"...Alas the sea is also some kind of allegory for me. A great and immense sadness. The place where all things are eventually lost. We crawled from the sea in the distant past. But it waits for us in the quick and near future. And now I’ve mixed Hades with Poseidon. When you die you become a Bride of Neptune. Neptune is just the Roman name for Poseidon.
But i can’t help thinking of the sea as the immense sadness when i hear this song. For this is one of the songs that i worked up with Mark Linkous. This is a song that he plucked from a pile of small unfinished ideas i kept on cassette tapes. each titled something like “work tape oct 1997″. These were snippets of song about 30 seconds to 3 minutes long. I’d record them onto an old cassette recorder I always kept handy. We were listening in the basement of my studio when we came across this one. ” I like that one, let’s make that a song”. So we did. The only words i had were “brides of neptune cross the waters bring us your sons and bring us your daughter”. We created the music first and then eventually the story came to me. And you can totally tell that this is Mark Linkous playing the bubbling gurgling keys and guitars. It’s his signature sound.
I think of the sea as this immense sadness in this song because March 8th 2010 Mark shot himself in the heart. He had an immense sea of sadness in his soul.
I don’t have that. That darkness. I understand it mind you. But it isn’t me. We are all lost at sea, but it’s not a tragedy. It’s a black comedy. A giant clown cemetery with The Catheads just too damn hungover to dance on our clown graves. While i don’t exactly dance around the seafarers memorial in the video, I talk to the lost and dead seafarers. I send them on a inscrutable voyage with monkeys and pot head mermaids. I send the dead out with a mysterious cargo that they can never get near because it’s “guarded by monkeys” (see post #3 guarded by monkeys). But they aren’t really sad. They are lost but not sad. Understand the distinction?"
I first heard Explosions in the Sky on the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights.
I have a terrible time remembering lyrics.
To me, they've never been the most important part of music - I listen to the whole thing.
That means that it's not necessarily what the words are saying,
but the way they sound combined with the music.
That may not make a lot of sense.
I've never tried to articulate it really.
The point is, Explosions in the Sky don't have lyrics.
Every time I say that he says "you mean it's instrumental"
but for some reason, I don't think of it as instrumental.
It's music without lyrics.
It says everything
with no words.
Call it what you will.
I just bought "The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place" on vinyl
and it's gorgeous.
Watch out.
It might make you cry.
Dead Man's Will
by Iron and Wine and Calexico
I don't fully "get" Iron and Wine. I've listened to a couple of his albums and I'm either not in the right headspace when I do or it's just not my thing.
This song, again, heard on the Friday Night Lights soundtrack - killed me.
Dan Mangan
Album: Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Song: Road Regrets.
Not sure where I heard this one but I'm glad I did.
The Low Anthem
Album: Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
Just listen to it.
With this one - once I got past how beautiful the overall sound was,
I did really listen to the lyrics and I was much the better for it.
Should I try to learn from that?
Sigur Ros
Everything.
I really fell in love with Sigur Ros this year.
I went to see them in concert in the spring and I felt like a teenager again.
You know how when you're a teenager things cut right through you
and you seem to feel everything really intensely?
That's how I felt.
The concert was amazing.
(Another band with no discernible lyrics.)
Dave Baxter
Whispers
Those are just a few.
I know I like the sad songs best
but there you go.
Take it how you will.
This post wouldn't be complete if I I didn't mention the creation of Indie 88.
I think that they are what a radio station should be.
They make me want to listen to the radio.
They play music that I loved years ago and also now.
I've discovered new music because of them and found old loves that I'd forgotten.
