Somewhere Over the Sun

I write for about 5-8 hours every day, and for about 95% of that time, I’m listening to music. People like to complain about how new things aren’t as good as old things (music, films, books), so I like to remind everyone that every year, morsels of goodness can be found, not matter how much bad stuff may have come out. 

By Your Hand - Los Campesinos

Energetic, infectious, catchy, fuck-shit-up music. It manages to be funny and heartfelt, like most of the Welsh band’s stuff. The new album is a little less explosive than their previous records, but this gem has tons of replay value and will have you dancing.

Became - Atmosphere

A rap song about going camping in the snow and werewolves. But it’s a metaphor. For what, I’m still not entirely sure. No matter how many times I listen to the lyrics, I’m still trying to decipher the message at the end. I have an inkling of an idea, but I haven’t been able to fully express it. Atmosphere does that a lot. 

Estate Sale Sign- The Mountain Goats

In this song, John Darnielle goes back to doing what he does best: songs about couples falling apart at the seams. And it’s of the sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs variety. 

Always Gold - Radical Face

This is a mellow songs that builds and builds into something really quite beautiful. Perfect for driving or walking down the street. Or montages of a road trip in a movie. Something like that. It’s a beautiful song about old friendship and life’s fleetingness. 

Michicant - Bon Iver

One of my favorites from an album that’s full of absolutely wonderful songs. The opening lines hooked me right away: “I was unafraid, I was a boy, I was a tender age.” It’s about sex and drugs and how can you resist that?

Post-Break Up Sex - The Vaccines

Oh, what did you expect from post break up sex? Catchy song with great lyrics, what more do you need?

Abducted - Cults

Don’t get fooled by the quiet opening. This song explodes quickly and never lets go. It’s short and fast and you feel it. Great song off a great album.

Weekend - Smith Westerns

This is a song that never fails to get me dancing. A guitar riff that has probably caused orgasms.

The Rose with the Broken Neck - Danger Mouse & Daniele Lupi w/Jack White

The title alone is better than entire songs, entire albums, entire careers. Half western film score, half…um…I don’t know what the other half is, but it’s lovely. And it’s a comforting reassurance that despite the end of The White Stripes, Jack White is not done rocking the music world.

Never Quite Free - The Mountain Goats

Yes, I have already discussed my crush on Darnielle’s songwriting many times before. This song has a bigger sound than most of his earlier stuff, and it makes for great driving music. The thing that gets me is how close this gets to being an uplifting song. He usually doesn’t write a lot of happy songs. And then you realize this is a song about getting really close to forgetting your sorrows before they drag you back down. That sounds harsh, but it still somehow manages to be a positive song.

Pushing Onlys - Woods

This is a band that I haven’t found many other fans of, because their sound is definitely not for everyone. No bass to speak of, all treble, and I love it. They have great, dual guitars, lovely harmonies and sharp songwriting.  

Longing to Belong - Eddie Veder

I loved his album, Ukulele Songs, and this is just one of the many gems on it. Sweet and raw. Eddie Veder should marry his ukulele.

So Beautiful or So What - Paul Simon

Again, a fantastic title. Starts off with a lesson in cooking and ends as a lesson for life. I play this song for my nephew so that he’ll learn. “Gonna tell my kids a bedtime story, a play without a plot/ Will it have a happy ending?/ Maybe yes and maybe not/ I say life is what you make of it/ so beautiful or so what.”

A Real Hero - College ft. Electric Youth

If you’ve seen the movie Drive, you already know why. 

Other notables from 2011:

• Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men
• Helplessness Blues- Fleet Foxes
• Sta. Fe - Beirut
• Will Do - TV on the Radio
• Smile, it Makes it Easier- Fire is Motion
• Chugjug- Family of the Year
• Black Night- The Dodos
• Ignite- The Raveonettes
• We Will Never Have this Night Again- Dudes Die

Obviously there’ve been tons more great songs released this year, and I will undoubtedly come back and edit this post to include something else (Andrew Bird’s version of It Ain’t Easy Being Green, anyone?). Especially once I finally get to listen to the new Slow Club record and spend some more time with the just-released Black Keys album. If you want to recommend any songs, I’m more than happy to build up my music collection. 

When Jeremy woke up in that other world, he knew something was a little off, a little different, but did he recognize it as entirely other, entirely elsewhere? Not at all. He thought maybe it was a bar. A new dance he had not yet encountered. A new sense of décor that had not yet made itself appealing.  A way of life that he hadn’t yet realized was the way of life of the world he inhabited. He had always been a step behind of the dances, a bar behind of the times, an infatuation behind what brought people joy. So, he assumed from his place on the bench overlooking the scene before him that maybe time had simply transpired in his world. It had been too long since his last excursion for him to notice the changes.

He was however light years apart from the place he knew, not just fads apart.  He was completely elsewhere. Connected to his home by just the slightest semblance of humanity.  Sure, he thought, maybe humans act this way and I have merely failed to notice the steps that brought them here. Physically, you’ll have to admit, they weren’t far off from us. Legs and hair and the looks they gave each other. They could have easily passed for human, especially at human bars. But the things that moved them, the life they had designed for themselves,  what made them smile; it wasn’t human at all, not in Jeremy’s understanding. It was completely alien.

They littered. That’s what kept him wondering for longer than he should have. Of all species, could there be litterers other than humans? Was there anyone else who could so easily forget what had  only seconds ago been in their hands? It seemed unlikely.

He realized shortly after that thought that he had never really understood anyone at all, not even  when he had really wanted to, not even when he had loved with every part of himself that, to his comprehension, had the capacity to love. But, then, what did understanding matter? Love did not rely on understanding someone else, not really, not in his experience, if he was honest about it.

The moment that made him understand that he was entirely somewhere else was not an epiphany, nor a catharsis, nor momentous. It did not inspire the far off sounds of an orchestra, like in the movies. It was a simple sigh, a quiet, “Oh shit,” muttered to himself, as if he had been driving for far longer than he realized and suddenly found himself in a neighborhood  that wasn’t his own.

The music was what did it. Even if he didn’t at times particularly like Earth’s music, he always, always felt it, or could at least see what others felt in it. There’d be a beat, a line, a melody, just one speck of a moment where his heart would beat along, or an approving smirk would stretch his lips before he could tell his mouth that this was not Music He Listened To.

 But where he was, the music marked him off as hopelessly, desperately other. He couldn’t feel it at all. Not in his bones or his muscles or his lips. It didn’t reach a single fiber of his being. Every note died at his ears, like sperm in an infertile environment.

This world was alien. Habitable, sure. Evidently. But not by him. That much was clear. This was not his world. 

Here’s one little fraction of my day: (although, I must admit I’ve never been great at math. I could be, if I tried. I was at times. Seventh grade, I was in advanced algebra. Slept through class with my ass way beyond the seat and my neck resting where my lower back should have been. I still got A’s, and that’s probably when I realized I could afford to not care that much. After that, the only classes I struggled in or ever had to retake were those that had to do with numbers and formulas.

I wrote an essay in place of a statistics test once, “I’m sorry that I don’t care more,” my test said, “I sit in your class and watch people instead, think about their little movements and what they mean, think up stories behind the movement of their barely noticeable artificial shadows.” I failed and got a post-it note that said, “Maybe you are in the wrong major. If you need to talk, please come see me in my office.” I was in love at the time, how could formulas compare?)

I walked through the boulevard, which looks like this: street one way, split by a large red-brick ‘middlewalk’ lined by very tall trees and the occasional flower stand or fountain, then an opposite-headed rush of traffic. It was dry and walkable and even sunny at times, for the first time since my return. I was singing along to a song I didn’t actually know all the lyrics to but I tried anyway, stumbling over my (their) words and feeling happy that no one was around to hear me or correct me. I had just finished a perfectly lemon-flavored popsicle and was on my way to a cafe to have a hookah and write some words before the rain eventually showed up again. A bald man, young, about my age, half-glanced at me. We passed each other wordlessly, just fractions of each others’ day, lives.

After tweeting something or the other about my love of music the other day, a friend asked me why I never write any song lyrics. I replied, quite stupidly, that it’s because I’m no good at rhyming or melodies. She told me, quite rightly, that songs don’t have to rhyme and I don’t have to come up with the melodies. So I started thinking about what I could write a song about.

But, while juggling rewrites, continuous additions to books three/four (still haven’t decided which I’ll dedicate myself to first) and the occasional blog post, I was coming up with blanks for a song. I looked back at stuff I’ve written in the past in search of a piece that someone more musically talented than me might be able to turn into a song.

Before I formally challenge anyone reading this to try to add a melody to the following unstructured poem, I’d like to update on my plans to have a live chat session with my dear readers. Update: I still plan on having a live chat session. I’m sorting through some suggested sites and trying to improve my e-literacy before choosing a time and a place for it. Keep the suggestions for hosts/times coming!

And now, I challenge you, or someone you know, to turn the following words into lyrics. Add some guitar chords or some piano keys or a few gentle notes from a harmonica. Go a capella. Do whatever you want, just make it songy. If you do decide to take the challenge, please share your work with me. I’d love to see what people can come up with. This may be a good time to offer a free copy of Somewhere Over the Sun as an incentive as well. Enjoy!

i fell asleep beneath your blanket
i hadn’t felt its warmth since you caused it
i couldn’t separate you and me from us
though so much has
since this blanket last slept
the past lives here
in smells this blanket no longer carries
in the just now
afterthought
of soft, hurried kisses
which i couldn’t keep to myself
no matter the hour
this blanket
no matter how inanimate we are
no matter how un-alive it is
breathes you into me.