8/21/12

A Pandora find from today...something about this song makes me think of someone heading west. Maybe it's the harmonies, slightly Southern-gospel, mixed with syncopated string-plucking, echoing like howling desert wings. Maybe the simple train allusions.

Mission accomplished in updating a retro tune and making it accessible to new audiences (the original is soooo 60s hippie-chick, if you're into that). It's got a little more sultry soul, without sacrificing a delicate dignity, and it works.

Original or updated, the song tells a familiar story. I like that it describes a very specific moment that says so much about what's to come, a moment full of hype and overanxious nerves. Do we ever know what draws us to someone, in a moment or after years? Not really ever, no, but that feeling lurking somewhere past your lungs will send you all kinds of places, if you're willing to listen.

"Travelling north, travelling north to find you
Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
Call out your name love, don't be surprised

It's so many miles and so long since I've left you
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long
Nothing at all, in my head, to say to you
Only the beat of the train I'm on
Nothing I've learned all my life on the way to you
One day our love was over and gone

It's so many miles and so long since I've met you
Don't even know what I'll say when I get to you,
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long

What will I do if there's someone there with you
Maybe someone you've always known
How do I know I can come and give to you
Love with no warning and find you alone?

It's so many miles and so long since I've met you
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long

It won't be long
It won't be long
It won't be long"

~Train Song,
Vashti Bunyan, as covered by Feist and Ben Gibbard, Dark Was the Night compilation 

8/21/12

How many days pass you by before you notice nothing is changing?

What a poignant song this is. You almost instantly begin to feel the need to escape...but it makes the point, clearly, dramatically, that it is not simply about living in a broken system.

It's about what you do with it.


"six billion backs against the wall 
now do we walk or run?
this puzzle's falling into place.
once more around the sun,
remember when you were a kid?
those days were all so long.
but if we don't do this,
somebody else will.

three billion backs against the wall,
A prayer for everyone.
we saw the changing at the sea,
but not a thing was done.
remember when you could rely?
those days are all but gone 

and if we don't do this
somebody else will
if we don't do this
somebody else will
somebody else will
one billion backs against the wall
at least our feet were dry
I was an honor to myself,
this storm would pass me by
remembering the things I did,
I knew I would survive

but if we don't do this
somebody else will.
if we don't do this.
somebody else will,
somebody else will.

one billion backs against the wall,
now do we walk or run?
one thousand backs against the wall,
now do we walk or run?

one hundred backs against the wall
now do we walk or run?
it's just your back against the wall,
now do you walk or run?
remember when you were a kid?
those days are all but gone.
if we don't do this,
nobody else will.
if we don't do this,
nobody else will,
nobody else will."

~The Sea Change 

Turin Brakes

Many blame the government. But is that really fair? What makes them so special to get the credit, or the blame? More than I ever, I see so much wrong in the way people, people of society, treat each other and talk about each other. You're either someone's enemy or their pawn, or trying to make them one of yours. There seems little in between, especially from those who talk a big game about change while spouting "You're wrong, so I'm right," fallacies. They are wading through toxic swamp water, saying if you drink near them, you're safe.

Elsewhere, the ego pervades: "Listen to me, look at me, love me," they cry online, "make it easy for me!"  And "Wouldn't I be so much happier," they wonder surrounded by family, "if I had more stuff?"  

Since when did getting attention become the only way to self-satisfy? And since when did it become such a fucking chore to care even a little bit for the rest of society? Don't tell me it's not related. I have seen the results of living irresponsibly, and no, it's not pretty, but I don't think it would be so bad if we knew how to treat each other as equals, if we let go of some of the judgement.The blinders we've managed to secure so tightly on our self-obsessed skulls consequentially constricted the blood flow to our hearts and our heads.

In our society, I can't help but see what I see as obvious:

The less you treat people like humans, the more like animals they're going to become, and then I don't think your numbers will mean shit.