It never fails to amaze me the impact of music on me, and how the songs that have impacted me encompass everything everything I was experiencing in the moment.
One of my earliest album obsession was the Beach Boys Endless Summer. My brother and I played my father's LP over and over again to transport us in this magical world of beaches and girls who are celebrated just for being from California.
I have to admit that I was a strange pre-pubescent because of my obsession with Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. I guess I was going through the history of twentieth century music working through my parent's LP collection. I listened to that organ solo with awe who knows how many time, just sitting on the floor of my room. NO wonder I didn't fit in; I was about 30 years off from everyone.
Alanis Morssette's Jagged Little Pill even though it came out years before, will forever be the angsty blasting music of riding around with my college girl friends, angry at who knows what and having a blast screaming out the words together. Strangely, that album will always have a sense of community attached to it for me. I got rid of that album years ago, but I can't hear a song without being on the I40 in Knoxville.
Another Album that is forever locked in my college mind is Over the Rhine's Good Dog Bad Dog. It's a pretty obscure little album but my group of coffeehouse ragamuffins adored that album. I can't hear "Don't speak; words come out your eyes" without being at the girls' apartment with Brantley and Stephen melting us into melancholy bliss. "Ecetera, Whatever, I guess all I mean is we're gonna be alright." . . .
Then there are the post-Katrina albums. I remember crossing the causeway for the first time, the water's were still high from Hurricane Rita. My co-worker and new friend Rachel played Sufjan Steven's Seven Swans and that moment still comes into my head when I hear "the Transfiguration". I was having one of that God's fearing moments where I really had never been before. I feared that the water would lap over the bridge, but I also feared what I would see on the other side of that bridge. (for my xanga blog from that time period check this link and this out.) The song reminded me, fear not:
Lost in the cloud, a voice: Have no fear! We draw near!
Lost in the cloud, a sign: Son of man! Turn your ear!
Lost in the cloud, a voice: Lamb of God! We draw near!
Lost in the cloud, a sign: Son of man! Son of God!
And the next January after I moved back onto a "real" bed - sharing a futon with my generous roommate who understood my need to back in the city in any condition - rather than the cots of Riverside BC. The first track of Arcade Fire's Funeral. (This is what inspired me to write this entry, as you can see by the title.) Never have I had such a perfect musical representation of my emotions of the time, even though the lyrics are not telling the story I was going through. Somehow, I feel, it gives voice to my feelings of living at the beginning of a new world when they old one has ended and ill equipped to deal with this new world. The whole album has these hollow sounds and themes that I needed to voice from my heart.
Sometimes We remember our bedrooms and our parent's bedrooms
and the bedrooms of our friends
Then we think of our parents...
Well, whatever happened to them?!
You change all the lead sleeping in my head to gold
As the day grows dim, I hear you sing a golden hymn
It's the song I've been trying to sing...
Purify the colors, purify my mind
Purify the colors, purify my mind
And spread the ashes of the colors over this heart of mine!
This song came up in my play list today while I was cleaning my wonderful apartment in Vienna with more room than I know what to do with and, and suddenly I was driving on I610 dodging staircases (yes - I did have to dodge a staircase once on I640!) with tear blurred eyes wondering if things were the "same" anywhere and if I wanted to be there or if I was alright with this new, broken but growing world I lived in. At the time I decided that I did want to live and love New Orleans. My friend, Andrew, had lent Funeral to me and I bought it as soon as possible. That album stayed in my car and again and again the first track would be an anthem of acknowledging pain while choosing to live and find a new new normal.
I am trying to find a new normal again. The surroundings are so much more pleasant than my almost post-apocalyptic state I was in there, but sometimes harshly foreign. And I don't have the music for this yet. I have all these songs from past lives that don't speak to what I'm going though.
Any suggestions?
3 comments:
Jason Gray's "Everything Sad is Coming Untrue" is deep, Regina Spektor's "Far" is comfortably foreign sounding.....that's all I can think of right now. I love you and when you find your music I want to buy it too so we can listen to it at the same time :)
Music purchasing is much harder than I expected around here. Just bought some Noah and the Whale and Kasabian. Trying them out.
I know exactly what you mean! Funny thing is, Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens were two of those bands that had a great impact on my life--both the band itself and the point in my life when I first heard them.
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