Ain't It A Shame

When I first heard this on She Who Dwells... I was taken by it. I didn't know it was a B-52s cover.  I just knew it was a great song.  Sinead's voice is incredible and when I heard the original, it was great, and the track is pretty similar, with the Sinead cover being a little more aggressive/ rock.  But her vocal just shines above all else.  Truly an Angelic voice if ever there was one. She's quite the person. Righteous indignation fuels her fires.

Rainy Day Music for the Can't Get Off the Couch Blues.

Ryan Adams, Follow The Lights EP is where it's at, particularly If I Am A Stranger, the slow version, and Dear John.  Love Is Hell is a gem for this kind of day too.

Silence and the rain in the downspout is music enough for me though, percussion mainly.

All My Friends - [Explicit Lyrics - NSFW]

I saw Land of Talk open for Broken Social Scene back in fall 1998. I was transfixed and obsessed with them from that moment forward.  Their sense of rhythm and melody, Elizabeth Powell's beautiful yet broken voice, and the emotional transparency of the music just overwhelmed me.  They songs had me in a rapture and I couldn't go to sleep without finding their music.  If I was smart I would have asked if they had their cd at the merch booth, but since I didn't even know the band's name, I went home and looked up the bill for the show, rather than ask a human amongst the sea of people there at the venue.

I found every song from the EP they'd release the year prior on blogs, with the exception of a couple, which I could only find live versions of.  All My Friends was one of the ones I couldn't find, it was also the one song I couldn't get enough of.  It had possession of me, F*bomb in the chorus and all.  I was conflicted about wanting to play the song all the time, because the inclusion of the swear word may have been artistically sincere when they wrote it, it's still profane, and I believe in being respectful and appropriate.  It's not something I want little kids singing along to, and in general, I have spent the majority of my life with little kids within earshot, and I treasure their innocence, largely because mine was spoiled, and I know what I missed.

The song, much like the moment in my life when I first heard it, put me in the mind of what it's like to be in college, aloof, held up by the support of the rogues gallery of friends and acquaintances you accumulate from one semester to the next.  Bad decisions and influences make the rounds, and codependency grows like weeds.  It's a circle game, and I did my best not to get too caught up in it, but once people catch feelings and start coupling off, the pull strengthens and you're bound to go down if you're hand in hand with someone.  Make of it what you will.  One things for certain, when you have good company, the energy of nosedive sometimes feels like a carnival ride, and this song represents that.  It makes you want to accelerate even though it's telling you to drive careful.  With friends like these...  In the end it falls on you to make the right choices.  Friends are great for support, but life is sand in the hour glass.  The only thing that can support that sand is the enclosure, and we all know that glass is fragile, as is friendship.  It's not for the careless.

"F***ing around, pretending there's a problem. Figure it out."

Free You Mind and... Pardon Their French [NSFW]

Freedom is free of the need to be free.

Taken that way freedom is acceptance.

Strength. Serenity. Wisdom.

Work.

In trying or turbulent times an anthem goes a long way.  Some people seek uplift, some seek solace, others seek solidarity.  This is a song of solidarity.  Jars of Clay emerged on the national scene with Flood, and this song invokes the water metaphor again, but the context of the life of Dan Haseltine during the songs genesis paralleled the struggles of my life in late 2007 not too long after it came out.  Life is pain vs. Life if a blessing.  I'll take the latter, and take the prior to mean that living life in this world as humanity has known it can be a struggle.  Effort is required.  It is as it was.

Free

Sophomore year of college I experienced this song.  I was taken off guard by it, because my initial exposure to Goodie Mob as a full collective was Cell Therapy.  The latter spoke to the kid raised on Public Enemy, N.W.A., KRS - One, X-Clan, who entered manhood with Masta Ace, Souls of Mischief and Outkast blazing a new trail.  I don't return to it like I did then, partially because the reality of death has firmly cemented itself as a part of my reality, whereas at that time each loss was a soul jarring trauma I had no experience digesting.  The shell shock of international terrorism hadn't hit home, figuratively and literally.  I was just a young idealist with zeal and no direction.  Now, I'm grown, and aging, and the world has rushed into our insular worlds demanding our attention while we ignore it like a child who demands attention but has tested our patience to its limits.  Freedom isn't free.

What You Gonna Do?

I've been blessed/ fortunate in my life for a long time running, and yet I am always a paycheck from utter chaos and with that said, sometimes I have to scramble to get things in order.  There are so many doing so much worse.  This song is as low down and heavy as anything I have ever listened to, but as soulful and funky as I could ever ask for.  That's dUg Pinnick for you.  Needless to say, it pays to keep things in perspective, keep it real and what not.  I Love this Song, and like most of dUg's work, it means something on an intrinsic emotional level.  Count your blessings people.  Nothing's promised.  The serenity prayer is the answer to the question.