So here's the playlist, let's play, "guess what's been on my mind". Or not because hell it's digustingly obvious, and I'm going to tell you anyway.
ANTLERS- PARENTHESES (... and I'll close your parentheses. Hell of a lyric)
ST VINCENT- THE STRANGERS ("for the thrill until i'm spent" This entire track is a treasure trove or phrase and innuendo. stories and images painted in extraordinary detail with detached minimalism. Desperate don't look good on you.)
STARFUCKER- ASTORIA (Tonally and thematically out of place but it is excellent on a run, and relentless introspection has led me further and further into wondering about the type of life worth aspiring towards. A simple life... perhaps i still prefer the ugly trainwrecked complications of the life i've chose)
SUN KIL MOON- SALVADOR SANCHEZ (What man doesn't take personal stock of his virility in the aftermath of these things. Salvador Sanchez, the man eulogized here in this ballad (along with pancho villa but thats another story) was a great boxer who much like James Dean found himself cracked up on the side of a highway at the very height of his beauty and grace. Both of these men possess the kinds of style effortless movement and gesture to which i have always yearned and always found myself lacking. Shambling and drug soaked this is a sad song about men of admiral character or sublimity that we wish we were)
PETE AND THE PIRATES- SONG FOR TOMORROW (A bit emo. Yes. Admitted. But I rounded diamond head as it came on. and the central idea of the song here the paralysis of beauty. The creeping sadness brought on by coming face to face with something so much larger than you, incomprehensible glories. A thing which once observed compels you to a form of union you cannot have. A beauty that you cannot touch, be apart of play with. A beauty which contrasts sharply with the squalor and compromise of your own life. I couldn't concentrate at all. there's so many stars" In many ways the reason I've stayed so long in that hellish backwater with so many illiterates and useless expatriate hedonists without courage of their convictions and understriving artists is that beauty here on this island is tangible. You can dance in it swim in it breath it in. When you jump spitting caves, you leap into glory. Impossible blues and swirling mathematics of dancing seafoam and volcanic rock. and all you have to do to be a part.. is just to take a step forward. )
CLONES- GALAXIES (If you lived in the scene 2k4 on you love Ara. Many are the reasons for this, but as an icon, she is (and remains) untouched. I rarely talk with my hanai sister about lyrics, I know not whether she is invoking the traditional poetic meanings for the planets referenced in this song. I think it is more likely that she is not. But what I really would like to talk aobut here is how over the years I have seen my sisters ethereal presence overwhelm small smokey dive venues. I've heard her ring out her voice and detox at bars in north shore tiny venues all over this island, Places that did not deserve her or her thundering voice, spaces and time in our lives transcended by her perfomances. Whether or not se will find the life she seeks as a community organizer and a mother is yet to be seen, but her immortality as Honolulu's Lady Stardust is assured. We will carry her voice on. )
WASHED OUT-ECHOES (this record is as good as people say it is. Lie on the floor in a state of soreness and disrepair and listen to it. Let it bring you pleasure. But earn it, no one deserves to listen to this record without putting work in first. It cheapens the power of it)
TAMMAR- THE LAST LINE (Capecod, who forced this record upon me have a similar take on it. It dabbles its toes in so many beloved influences and genres without doing violence to any of them that its staggering. kraut, garage, psychadelic, drone. It's all there in such fantastic balance. People really need to jump on this record so that we can bring this band out. It has a similar feeling of Eureka! as the first Clap Your Hands record. Remarkable synthesis)
JARVIS COCKER- BIG JULIE (I broke up with a girl because of this song. She's married now. This is Jarvis at his best, singing portraiture of the disenfranchised but ascendant. Sex is just for dummies anyway, something for you do when youve run out of things to say.Feminism without the ugly dworkinite propaganda about these things. A lovely take on the confusion and striving for love in adolescence. Of self-confidence seized by rejecting the values of others. And it's doomed romanticism)
DESTROYER- A VERY MODERN DANCE ("Is this the golden bridge I'm burning? Because, fire is the real gold!" I take it from this that Mr Bejar that he prefers a scorched earth breakup (a kindred spirit is nice to have) Not the only great lyric by miles. "Now you see why i'll always be a dancer" "and we are not the answer" and once again his metaphor of love as fascist regime "whats one more police action" also the bassline at the end. Marvelous.)
JAMES BLAKE- WILHELMS SCREAM (I dont know about my dreams, I don't my shows, I dont know about my ideas, I don't know about my love... all I know is... Well, you take my point. Tragic that this song is the closest thing to an anthem in my life. But it is.)
METRIC- BLACK SHEEP (dear god that last bit was morbid. I'm sorry you had to read that. I normally dont do large reservations for my pity parties. (I just charge 5 dollars at the door amirite!) Bt this is back to straightforward literal reads about public perception of sexuality and relationships with "liberated" but broken people. "you're a mechanical bull, you take a ride from anyone" Nihilist chic and the later incipient condition of boredom with it. the last line "Everyone pulls away from youu-uuu" is almost orgasmically self-pitying. If more of my borgeois friends listend to music like this I might hang out with them)
ARCADE FIRE- TUNNELS (Mostly dry humping my early twenties here. Hey imaginary grandkids I was the first DJ in hawaii to play this album on air! Now listen to my boring stories about how I used to be a wrestler... and so on. But not entirely, this song is about a sort of end-run romantic escapism. The unvarnished desire to run away from society and live subsumed in love without interference of a world or society. Even going so far as to forget how to name children free from old myths and narratives choking our futures and those of our children. It's a dangerous escapism, but we needed it at the time as a culture. And In many ways that love as childish escape paradigm is what I did for the past 2 years. It can be so sweet.)
TAMMAR- SUMMER FUN (and from that sappiness we contrast these lyrics here "And all the stupid things you do, oh no, yeah so .. Curse you curse your name and I dont know what to say" Well to her at least I don't. Even my verbosity balks at the challenge. Words do not come. Also, on a less confessional note BUY THIS RECORD IT IS VERY GOOD AND YOU WILL LIKE IT /advocacy )
RAPTURE-HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE (Simple enough. And one of the best from the new record. Staying tethered to a genre with richer artistic history has allowed the rapture to last longest in relevance of the 2k new york buzz bands. This record is very very good.>
Broken Social Scene- SENTIMENTAL X'S ("a friend a friend you used to call" "shouldnt we keep it as a promise")
PAPERCUTS- DO WHAT YOU WILL
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM- TOO MUCH LOVE
Whitest Boy Alive- DONE WITH YOU
these last three are so painfully literal that I'll spare myself the embarrassment of writing any sort of explanation about them. except for perhaps to reference the papercuts lyric "home is where you run to"
Well there we are. those are the songs I listened to on my run and in some small measure what I was thinking hearing them. I hope you enjoyed it.
~Ross
