alleviate my nostalgia through writing

♥

When I listen to the Smashing Pumpkins, in my mind I enter a different realm of possibility. I can see my hand open a door into gentle memories of sweet nostalgia. It penetrates their music. I feel like most of their songs are postcards written for previous times. The lyrics of their songs I would tattoo all over my body because they simply mean so much to me. I always thought getting “shakedown, 1979” on my wrist would make me totally badass. Heh-heh. My personal favorite song of theirs would be Tonite Reprise. It’s all acoustic, which I die for. I love the re-working of Tonight, Tonight. The music in this song is a simple guitar strumming, but it permeates deep down. It’s definitely the song that gets to my core. The Pumpkins (Billy?) had a way of relieving his stress of his past and making us feel more human in return.

Believe that you can change
that you’re not stuck in vain

I feel the cold Autumn wind whipping through my hair when I put on one of Nick’s records. He reminds me of windy, sunny days growing up in Jackson, hanging out with my grandma and my mom, painting pumpkins with my sister, and chasing my dog Cody around the yard with a simple pink windbreaker. October weddings and quiet, peaceful moments in my mind. I like to remember these times a lot. It’s when I feel best.
You can’t describe the feeling with words, truly. It’s something you have had to live through.
And there is just something about a Sunday morning with it’s coolness, drinking tea with my dad in my sunny kitchen, listening to Arlo Guthrie, Led Zeppelin and all those beautiful souls. It’s my favorite time, I think. Everything’s mellow and chill, no expectations needed.

I don’t try to achieve this mess of perfection.
Because it’s truly not perfection, when you look at it…

But have you ever listened to a song and imagined a place within your head that brings you to the most euphoric state of mind? That’s what it’s like with bands like The Beatles and Nick Drake. I can go outside to my yard, with it’s cold grass and hot sun, and put my earbuds in and listen to the emotion.

I feel like I need a cigarette to open this entry.

Some people like mellow songs, some like hard metal songs, some like classical songs, some like perky, happy songs, and some people like ‘em all.

Well, I like ‘em all. But I especially love sad songs. I’ve heard that “the song is as sad as the listener,” but I don’t believe this to be such—to an extent. Leaving my last entry with a divulge into music, I figured it would be best to keep going.

One of the best examples I can come up with for a perfect song to remember anything to is “Something In the Way,” by Nirvana, off of their album Nevermind.

The simple, lone guitar in the beginning to start you off with a feeling of solace. Then Kurt’s voice, deep, and sometimes inaudible. It shows how something so simple, yet dark and glooming can place your mind somewhere a million miles from here. I always imagine listening to this song in the dark, with some headphones on, humming the “mmmmmmm, mmmmm” part.

I always am transported back to my childhood when I listen to Nirvana. I am reminded of early nineties alt-rock and memories of listening and watching the stories and songs of these bands unfold around me. I miss that terribly. I wish for my children that they will have the music that I did, and hopefully not be left with sugary pop or purposeless rap music.

Yesterday I was on youtube, and I found some wicked old Pearl Jam videos, from a festival in the Netherlands in 1992. I noticed Eddie Vedder’s youthful angst and anger towards injustice. It seems that over time, he’s gone from a guy in his twenties, angry as all hell at the world, to a man who has seen things happen in his life, and sings his songs from that point of view. It’s incredible how time not only changes people, but the meaning of a song. Songs that meant something to me at sixteen, now probably mean something completely different.

I watched the video for “Jeremy,” and felt moved all over again. His voice was sultry and soulful, like I remember it. And the guitar was infinite. I ended up watching all of the Pinkpop videos, including “Alive.” The thing that I love most about that song is the middle bridge, where he chants: “Ohh, I’m still alive, hey, I’m still alive,” over and over, with his golden baritone throat. It’s never-changing.

My final commentary about this band is about “Black.” The winding up of the guitar, his chants of “Hey,” like he’s sitting around a campfire, warming up his voice to begin. When he sings the lyrics, you can imagine a place inside Eddie’s head, like a dark blue swimming hole full of intense words and poetry.

“Oh I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star. In somebody else’s sky. But why? why, why can’t it be mine?”