10

Here are, in no particular order, the songs that I love...

R.E.M.: Country Feedback
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYitiDJPTE


Glen Hansard & Marketa Inglova: Falling Slowly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0lIdr5TsaU


Talk Talk: I don't believe in You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqCBnLO_jqk


Sade: I Never Thought I'd See the Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDikGMM62Ok


Cock Robin: Just Around the Corner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJXvmFB0azA


Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Relax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WZ33w3B8Hw&feature=fvst


Roxy Music: More Than This
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhmHaHTV-QM


Tears for Fears: The Working Hour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOY_aqkUTxY


Ice House: No Promises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB4g-hWa4BE


And the most haunting, elegiac song I have ever heard:
Aqualung featuring Sara Bareilles: Remember Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Ecrt96ojo

Yeah, most of them are somewhat sad, some of them somewhat earnest, but most of the time that I listened to them I was on a train heading away...departing, leaving...and they just fit my moods, fit the moment.

Enjoy.

You Can Get Addicted to a Certain Kind of Sadness

A recent song has been somewhat tormenting my fairly eclectically motivated mind...an unusually catchy tune from Gotye, an Aussie or may Kiwi band with this gorgeous mosaic-laden video. The song, "Somebody I used to Know", isn't all that imaginative. Rather, it is the significantly abrupt dismantling from a very intimate position to a fairly benign one...going from a position of love to a position of unleashed fury. The video is of a rather unattractive singer, juxtaposed with beige tiles colored in a la Peter Gabriel...but Kimbra, his female singer is what draws me in the most. The first time I heard it was on the radio, so I thought it was a duet. However I soon learned it was a guest appearance from our lady friend. Never heard of Kimbra. Not sure if I liked her music. But after seeing the obscure video, the lyrics became haunting.

"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over"

There is such terror in those words, such a trash-heap of moving from one stage to another. Such low expectations...resigning to the fact that things won't work out. And nobody ever remains friends. Nobody ever leaves alive. Nuclear bombs on balsa-wood bridges. To look at the video, and see Kimbra shouting at him, even harmonizing back ups with a wide open mouth, shouting at him. His fairly unattractive face and his fairly unique voice providing the reason for why she would even be attracted at all...it's her sideways profile yelling that is the most interesting part of the video.

I digress. Because it is the opening lyrics that really put this plane into a death spin.

"Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember"

Lonely in your company? I understand that this guy is from down under, but honestly it is the last line, the "that was love and it's an ache I still remember" that really becomes the heart of the matter. He will never forget.

It is a cutting blade. It is silver, it glistens and it reflects a brief strobe when it is flashed as it strikes downward and cuts through the major artery and the explosive nature of heart-pulsed blood is that it careens...normally it careens in the mind, agitating, writhing, a blood filled with oxygen, pulsating, red-hot to the touch and bringing us to sweat and to swear. And when she becomes somebody that he used to know it swiftly pours out of him. He will inevitably die, and she is the last memory to a mind and body cut down by her departure.

And for this to even be contemplated, for this to even be a consideration, he must be used to it. It is not the first time that the throat has been cut. Thus his addiction to a certain kind of sadness.

I'm probably reading into it too much, but I do love this song. It is simple, and it is complex, and I love that we will all interpret it the way we want to for ourselves.

Diamonds with Inclusions

Tiny flaws, hidden gems. I've become increasingly aware that there is a distinctive unique beauty in things that are a bit off-kilter. I've learned to love the alteration of skin with an artist's ink. I've come to appreciate a flaw. An awkwardness. A diamond that is offset with an inclusion. A tilt of the head to the right. I've grown to appreciate disruption. I've learned to appreciate the things that cause a concern, cause a worry. I find a beauty in finding that part of you that you find the least attractive suddenly becoming the fixation. I like it when I can see the transformation...I love the way that age becomes like an artist's blade, smearing slightly the colors from a finely drawn line into a smudged version of what once was...the way a sunset appears through a screen. It is endearing, it is even more devastatingly beautiful because it has transformed. It has transitioned. The scars, the ink, the comfort in the skin and the confidence in the sharing. The discovery. I love what is perceived as a flaw and moving it into a feature. I love the shyness of reluctance and I applaud the passion of sharing. I love examining the proximity, the closeness, and finding the things that you may find harmful...beautiful.