sing songs along

Modest Mouse - “Bury Me With It”

The sun came out for a little while today, for the first time in about a month. And nothing feels like summer more than Good News For People Who Love Bad News.

Grizzly Bear - “All We Ask”

“A nice doo-wop section with hand-claps bookends the intro nicely, but “All We Ask” is too aimless for non-filler designation.” - Tinymixtapes

“Started as a piano demo, then became full band, then Dan added an intro and chorus, then we turned the final phrasing of “I can’t get out of what I’m into with you” on it’s head and had it be a bit more uplifting instead of the original sadness that the song carried.” - Ed Droste, Drowned In Sound

I read those after I heard the song for the first time. The first image that came to mind, listening to it, was of a carnival in the fog (the lyrics do mention a carnival, so I’m not crazy). It is beautiful, that much is obvious. So beautiful. I was confused reading the tinymixtapes review of the track. Aimless? Filler?

But the Droste clarification surprised me too. At the end of this song, I pictured the band standing together, no instruments, in a circle in the dark, chanting and clapping their hands. “I can’t get out of what I’m into with you.” I always want it to go on forever. Of course, it’s not real. A support group, meeting in secret, in the middle of the woods. I hear only the resignation in their voices, the heaviness of their admission: I can’t get out of what I’m into with you. How can it be uplifting, beginning with “I can’t”? And why am I always disappointed when they stop singing? Why do I love it this much, so much? (Besides it just being a wonderful song.)

“sheesh I love this song. the “I can’t get out of what I’m into with you” breakdown gives me chills.” - songmeanings commenter

I basically spent this entire post trying to find a way to say just that. Thank you, Internet.

Atlas Sound - “Springtime Instrumental”

Let’s all take a moment and thank Bradford Cox for providing us with the perfect music for the start of Spring. Thank you, Bradford Cox.

Animal Collective - “For Reverend Green”

If you were to put a stethoscope to my head, this is what you’d hear.

In addition: If you were to listen to me in my sleep, you would hear me murmuring “This one’s for Reverend Green…” When I die, This One’s For Reverend Green will be etched on my tombstone. Today, while preparing an outline for an essay I have to write, I looked over my notes to find I had written “Section 1: for reverend green, for reverend green, for reverend green, for reverend green”

YAIII think it’s alright, we’re together now-uh, think that’s alri-ight, yeah. this one’s for-

Of Montreal - “Women’s Studies Victims”

I Married A Feminist From Mars!

(if this song were a movie, it would be called)

The Hold Steady - “First Night”

(Rediscovering this song, I recalled the opening lines of this album: “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right. Boys and girls in America, they have such a sad time together.”)

Rediscovering this song, I wondered, would I give the same (perhaps questionable) advice it contains? If a young girl was in hysterics (inconsolable, unhinged and uncontrollable) and I had to say something, do something, would I say the same thing? Angry, wanting justice and wanting somehow, if harshly, to comfort and validate her: Don’t bother talking to the guys with the hot soft eyes. You know they’re already taken. Don’t even speak to all those sequencer and beats boys. When they kiss they spit white noise! And then, then I would have the chorus back me up, a group or boys and girls calling through the window “WHITE NOISE!” It could go on and on like a lullaby.

White noise! White noise!