identify songs which fill me with unusual feelings

Chicago

you came to take us
all things go, all things go
to recreate us
all things grow, all things grow
we had our mindset
all things know, all things know
you had to find it
all things go, all things go

Lovely song! About a journey of self discovery
and acceptance, very moving.

We Both Go Down Together

Here on these cliffs of Dover
so high you can’t see over
and while your head is spinning
hold tight it’s just beginning

you come from parents’ wanton
a childhood rough and rotten
I come from wealth and beauty
untouched by work or duty

and oh, my love, my love.
and oh, my love, my love.
We both go down together.

I found you, a tattooed tramp
A dirty daughter from the labor camps
I laid you down in the grass of the clearing
You wept, but your soul was willing

and oh, my love. my love.
and oh, my love. my love.
We both go down together.

And my parents will never consent to this love
But I hold your hand

Meet me on my vast veranda
My sweet untouched Miranda
and while the seagulls are crying
we fall but our souls are flying

and oh, my love. my love.
and oh, my love. my love.
and oh, my love. my love.
and oh, my love. my love.
We both go down together.

Colin Meloy’s my favorite singer at the moment.

I don’t know why but I’ve always adorded lyrics that use the term ‘my love’. It just always sounds so nice and passionate, see The Smiths I Know it’s Over (“But not for you, my love, not tonight, my love”) and also the Houseman poem The half-moon westers low, my love.

So many of Jeff Buckley’s songs are very special to me. A few worth mentioning are Grace, Forget Her, Morning Theft, New Years Prayer (demo version especially) and the live covers of The Boy with the Thorn in his Side and I Never Asked to be your Mountain.

They send a shiver down my spine.

All the songs on here are wonderful, Prison on Route 41 is such a beautiful song, I almost cry when I hear it.

There’s a prison on Route 41
Home to my father, first cousin, and son
And I visit every weekend
Not with my body but with prayers that I send

I’ve a reason for my absentee
And no lack of love for my dear family
But my savior is not Christ the Lord
But one named Virginia whom I live my life for

And if I don’t mind to her
I’d rot in that prison for sure
Yeah, she’d toss me aside
And I’d surely wait to die

By decree, law, or demand
So unlike my uncle, grandpa, and great aunt
Whom I’d most likely see every day
If not for the righteous path Virginia’s laid

There’s a prison on route 41
Home to my mother, stepbrother, and son
And I’d tear down that jail by myself
If not for Virginia who made me someone else

And I owe it to her
I’d rot in that prison for sure
Yeah, she’d toss me aside
And show me the way to die

By the precepts of her purity
So unlike the habits of my whole family
Whom I only see down on my knees
In prayer by Virginia whom I live for to please

There are many songs that fill me with feelings whether it’s the artists voice, the lyric, or something in the music. I’ll start with two songs by The Postal Service that cover all three aspects for me The District Sleeps Alone Tonight and Such Great Heights. I always feel content after listening, not sure I can explain it any further.

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

“You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with a door key explaining that i am just visiting
And i am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving
The district sleeps alone tonight after the bars turn out their lights
And send the autos swerving into the loneliest evening
And i am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving”

Such Great Heights

“I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles in our eyes
are mirror images and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned”

“And true, it may seem like a stretch, but its thoughts like this that
Catch my troubled head when you’re away and i am missing you to death”

More later…

Fleetwood Mac – LITTLE LIES

This is the day your life will surely changeThis is the day when things fall into place

For the uberpositive person, I suppose every day has possibilities of containing a life changing event. Overall, I think there are a limited number of fulcrum days.

Although, when I am unenthusiastic about my day, listening to This is the Day can help perk me up.

I saw a news item or a documentary or some other such thing a few years back on the trend of competitive Air Guitar in England. I thought it was silly. Embarrassing really. They were making cardboard cut-out guitars ferchrissakes. Appalling.

Everything changed over the last week:

• I got turned on to Pandora.com
• I discovered that Crain rereleased their Speed LP on CD
• I discovered that my son giggles like mad when his dad does Air Guitar to Math Rock

Pandora. Where have you been, my love? Our house was broken into in ‘98 and the junkies made off with about 300 CDs. It was our life put to music. It was really a homicide. But thanks to Pandora, I’ve been reintroduced to bands I forgot I liked. I haven’t thought of Bastro in 8 years. Life is good.

It surprised me when I created my first radio station. I based it on Crain, just for a laugh. I knew it wouldn’t find it in a search. They were too obscure to make any current playlist. I was wrong. It found Speed right off the mark. It started playing “Monkey Wrench” as soon as I accepted the search result. Life is really good.

One thing led to another – google, amazon, etc… – and I found out about the rerelease. Speed was one of the most influential albums on my own music. I think it encapsulates the best of the high-energy end of the Louisville Sound. It’s perfect. Mindful Consumption be damned! I must have it!

Back to Pandora. My adrenaline started flowing when “Monkey Wrench” started playing. I immediately started dancing out of excitement. So since my son was watching, amused, I began to ham it up. Out went my left hand to the imaginary fret board, and the imaginary pick in my right hand started strumming my crotch in time with the guitars in the song. The boy was in stitches. When the next good song came up – I think it was Helmet: “Unsung” – I started in again, and lo, he remained entertained. Anything for that boy. Life is perfect.

There seem to be quite a few songs in my collection that deal with death, but not always negatively. It’s odd that the emotions expressed by these songs are varied and complex. They always intrigue me and don’t depress me at all.

Probably the saddest is “Elizabeth Childers” by Richard Buckner. It’s from the album The Hill, which is a musical adaptation of the “Spoon River Anthology” (of poems) by Edgar Lee Masters. The poems are spoken in the voices of the dead from a small town, telling the stories of their passing. “Elizabeth Childers” is in the voice of a mother speaking to the child that died with her during birth:

_Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath,
though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat
when you lived with me,
And stopped when you
left me for Life._

The song aches with sorrow, but there’s also the tired relief of someone who did not have a good life and is thankful that her child was spared life’s pain. She reassures the child:

Death is better than life.

Continuing the theme of infant mortality, “Leslie Ann Levine” by The Decemberists is an angry diatribe from the ghost of a girl who died shortly after birth:

_My name is Leslie Ann Levine
My mother birthed me in a dry ravine.
My mother birthed me far too soon.
Born at nine and dead at noon._

She haunts the rooftops near where she died and blames her irresponsible mother for her condition, even though she still clings to her petticoats – again the mother died with the child – shaking a rattle made out of a bone. However, she found the energy to be diverted by a crush on a young chimney sweep who died on the job. It’s a very catchy tune though, despite the subject matter.

Probably the most uplifting song about death is a love song by Iron and Wine called “Naked As We Came”. The song expresses the joy at the thought of two people growing old together, even though one inevitably has to die first:

_One of us will die inside these arms,
eyes wide open, naked as we came.
One will spread our ashes round the yard_.

Quite lovely actually.

Finally, XTC explodes in exuberant paganism by celebrating love and decay in “The Wheel and the Maypole”. It’s really two songs, the first a song of sexual proposition using the most bizarre collection of double entendres, and the second an ode to entropy:

_…everything decays.
Forest tumbles down to make the soil.
Planets fall apart,
Just to feed the stars and stuff their larders._

_And what made me think we’re any better,
And what made me think we’d last forever.
Was i so naive?
Of course it all unweaves._

I really enjoy the pagan themes that Andy Partridge plays with in many of his songs. But I have a special affection for this one. How can you go wrong with a line like

Maypole, you’ve spun me round and knocked me off my axis mundi

I confess I had to look that up. An axis mundi is the place where heaven and earth meet – a geographical location in some religions.

I don’t know what this obsession with mortality is all about. Two of my favourite shows in recent memory are Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me. Maybe it all makes me less afraid of death. Not too sure. I am losing my curiosity about what, if anything, happens after death. I’m beginning to feel that the actual event will just be a change for me, rather than an ending. It requires more thought.

What on Earth is going on in my heart?
as it turns cold to stone…

Seems these days I don’t feel anything
Unless it cuts me right down to the bone.

What on earth is going on in my heart?

Cause my oh my you know it just don’t stop
Cause in my mind I wanna tear it up
I’m trying to fight trying to turn it off
But it’s not enough

It takes a lot of love
It takes a lot of love, my friend
to keep your heart from freezing
to push on til the end.

My oh my!

What on earth is going on in my head?
I know I used to be so sharp.
You know I used to be so definite
Thought I knew what love was for.
I look around these days
I’m not so sharp.
No no no

My oh my you know it just don’t stop.
It’s in my mind I wanna tear it up.
Trying to fight trying to turn it off
but it’s not enough.
It takes a lot of love
It takes a lot of love, my friend
to keep your heart from freezing
to push on til the end
my oh my you just can’t win
you burn it down it comes right back again
what kind of world is this we’re living in
where you never win?

It takes a lot love
it takes a lot love these days
to keep your heart from freezing
to keep your spirit free… oh

my oh my

My oh my you know it just don’t stop
it’s in my mind i wanna tear it up
trying to fight it trying to turn it off
but it’s not enough
It takes a lot of love
It takes a lot of love, my friend
to keep your heart from freezing
to push on til the end.

My oh my you know it just don’t stop
my oh my you know it just don’t stop
Just don’t
My oh my you know it just don’t stop
my oh my
My oh my you know it just don’t stop
my oh my
my oh my you know it just don’t stop
weeeeelll
my oh my you know it just don’t stop
my oh my
my oh my
my oh my you know it just don’t stop
my oh my you know it just don’t stop

Again a beautiful song, and can be interpreted in many ways.