(I’d deliver you an entire rant about the truckloads of words we misuse, but I, too, am guilty of calling everything ‘awesome.’)
(I will not, however, give in to my generations insistence upon using the word ‘like’ every time they take a breath. I listened to an NPR story the other day which contained quotes from people ranging in age from 14 to 20, and I swear to you, they said ‘like’ at least once every five words. Just shoot me.)
I didn’t watch the Super Bowl because I was working today, and also because I don’t care about football. One of my co-workers did care about the Super Bowl, though, and I did have an empty room for about an hour this evening, and so the Super Bowl was being broadcasted from the empty patient room. Those who cared would stop in every once in a while to catch the score, and then circulate the latest game updates down the hallways to the other employees (who cared).
Once, as I was walking by the Game Room, I heard a commercial playing a song I recognized. The song got stuck in my head, but I couldn’t place it. I wrote “we are young” on my left forearm so that I’d remember to youtube it when I got home.
I’m (almost, but) not (quite) ashamed that I recognize the song from an episode of Glee.
So, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole song, but man. That chorus. It’s like an anthem, right? It makes me want to jump off of a tall cliff into deep, blue water. It makes me want to run through tall fields of wheat in a magical world where the light is warm and yellow and you can run forever and never feel tired. It makes me want to do 1,000 cliched things that cinematically signify that I’m living life. Including kissing in the rain–this song totally makes me want to kiss my man in the rain as the camera pans smooth circles around us. And have a food fight! This song makes me want to make out in the rain just after* a food fight.
What do you do when you want to burn brighter than the sun?
(*That would be good timing, cause, you know, those fights can get messy.)
Zack, Aimee and I went to Pagosa Springs’ famous Hot Springs today. We hung out in 106 and 112 degree pools while surrounded by snow. Zack, who sometimes has bad ideas that seem like good ideas, thought that it would be fun to jump into the 40 degree San Juan River.
I heard this song for the first time today, and I have to say, it’s flippin’ fantastic.
My fresh obsession with this song has a weird double-intensity because of the video. Allow me to explain.
When I was in college, I took a photography class. I can’t even remember what the assignment was… in fact, I may have just done this for fun, but I painted a backdrop and then painted my face in a similar pattern and took a series of self portraits. I know it’s not like I invented the art of acrylic camouflage, but I feel a kinship to this video, because it’s basically a grown-up, well-executed version of what I was trying to pull off when I was 19 years old.
So, bravo, Mr. Gotye, Sir. Good work. (Much better work than I did in the darkroom about 10 years ago, as you can clearly tell. Y’all quit judging me.)
P.S.: This picture freaks Zack out. He’s going to be super excited that I put it online where he had to see it again. Bwa ha ha.
Thanks for the link to the song, Miq.
Behold, I (zack) give you my top 10 Christmas songs compilation. Stoke the fire, spike the eggnog, and settle down for a long winter’s nap with this playing in the background.
1. Michael Buble – Santa Claus is Coming to Town: This song serves as a reminder to us all: screw up and Santa’s watching. From the moment the meandering bass line starts, there’s no doubt that Santa is a bad ass. It used to be a simple children’s song but now we know that this town belongs to Kris Kringle, the kind of guy who makes Frank Sinatra remember he’s just a little guy named Francis who used to wet the bed.
2. The Drifters – White Christmas: Sorry Bing, this song belongs to The Drifters. An Army buddy of mine thinks the Crosby movie is completely ridiculous because “hundreds of former soldiers are not going to travel across the country just because some retired general is feeling sad.” If you’re like me, it probably conjures up images of Macaulay Culkin, but hey, don’t we all love Home Alone? “This is my house. I have to defend it!”
3. Bing Crosby – Mele Kalikimaka: Chevy Chase, Randy Quaid, and a whole lot of hilarity come to mind with this classic, but its so much more. When the cold and snow have gotten the best of you, when your Christmas bonus is in the shitter and your family is driving you crazy, well, there’s always a nice tropical retreat far far away from it all.
4. Vince Guaraldi Trio – Christmastime is Here (Instrumental): Charlie Brown comics should be required reading for all children. Today’s kids always hear about how awesome they are, but good ol’ Charlie Brown just can’t seem to win. He’s a refreshing dose of reality to our maladjusted self-absorbed youth. Vince Guaraldi composed a masterpiece with this one.
5. Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting…): Nat King Cole’s middle name is really Adams. King was a nickname he earned while performing at jazz clubs. I don’t really have any funny anecdotes or remarks for this one. He’s just awesome.
6. James Taylor – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: I admit, I have a certain affinity for the more somber oriented Christmas songs. They bring a nice respite from all the stupidity of the holiday season. So while the masses are busy fighting and robbing over the new Air Jordans, James Taylor and I are relaxing at home with family.
7. Ray Charles – Little Drummer Boy: The original is a weird little song to begin with but throw in the dispute the Mrs and I had the other day and we have a new contender for strangest song on the list. I really don’t understand why this song is as commonly known as it is. Drummers are an odd bunch and I keep imagining Rick Allen of Def Leppard singing this to the baby Jesus. Fortunately Ray took an otherwise odd song and made it awesome.
8. Sufjan Stevens – O Come Emmanuel: Wikipedia says that “It is believed that the traditional music stems from a 15th Century French processional for Franciscan nuns, but it may also have 8th Century Gregorian origins.” Funny. That’s exactly what I was thinking about it. Seriously though, Sufjan is a genius.
9. George Winston – Carol of the Bells: Also known as The Ukrainian Bell Carol, this song is one of Sarah’s favorites, and this version makes me wish I hadn’t quit piano lessons when I was a kid. (Sorry Mom and Dad, you were right, I do regret it.)
10. Mannheim Steamroller – Stille Nacht (Silent Night): Mannheim Steamroller was a Christmas staple in my household growing up, so I may be biased, but this version of Silent Night is the best of all time.
To all of you out there in Bloggo-land*, we wish you a very merry Christmas.
Peace on Earth and good will to men.
Zack and Sarah
*this is in no way a reference to or endorsement of Rod Blagojevich.
(This is what it looks like when I try to solve arguments with physical violence. I have fighting skillz.)
As Sarah has progressed thru this trip down musical memory lane, it made me start thinking about the plethora of music that I listened to over a decade ago. From Pearl Jam to Paul Simon, radio rock to garage rock, from hardcore to teen punk angst, many of my hard earned dollars were spent at a little place called CD Warehouse, where they let you listen to the albums before you bought them. I wasted a lot of money there buying music that I will never listen to again.*
There were definitely some diamonds in all that rough however (Clarity probably still holding the spot as my favorite album of all time). Tonight I revisit that classic of the emo-pop revolution, The Get Up Kids. While I never embraced the wanton over-emotional-indulgence of a true patron of emo, I did enjoy the music.
Circa 1999, Forgive and Forget.
*(Pearl Jam and Paul Simon are still in the regular iTunes rotation however. A lot of other music, not so much.)
The summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college was dubbed The Summer of Love. My best friend Betsy and I hung out with our friends Cameron and Dusty almost every single day. The name is misleading. There was no dating that happened within our group of friends. It wasn’t The Summer of Conventional Love As TV Would Have You Believe It Exists. It was different than that; it was much better than that.
When this album first came out, I remember driving around in Cameron’s car with him, studying it like it was a 50-minute long sentence we were going to have to diagram. We marveled over how The Jealous Sound had managed to make a good album that was happy. Hopeful, even. It’s hard to create artistic things that are good and happy without them being cliche or trite. It’s been years since I’ve listened to the whole album, so I can’t say whether my 27-year old self would still tote this album as being as fantastic as I did back then, but I do still love this song. Maybe I love it because it really is good. Maybe I love it because of nostalgia. But either way, I can’t help to be filled with a sense of hope every time I hear it.
I was 15 years old when Zack sent me (via my brand-new first-ever email address) a list of songs. It was a short list, but he emphasized that I needed to MAKE SURE I downloaded this song called “Sweetness” by Jimmy Eat World. I thought, okay, that’s a weird band name, but sure. Whatever you say.
At the time, Jimmy Eat World had just released an album called Clarity. I fell in love with Sweetness the first time that I heard it, and that weekend I went out and bought the only Jimmy Eat World album I could find in stores: Clarity. I put it in my CD player, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t take it out of my CD player for the next 6 months. Clarity immediately became a staple in the #1 slot of my “Top 5 Desert Island Albums” list, and remained in place, unrivaled, until 5 years later when I was introduced to Radiohead’s OK Computer. That sentence, in and of itself, should speak volumes to other indie music nerds out there. I hold Clarity in the same respect that I hold OK Computer. My feelings about Jimmy Eat World, they are very real, and they run very deep.
Zack and I still listen to Clarity every once in a while, and every time we do, we’re blown away by how good it is. Still. The last song on Clarity, our favorite song on the album, is called Goodbye Sky Harbor. It’s a 16-minute long song that will carries me away to a different world when I play it. Especially when I play it really loud and lay down on the floor right in front of the speakers and let the drum loop rattle through my body enough times that it starts to feel like it’s a part of me, like the song’s drum loop is muscle memory.
This summer when we flew to Hawaii, Zack and I had a layover at Sky Harbor International in Arizona. Both times as we departed, we reverently sang, “You are smaller, getting smaller, but I still see you” out the window as we watched the palm trees shrink into little tiny dots and become the stippling for a desert landscape.
