5/20/12

"And after all my plans
They melt into the sand
Yeah you will be there on my mind through all
Dont want to understand why you never get older"

~Older

Band of Horses, Infinite Arms 

I'm lonely, this song exacerbates it. 

Someone come over and sing this with me. These harmonies are great.

Oh, wait. Forgot I'm lonely because of that I'm-all-alone-in-this-state thing. 

It's bad enough I have to wait for my landlord's son to come back from his fishing trip to help me move my new dressers and desk upstairs to my apartment. Don't even have someone to enjoy this beautiful day and some music with. Sad songs for sad times, then.

Everything will change when it should. In time.




"I'm fixing a drink in the morning

With the way things are,
You may have stayed too long
It's splitting apart at the seam
From the hospital call
You've known him so long

If there's a God up in the air
Someone looking over everyone
At least you've got something to fall back on

Deep in the heart of the country
Was a house I built from logs
A raven and a lady hawk

Quiet and calm through the day
See the sun burn through the fog
Approaching was a yellow dog

If there's a God up in the air
Someone looking over everyone
At least you got something to fall back on

And what are people really for?
Does any body even care?
I'll bet you get a lot of compliments down there"

~Compliments 

Band of Horses, Infinite Arms

5/19/12

"Trying to calculate, rearrange in my head for a little bit.
Well, I'm not the best at saying anything and so now,
Well so what, I can make it fit.
I'm gonna need a bigger bag of attention baby, yeah.

They said 'we'll make you right into a star, into a star.'

They said 'we'll make you right into a star 'cause it's what you are.'

I'm like a timebomb rushing around, rushing around, 

I'm like a timebomb rushing around
They said 'we'll make you right into a star cause that's what you are.'"

~Timebomb 

States, Room to Run

This was a great week to listen to States. Weather was good, I woke up pumped to go to work, then pumped to go home at the end of multiple ten-hour days. I wanted to hear Mindy White's sassy, beautiful voice in my head as I told myself  "You got this, chill out." The more I listen to this album, the more I fall for her lyrical style, full of comebacks and calling out commentary without loosing the kind of vulnerable realness indie rock has come to know and embrace and love. So it's fitting with the scene, I suppose, but wrapped up in its whole own sound, and I'm totally sold on it.

This song, "Timebomb," the opening track on their completely kickass and delightful "Room to Run," is particularly great at getting stuck in my head. What a chorus to run through your head all day, it takes ahold of a great metaphor and gives great momentum with zany synth sounds and those real playful guitar licks in the chorus. What I especially love about this song is it exudes confidence with a fierce actualization without being totally devoid of perspective, there's a birds-eye view going on here that's ever-so-important to remember...

Albumwise, "Room to Run" is loaded with those little rock moments, and lots of killer hooks....when I heard the singles I wasn't sure it was going to hold up to "Line Em Up" because it seemed like a departure and I loved that so much, but now that I've purchased the album and given it loads of listens it's been in heavy rotation. Mindy White is truly an amazing singer, full of jazzy influences but a great punk-inspired belt....I belt she's killer live. Lyrically, she's straight and to the point, reflective and great with rhymes and wordplay inside a phrase...basically, I want to pick her brain and probably her closet.

"Room to Run" definitely tells a story, and the best albums always should.

5/16/12

And the award for my favorite meme goes to...

Although, given the lyrics, wouldn't it make more sense if the arrows were pointing to the two circles? Whatever.

5/15/12

This is a song that makes me want to write every feeling in the world ten times over, while simultaneously feeling like I will never come close to being half as beautiful about it.

Probably one of my favorite songs about growing up. Also one of my favorite songs from The Weakerthans, which is a tough list to make. Definitely some of my favorite lyrical phrases. Dusty school yards, elegant plumage, wet cement....phrases I should know enough to be able to emulate in my own writerly way. All I can tell myself is these things take time, practice, and getting up each morning to try again.



"We emerged from youth all wide-eyed like the rest/Shedding skin faster than skin can grow/and armed with hammers, feathers, blunt knives words, to meet and to define and to but you must know/the same games that we played in dirt, in dusty school yards has found a higher pitch and broader scale than we feared possible and someone must be picked last, and one must bruise and one must fail./And that still twitching bird was so deceived by a window, so we eulogized fondly, we dug deep and threw its elegant plumage and frantic black eyes in a hole, and rushed out to kill something new, so we could bury that, too.

The first chapters of lives almost made us give up altogether. /Pushed towards tired forms of self immolation that seemed so original, I must, we must never stop/watching the sky with our hands in our pockets, stop peering in windows when we know doors are shut. /Stop yelling small stories and bad jokes and sorrows, and my voice will scratch to yell many more,/but before I spill the things I mean to hide away, or gouge my eyes with platitudes of sentiment/I'll drown the urge for permanence and certainty; crouch down and scrawl my name with yours in wet cement."~Sounds Familiar
The Weakerthans, Fallow

5/14/12

One of the prettiest songs about one of the worst feelings. I've felt it before. I hope I never feel it again.

Maybe I'm just in a haze lately, but all that seems to stir me is loud pop punk, mixes from high school or really sad folk. Or maybe that's just how I always am, and I'm trying to flatter myself. But yeah, this song, cut and dry. The pangs of moving on, emphasized in chromatic notes, gorgeous harmony and the wavering-just-so,  barely-there-vibrato of the amazing Joy Williams. Her voice after the second chorus sends chills through my entire body that just make me want to make music, or collapse and never get up until someone I love picks me up. Maybe both.


"Haven't you seen me sleep walking?
'Cause I've been holding your hand
Haven't you noticed me drifting?
Oh, let me tell you, I am


Tell me it's nothing
Try to convince me
That I'm not drowning
Oh let me tell you, I am


Please, please tell me you know
I've got to let you go
I can't help falling
Out of love with you


Why am I feeling so guilty?
Why am I holding my breath?
Worry 'bout everyone but me
I just keep losing myself


Tell me it's nothing
Try to convince me
That I'm not drowning
Oh let me tell you, I am


Please, please tell me you know
I've got to let you go
I can't help falling
Out of love with you


Won't you read my mind?
Don't you make me lie here
And die here
Please, please tell me you know
I've got to let you go
I can't help falling
Out of love with you"
~Falling
The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow

I don't want to give up the best love I've ever had. But do you have to give up something you love to get the rest of the world? How do you know what's worth holding onto? I don't think you ever do...rather I think that's a decision you make for yourself...but, sometimes, what you're holding onto is slipping away and there's nothing you can do but let it happen, and feel the pain as you feel your heart change.