alone with myself and my words and my thoughts and I am grateful that not everything changes, because maybe, it is really is better this way.
For the first time in seven years, no one will be at the hill to light a candle.
This is very sad to me, but we knew this day would come. We talked about it, wondering how long we'd all be close enough - regionally and emotionally - to get together, commemorate, cry, wonder. But, seven years of that, and here it is.
"There we stand about to fly/Peeking down over land/Parachute behind/What was that moment for which we lived?/Without a parachute, about to dive?" ~Parachute - Guster, Parachute
We started the tradition shortly after Lizzie's funeral, which felt formal and social and unbelievably sad. I don't remember crying during the church service; I do remember eating a turkey sandwich in the vestibule that tasted like cardboard, the first bites of real food I'd had in days. I remember the lines of people, classmates and community members, wrapping around the church, and wondering why some of these people were here and giving me hugs, and then I remember Tim grabbing me by the shoulders with tears in his eyes when it was clear that neither of us was processing what was going on around us.
Shortly after, a group of us brought candles to the hill where we'd spent many summer nights, the one at my elementary school down the street from my house, and the one I'd walked to from my grandmother's for years on end. It became the de facto central spot of Tim, Liz, Dan and I for sneaking out, meeting up and making out. We'd call out meet ups "snizzling," why exactly, I do not remember, but it worked. "Hey, what time do you want to snizzle?" That was the best summer. You could see the whole school from the top of the hill, the baseball diamond and the soccer field, and the trees obscured extending suburbia. It felt peaceful, private, ours.
"But right now/Everything is turning blue/And right now/The sun is trying to kill the moon/And right now/I wish I could follow you/To the shores/Of freedom/Where no one lives" ~Honey and the Moon - Joseph Arthur, Redemption's Son
One year later, we sat at the hill again, feeling lost, missing a limb. The hospital felt lightyears away though it had only been a week or so...the timeline was as fuzzy then as it is for me today. We lit candles, talked, cried and laughed then sat in silence, played Guster on our iPods, and let the candles burn as we walked away.
I think of her all the time. Less now, then I used to maybe, and that is a shameful reality, but the thoughts come on with the same wistful intensity. But the heart-heavying truth that someone so beautiful could die at 16...that means more to me now than it did then. One of the last phone calls we had was about how excited we were for college, how we wanted senior year to hurry up and leave so we could go somewhere new. She was thinking about going to school for art, or maybe English, possibly at this one private school near Albany. I wanted to go to Boston or New York, somewhere glamorous. We'd definitely go shopping together for dorm room furnishings, though, and we'd totally visit on the weekends. I remember Liz used to say that, when she decided to start drinking alcohol, she'd never want a screwdriver, because liquor would taint the purity of her beloved orange juice. Somewhat ironically, I am drinking a mimosa as I write this, thinking maybe she would've come around.
She was better than me, better than most, in so many ways.
Finding out about what happened was surreal, fate and my worst nightmares converged. I was sitting on my couch in the plant-filled, window-paneled Florida room with Tim's older brother, feeling flirty and happy and thrilled he wanted to hang out with me. His dad called and I instantly knew something was wrong. His hands started shaking and then he told me what happened. We rushed to the hospital, and I kept saying "Maybe it's not that bad, maybe she'll be OK." I remember him saying something about possible brain damage.
I remember the first night at the hospital, sitting in a chair outside her room, my friends scattered around. A nurse gave me one of those flimsy hospital blankets and told me usually, they don't let this many people in the ICU overnight, but they'd make an exception. I half-slept, hearing gray words and seeing whispered feelings of the nurses and Liz's family, "Can you believe they're all staying?," "This is so sad," "Do they think she'll wake up?"
Seeing Liz's dad Mike was the hardest. You could tell he was trying to be strong, but a man can only take so much loss and this was his only little girl. I remember how he'd gather us all for updates after such-and-such test or scan. They had to wait for her brain swelling to go down some before they'd know how bad the damage was and if she could wake up, something like that. The medical version of what was happening to my friend was beyond me, at that point, I just wanted to know if she'd ever be her again.
"I've gotta bust you outta here somehow/I've never seen your heart this tired/I've never seen your spirit held down/I know that you say/This is what you get/For being a bad child/But I know this will be your reward/In just a little while/In just a little while/It's testing the strong ones/Scarring the beautiful ones/It's holding the loved ones/One last time" ~ Testing the Strong Ones - Copeland, Beneath Medicine Tree
She was so small in that hospital bed, she was a tiny girl as it was. But a spunky tiny, you noticed Lizzie in a room. Her arrival at Eastridge was not uncontroversial. Who was this adorable girl with the short hair and Snapples and why was she befriending all our crushes? We became friends when I found out she liked Brand New, and we were pretty inseparable from that point on, the beginning of a social circle that exists, on some level, to this day. Here, in the hospital, the looming monitors and tubes in her mouth made Lizzie seem so small, and weak, contrary to everything I knew her to be. Her eyes were shut, but clearly swollen with fluid. Her dark curly pixie cut was matted back against her bandaged skull, her toes were polished.
We made playlists, full of Elliott Smith and Guster and Jimmy Eat World, songs we knew she'd love. We drew pictures, so many of my friends are amazingly talented artists. We bought journals to circulate, making sure they had the right looks to them ("Circles, not squares"), and wrote our feelings out, messages to Lizzie and God. We sat next to her bed and held her hand, I remember telling the nurse when I saw blood coming out of her left ear. I remember her telling me that can happen in situations like this, don't worry, and all I could think was how fucking unbelievable this was.
They told us she opened the door and jumped out. But I still don't know what happened in that car. I think maybe she just wanted to get out. I think she reached her breaking point. I think she didn't want to die.
Crisis friendships formed, even one between Tim and Liz's new boyfriend Greg who went to a different school. They'd met at Alexandria Bay -- Lizzie loved the water, and the long drive there, too, so she could read and write and think. Dan and I began talking again, whatever we were fighting about instantly became irrelevant when faced with the loss of this mutual cornerstone to our existence. Liz had so many friends, some we'd never met from her past school and from the bay, and we shared our stories and memories to pass the time. We kept talismans close -- the friendship bracelets she made, the notes, the decorated song lyrics, the mix CDs. Everything that was her favorite became a lifeline.
"When I was younger and thought of myself/I never dreamed I'd become like this/A snap of your fingers/An end to the argument/Anything for you, love" ~Ramona - Guster, Keep it Together
Six days in the hospital, living like this, going home to shower and fake sleep and going right back. My parents asked me if I wanted to sleep at home one night. No, I told them. No, because if this is the last time I get to see her, I need to be there. Where else would I be?
I remember not knowing what to say most of the time. I remember crying lots, then being unable to cry. I remember throwing up in hospital bathrooms. I remember us dragging a couch from one lounge into the other so we'd have more room to hang out. I remember laughter feeling awkward but necessary, as we distracted ourselves between updates.
That Saturday, doctors told Mike what was happening. She wouldn't be able to breathe on her own. She had limited brain activity. Nothing else we can do, doctors said. At least, this is how I remember it. All I knew was that my friend was going to die. This wonderful girl I'd spent so much time with, shared so much with, was not going to make it.
They brought in some therapist to talk to us. We sat in a big circle in a conference room. No one really had anything to say. Dan and I made jokes about each other, feigning normalcy in the face of something so horrible. We were such kids, who thought we'd knew it all and felt it all, only to realize none of us can ever know anything for certain.
I said goodbye to Liz that night, holding her tiny, tiny hand in both of mine and saying "I'll see you someday." I didn't want to go home, so I called a couple trusted girlfriends to pick me up and drive me to the pier. The water was so, so stormy, and the sky was thick with black clouds, stars invisible. The world was menacing and awful and I screamed and screamed and screamed, mostly nonsense but a lot of "whys." I think we went to the diner after, and I ordered black coffee.
"So what would you think of me now?/So lucky, so strong, so proud?" ~Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American
Senior year started shortly thereafter, and I was a shell of who I was the year before. I left campus when I wasn't supposed to, smoked cigarettes outside the courtyard window. I became very ill in October, stayed home for a month with mono and slept through most of it. Back at school, none of us wanted to be there, but we made the most of it, I think. We didn't talk about her much -- Tim least of all -- and we pretended we were into what we were doing. I re-started the school newspaper to help pass time, taught extra hours at the dance studio on the weekends. Every now and then one of us would reach out to one another to cry, to remember her, or to pontificate on the meaning of life and death. We knew none of us would ever be the same, but we were stronger. We were prepared. Nothing would ever hurt this much again, we knew.
The following summer, before we left for college, we still lit candles at the hill even though it wasn't the exact anniversary. We were going our separate ways, but we'd be back, we told each other. We'd always be back. Through the years the attendance has varied depending on who is in town. I've missed two of these events myself, though I made sure to call and find out when it was, made sure they'd remember me there, too. Mostly, lately, we talk about how fast life seems to be changing, how we're growing up. And we've talked about how our memories of her still live somewhere in the back of our minds, but it's harder to see her than it was the year before.
I cling to the details I have, of her gorgeous brown eyes and tiny hands, the shirts she always wore and the purse she often slung across her shoulder. The way she'd rub your nose when you were sad, and it was weird, but it helped calm you down and made you smile. How she volunteered at summer Bible camps. The incredible sculptures she could make out of clay, ceramics, Snapple caps, whatever you gave her to transform. The amazing things she could do with Sharpies. The way we made fun of our pre-calc teacher in class and pretended we didn't care but always tried to ace the tests. Her poetry. The times she talked me off the ledge. The depth of the darkness she had herself and tried to hide, and the strength she'd always seem to find.
She would've been amazing. She would've graduated, gone on to school, gotten rid of so much that was bringing her down. She would've been the coolest indie chick on campus. Her talents as an artist, a writer, a thinker, would've become even more obvious. They would've gotten her far. She would've been brilliant. She already was.
"Heaven's not a place that you go when you die/It's that moment in life when you actually feel alive/so live for the moment/And take this advice live by every word/Love is just a hoax so forget everything that you've heard/And live for the moment now" ~The Tide - The Spill Canvas, Sunsets and Car Crashes
Seven years. When you're 17 you don't know what it feels like to look back yet, you're too busy focused on the present. High school is a bubble, these people are your world and the future is so far away. But now? On this side of perspective? If you told me that I am who I am, that I've done what I've done, I never would've dreamed life could be like this. But then again, at 17 I didn't have much of an idea of what it was to be out in the world... I wonder if I would've made different choices if Liz hadn't died.
Sometimes I think that her death gave us all a better shot at this life, in some cruel backwards way. We were talented but tortured and I wonder if the reality we were faced with at such an impressionable age gave us a perspective that no matter how hard life became, you'd be able to find your way out of it. Those were some of the darkest days, that week and the months thereafter, I've ever felt...by comparison, depression became a selfish endeavor and I think of all this when I begin to feel sorry for myself, when goddammit I am still alive aren't I? I've made it this far, right? No point in giving up now.
Your identity shapeshifts after loss, you adapt to a new world minus this person who previously helped define it...but being able to remember her with others is a gift. Her 16, nearly 17, years on this earth were a gift, and we were lucky enough to receive it, blessed enough to learn from her. In the years since Liz's death I've been so grateful to still be able to hold onto others who felt the same. Seven years and I still love them, respect them, wish them all the best in the world. I think this might be the start, though, of paths truly diverging. Where to, exactly, I don't know, but I do know we're not together lighting candles at the hill this weekend. That says enough...but I know, I have to know, that they wish we were all together as much as I do.
"You say go slow/But something's right behind me/Can run away for so long/It will not stop/I will come down, oh no/Let me find way/I'll take you the edge/Go across that window/And I'll carry you there/Oh when nothing goes right/Oh when days don't come to night/Oh when all I see is the error of my own enemy" ~Window - Guster, Parachute "Will I still laugh with you Or has the damage been done I knew it couldn't last forever But why'd it have to end so soon Of course I will still see you It just won't ever be the same Nothing really matters now that Forever has an end"
~Liz Williams
1988-2005
If Jimmy Eat World can capture one feeling with unmatched purity, it's the pang of lingering affection. Also, they have a tendency to fill an album closer with all the best things: heart, tension, poignant lead guitar, and the delicacy of the final fingers brushing away from the last and grasp. "Dizzy" measures up on both counts.
Sidenote: Audio is surprisingly awesome for what looks like a cell phone vid. Thank you, Internet.
"All talk and not a lot to think, we were living dreams
And shame never crept close to our naked feet If there's something left to lose, Then don't let me wear out my shoes I'm still walking.
I tried, but it rang and rang, I called all night On a payphone, remember those from another life? If everything I meant to you, You can lick and seal then fold in two Then I've been so blind.
Respectfully, so honestly I'm calling out Do you hear the conversation we talk about? Back away to the safety of a quiet house If there's half a chance in this moment When your eyes meet mine, we show it off."
~Dizzy
Jimmy Eat World, Chase This Light
One of my favorite tracks from Jimmy Eat World. One of those songs that makes me say, hey, life isn't so bad, even when you're alone and feeling older than you were a day, a week or a year before.
To me, this song says the best is always yet to come.
I don't think I've ever spent a birthday alone before, I've always had really incredible friends to go out and play with. So this day has a host of opportunity that I probably shouldn't waste. I should probably try to learn something new, or go on an outdoorsy adventure. I've never been horseback riding. That might be fun.
"Hey now, the past is told by those who win My darling, what matters is what hasn't been Hey now, we're wide awake and we're thinking My darling, believe your voice can mean something"
~Futures
Jimmy Eat World, Futures
These are songs that, even though I love them, I just press "next." I'm guessing you, reader, understand. You have those songs too.
I challenge you to listen, purge, experience. Feels kind of refreshing.
1)Now That You're Gone
The saddest of the sad on "Cold Roses," in my humble opinion. It's a simple, sweet melody, but it doesn't take much for me after I hear this song to desperately crave a man with kind eyes and strong arms to hold me and never let me go, because the song heralds all the loneliness you could ever feel for one person in one night. It's the love song for the one who left you, and I can't handle that sometimes. Or anytime. I've been left too much, and done too much of my own leaving, to let Ryan Adams remind me of how sad I am about it all.
"Everything you ever touched is undisturbed and hangs out/Like crime scene evidence undisturbed in dust
I don't dare touch anything because it's evidence of us/And it means everything/Well sort of/I'm alone and I'm dancin', with you now/In your old room, in your old house/I'm alone and I'm dancin', with you now, in your old room, but there's nobody there"
~Now That You're Gone
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Cold Roses
2)Hear You Me
I loved this song real hard in high school, then I lost someone I loved. I needed to believe in angels because I still need to believe she's happy, somewhere, and I can't hear this song because it makes me think of her too much. Then I think of all the other people I love, and how desperately I need them to know that before life takes them from me, too. In any way, gorgeous song, but I don't listen to it anymore. Just easier not to.
"on sleepless roads the sleepless go
may angels lead you in"
~Hear You Me
Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American
3)Girl in the War
Beautiful song. Probably my favorite Josh Ritter song, hands down, even though I've come to embrace a lot of his catalog. Something about this song just breaks me, just makes me feel something that brings me back to a place I'll never be again. So I don't want to listen to it, because I miss that place, with its subways and rainy days, its romance and pavement and prowess.
"Because the keys to the kingdom got locked inside the kingdom/And the angels fly around in there, but we can't see them/And I got a girl in the war, Paul I know that they can hear me yell/If they can't find a way to help, they can go to Hell/If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell"
~Girl in the War
Josh Ritter, The Animal Years
4)Baker, Baker
Simply a favorite. Incredible song, but I still press next, because it makes me want to cry. Or call people who aren't in my life anymore. It makes me want to reach out for what isn't there hold. It makes me crumble in ways I'm not always equipped to deal with when driving home from work or the grocery store or whatever. Tori is so soft, so sentimental in this song, it's so contrasting to so much of what else she does, but it stills me in a frightening way.
"I guess you've heard he's gone to LA/He says that behind my eyes I'm hiding
and he tells me I pushed him away/That my heart been's hard to find/Here, there must be something here/Here, there must be something here"
~Baker Baker
Tori Amos, Under the Pink
5)Konstantine
I don't even think I have a version of this on a hard drive anywhere. I just don't listen to it anymore. Was it even that good? Listening to it now, I feel a little older, I feel a little beyond it, but it still makes me want to make out like a teenager. It still makes me want to reach out for someone, anyone, I feel like understands me, knows me, wants to know me and need me.
"and if I hurt you
then I'm sorry
please don't think that this was easy"
~Konstantine
Something Corporate
I love the Internet so much. I can watch a concert I went to more than three years ago. Started searching for a version of "On a Sunday", found one from the Clarity x 10 tour in LA, wanted to see if I could find the NYC version, stumbled on this one with decent enough audio & half of "Crush."
Obligatory. Beautiful. I don't know if there are any books out there about "Clarity" as a whole, a la the 33 1/3 series which I am very much a fan of.
But if there is such a literary work, I hope it mentions how it takes a special band to capture the sadness/emptiness that comes with the holidays without being slit-your-wrists depressing. Truly we all feel some kind of desperation this time of year — we're single, we don't like our job, we have no money, we've let the ones we love and care for slip out of our fingers as we self-serve day after day.
It's OK to feel those things. And it's OK to sing about them.
"I didn't mean to leave you hanging on
I didn't mean to leave you all alone
I didn't know what to say."
~12.23.95
Jimmy Eat World, Clarity
