Monday, October 14, 2013

10/14/13

It's probably not healthy to sit in your bedroom and listen to the same songs on repeat all evening, not when they're ones you've already heard a million times, and know all the words intimately, repeating them as as you could recite your first address and phone number.

The loneliness that comes with your favorite songs is a comforting one, albeit an arrogant one. No one can come between you and your favorite songs, no lover past, present or future, no songwriter yet-to-be-heard can interrupt. If anything, your experiences and influences make you grow closer to that you know, allowing you to value the familiarity and comfort this one song can give you the other new finds and sounds fail to deliver.

What a classic this song is. What a sad kiss-off, what a despondent, defeated narrative. It's the kind of song I don't always play, because it's so sad, but when I want to listen to "The '59 Sound" over and over again, you can bet I'll be stilled for this three minutes and 42 seconds, replaying all the failures and faults and regrets. Anyone who doesn't when they hear this song has never had their heart broken.



"You can tell Gail, if she calls
That I'm famous now for all of these rock and roll songs
And even if that's a lie
She shoulda given me a try

When we were kids on the field of the first day of school
I would've been her fool
And I would've sang out your name in those old high school halls
You tell that to Gail, if she calls

And you can tell Jane, if she writes
That I'm drunk off all these stars and all these crazy Hollywood nights
And that's total deceit
But she shoulda married me


And tell her I spent every night of my youth on the floor
Bleeding out from all these wounds
I would've gotten her right out of that town she despised
You tell that to Janie, if she writes

But boys will be boys and girls have those eyes
That'll cut you to ribbons sometimes

And all you can do is just wait by the moon
And bleed if it's what she says you oughta do

You remind Anna, if she asks why
That a thief stole my heart while she was making up her mind
I heard she lives in Brooklyn with the cool
And goes crazy over that New York scene on 7th Avenue


But I used to wait at the diner a million nights without her
Praying she won't cancel again tonight
And the waiter served my coffee with a consolation sigh
You remind Anna, if she asks why

Tell her it's alright
You know it's hard to tell you this
Oh it's hard to tell you this
Here's looking at you, kid"

~Here's Looking at You, Kid
The Gaslight Anthem, The '59 Sound

Saturday, October 5, 2013

10/5/13

Few bands release albums as consistently poignant as The National. It took me a few weeks after its release to stumble across "Trouble Will Find Me," but once I did, it immediately became my go-to album in their catalog. The trademarks of their sound, like the subtle weight in rhythm and Matt Berninger's instantly identifiable baritone, are all developed in masterful levels, along with some harmonies and auxiliary here and there that make for a layered, updated sound. I love how this band isn't afraid to branch out with instrumentation while never allowing a new sound to become a crutch or a gimmick - this is crafting an overall sound by paying very close attention  to what each little piece gives.

Lyrically, this might be their most depressed yet, which is saying something. Start to finish the album seems, to me, to catalog an acceptance of despair, a plateau of hopelessness ("I don't need any help to be breakable, believe me"), and a complex relationship with regret. On "Demons," the past and regret are comfort zones, on "This Is The Last Time," they are burdens. I love the references to scenes and places, objects like flowers and fainting chairs are as much scene-setting as they are metaphorical. The word "melodrama" comes to mind, but in a self-aware way - past National records are a little more aggressive, angry and destructive in their sadness and "Trouble" is far more measured, like a heavy sigh.

Despite the subject matter being as introspective and melancholy as it is, I find listening to the album incredibly fulfilling, in the way that a good record in solitude makes you feel less alone, makes you feel connected. This is an Album of the Year contender as far as I can tell, in part for its ability to rise above any labels or trends that previously dogged The National to prove their place as a serious, deserving player in modern music. They don't have a bad album. But "Trouble Will Find Me" stands out among their catalog and among 2013 releases as one of the best, in my opinion, for expertly showing how powerful songwriting doesn't need fireworks and gimmicks or formulas, it just needs an artistic patience, and an expressive heart, however busted it up it might be.



"Graceless
Is there a powder to erase this?
Is it dissolvable and tasteless?
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm graceless
Don't have the sunny side to face this
I am invisible and weightless
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

I'm trying, but I've gone
Through the glass again
Just come and find me
God loves everybody, don't remind me

I took the medicine when I went missing
Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

Graceless, I figured out how to be faithless
But it will be a sheme to waste this
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless...

I'm trying, but I've gone
Through the glass again
Just come and find me
God loves everybody, don't remind me
I took the medicine and I went missing
Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen


All of my thoughts of you
Bullets through rock and through

Come apart at the seams
Now I know what dying means
I am not my rosy self
Left my roses on my shelf
Take the wild ones, they're my favorites
It's the side effects that save us

Grace
Put the flowers you find in a vase
If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place
Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste
Grace

There's a science to walking through windows.
There's a science to walking through windows.
There's a science to walking through windows,
There's a science to walking through windows without you."
~Graceless
The National, Trouble Will Find Me

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

10/1/13

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