Chains

If the Ghost of Christmas Past rattled his chains the way I can't help but get my groove on when this song comes on I would sign him up as percussion in my band in a heart beat.  Who needs a tambourine or maracas with that gloomy Gus keeping time rattling his bones?  Seriously though, my mind has been on the limitations and restrictions we place on ourselves, for positive and negative reasons.  Self-restraint is a useful skill that seems under-applied and there's a lot of rhetoric and BS dedicated to justifying the lack of good judgement and self-control being exercised (and promoted).  It's profitable and to say that people are brainwashed isn't an exaggeration, but when you couple mental conditioning with ambivalence and apathy you get a perpetual status quo that occasionally makes adjustments for sake or remaining ubiquitous.  Maybe that's why the passage of time sometimes seems non-existent?  The output of product continues but for certain strata of society it has no impact on their impact on their lives.  When industrialization reaches as far as it can possibly be sustained and every nation on earth advances technologically to the point where the only thing keeping them from a modernized existence is international trade relations what will be the status quo?  What will the standard of living for the majority of the world look like?  What will the typical attitude on life be?  Will people be nostalgic for the varied social strata of the past, with cultures defined by the poverty/ or isolation they emerged from?  What ideas will be bound to?  What will anchor our thinking?  What will we be chained to?  At some point will the focus return to things other than the material world, it seems that's the only thing a person can truly be chained to?

We only notice light when darkness crashes against it.

I happened upon Sleeping At Last about 10 or so years ago.  It's primarily the work of Ryan O'neal, and as their music grew more serene and sophisticated it leapt ahead of my own emotional development, and I have only recently found the sort of peace and reflective state of mind to digest it in what feels like the proper state of mind.  At this stage of my life, the project they've undertaken, christened Atlas, fits the way of consume music and life, in broad philosophical strokes that aim to encompass the whole of life, the grandeur and minutia, everything that gives it meaning.  The first installment of the series of EPs is Darkness, and the song Woodwork (link goes to the lyrics) is the tune that grabbed my attention and captivated me.  The emotional timbre of this song suits my baseline mood these days, especially given the state of transition that seems an eternal constant. In light of the passing of a former coworker of mine this week, a particularly warm and welcoming soul who lit up a room with her smile, and calmed the tears of many a child with her empathetic manner, this song grows ever more poignant.

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.