My 13th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Hard to Imagine” by Pearl Jam

I formed my long-held adoration of Pearl Jam during my most serious drinking years.  They were years filled with mostly sorrow, self-doubt, regret, and love-sickness.  The music and lyrics of Pearl Jam meshed perfectly with this era of my life, and fewer songs left such an impression as “Hard to Imagine”.

I am far from alone in feeling such an intense connection to this song.  It never appeared on an official Pearl Jam album, but is certainly one of their more famous “b-sides”.  Until the mid-2000s, it had only been played live a handful of times, and it became notorious for it’s absence from the band’s live sets as more and more fans expressed their intense emotional connection to the song.  Eventually, around 2007, the band started putting it in setlists to wide acclaim (I knew I’d seen the band too many times when I actually started to feel annoyed by them opening with ‘Hard to Imagine’ again).

What’s interesting about the song is the completely interpretable lyrics.  Sure, Eddie Vedder doesn’t always write the world’s most straight-forward lyrics, but “Hard to Imagine” tells a story that can be viewed from about a hundred angles.  That’s part of what lends itself so well to a wide emotional connection, as well as it’s universal chorus of “Things were different then.  All is different now.  I try to explain…somehow.”  I mean, who doesn’t feel that in your GUT, no matter what you’re going through in life?

Below are the (very short, so read them!) lyrics, and then the studio version of the song, and then the best live version I could find.  I highly encourage everyone to watch and listen to this (everyone!).  I promise—promise!–you will be emotionally affected.

Hard to Imagine
by Pearl Jam

Paint a picture using only grey.
Light your pillow. Lay back. Watch the flames.
I’ll tell a story but no one
would listen that long.

It’s hard to imagine.

Tear into yourself, count days on your arm.
Ah the beating ticking like a bomb.
After having seen all that they saw,
it’s hard to imagine.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain, somehow.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain. I hope this works somehow.

Why don’t you get mail from me?

I enjoy sending mail.  Yes, physical mail, via the United States Postal Service.  Postcards, letters, little booklets or artsy fartsy projects I make.  It’s mostly pointless, meaningless nonsense, or rambling run-on sentences.  There’s just something I love about people I like or care about receiving something tangible from me, even if I’m not really saying much.  In this era of our culture, when all communication is electronic and all looks alike and is compressed and abbreviated and utilitarian, I get a kick out of harkening back to an older time, and connecting on a different level.

Over the years, I’ve built up a sizeable “mailing list” of freinds and family members who I mail these assorted missives to.  Looking over it, it comprises a fantastic cross-section of my life.  Folks from all eras of my past, as well as my present, and from a fantastic geographic array are represented.  So I ask you, dear reader, why the hell don’t you get mail from me?

It comes sporadically.  Sometimes you might get one piece of mail from me a year, sometimes two things in one week.  It depends very much upon my whimsy.  But if you’re reading this, chances are I wouldn’t mind sending you some thoughts or artistic claptrap occasionally.  You should probably give me your address.

Leave your address in the comments here (you don’t have to register to comment on this blog), or if you’re not comfortable with doing that, send me a Facebook message or e-mail me at sdellinger1978@gmail.com, or if you have my cell number you can text it to me.  I mean really, who doesn’t want mail?

 

My 14th Favorite Song of All-Time

“Styrofoam Plates”
by Death Cab For Cutie

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes;
I threw them to the sea,
but a gust blew them backwards
and now the sting in my eyes—
that you then inflicted—
was par for the course
just as when you were living.

It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but the donor of seeds to a poor single mother
that would raise us alone—
we never saw the money—
that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver,
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
at the Catholic church
(the servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance
plaguing the others).
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and I’m thinking of you,
I do every year when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we’re doing here.

You’re a disgrace to the concept of family.
The priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
and I’ll stand up and scream
(the mourning remain quiet)
you can deck out a lie in a suit,
but I won’t buy it.
I won’t join the procession that’s speaking their piece,
using five dollar words while praising his integrity.
Just ’cause he’s gone, it doesn’t change that fact:
he was bastard in life, thus a bastard in death!

 

Past and Present

My 15th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies

This song has been with me for a long time, and in many different ways, and few things in this world can affect me quite like it.  I discovered it before I even started drinking alcoholically, at which point in time I gravitated toward the element in the lyrics in which our narrator is addressing a woman who he loves but who he seems to have somewhat lost.  A few years later, at the depths of my addiction (you can read about a time that may well have been “my bottom”, which also mentions this song, right here), I discovered this song again and gravitated toward the element of the song that talks about living a life below expectations, and disappointing people, and being a failure.  Then, years after my sobriety, I discovered it again and was amazed to find it is actually the most succinct, creatively-said criticism of culturally-created, damaging gender roles.  It’s quite extraordinary.

 

Snow Angels in the High Grass

Once, many moons ago, I spent a week living on the couch of some people I barely knew in a small town I had never spent much time in, with too little money and nothing to slow a march of days that seemed to speed by while also being interminably long.  It was September, and each morning and late afternoon a wind would crawl down from the sloping Appalachians and swirl through the wide valley, sifting and reshaping the clouds.  By early afternoon, the sun would begin to set, the lights of distant truck stops making shadows of the nearby hills.

I spent much of the week walking through the unfamiliar neighboorhood, trying to imagine what it would be like to make a life there, behind that fence, in that shed, down that crumbling walkway.  This wasn’t an unusual pursuit, since at the time I was a stranger to adult life everywhere I went, no matter where I laid my head at night.

I had come to this temporary situation after failing to please the last people I had been staying with, and I had come to those folks after failing to please the people before them.  I was now occupying one corner of a dingy living room in a second story efficiency that smelled like dogs despite there being no dogs.  I followed the kind of schedule only the truly underemployed or severely addicted can devise.  Each morning, I would walk to the corner greasy diner that had become my office.  In the evenings I would wander to the pond on the outskirts of town and read. In the evenings I’d sit in the silent dark and write down individual titles to my sleeping dreams from the night before, scribbling details on the insides of book covers and the backs of ATM receipts.

The days came and went like half-remembered tremors.  It got uncharacteristically warm for a few days.  I laid down in the thigh-high grass in a farmer’s field one afternoon and pretended to make a snow angel, but nothing happened.  I remember the buzzing of the insects, and the precise smell, and the feel of the heat on my face which made my outside feel the opposite of my inside, which was dark, frigid, and dying.

It would be interesting, if someone were to make a movie about my life, if they just made it of this single, listless, seamlessly depressing week, leaving the viewer to wonder what could possibly have come before, and be anxious for what was to come after, and then the credits roll, and they never know.  Just leave them with the image of this drunk, solitary, silent 22-year-old, making snow angels in the high grass.

My 16th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to read an explanation of this list.

Click here to see all previous entries in the list.

…and my 16th favorite song of all-time is:

“Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

To me, few songs simply drip with emotion in the way that “Fast Car” does.  While the narrator’s story is something completely unlike my own, I have no problem imagining my life having taken a similar course.  Chapman’s narrator has lived a difficult life, and she tells of it in straight-forward fashion, but nuances in the lyrics tell of an immense sorrow just below the surface, an aching for relief, an interminable wait for life to come into sharp focus.  A perfectly crafted song.

How It Doesn’t Happen

This is how it doesn’t happen:
you’re on a train from London to Paris
and a woman in red sits down
across from you.  No need for talk,
the distance exactly what you both need
on this fog-chilled morning,
the 70-year-old scent of siege still in the air,
the sunrise damp thick in your overcoat.

This is how it doesn’t happen, how all you do
is offer her a paper-thin wafer of chocolate,
bittersweet as monochrome,
how nothing happens,
how the train churns on to Paris,
how in Paris you leave the compartment,
walk your separate ways,
how the sharp smell of grease is perfect,
how the steam is absolutely perfect.

That is how it doesn’t happen.

My 17th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

I hear what you’re saying.  You are kind of confused by this one.  Well, so am I!  I have no idea why this song hits my sweet spot so much.  It’s definitely not a song I “identify” with or that means a lot to me personally.  First, it is just extremely catchy and pleasant to my ears.  But that is not usually enough to make me passionate about a song.  It is this song’s link to a very specific time period in my life (late teens) and the things that were happening, and the people I was hanging around with, and the general tenor and tone of my life at the time. These things are all wrapped up in sensory memory with this song.  I’m sure you have songs like this, too.  And although many other songs compete for the title, “This is How We Do It” reigns as the Song of My Youth.

Click here to go to the song’s Last.fm page to stream a clip of the song or watch the full-length official video.

Click on the picture, then when it re-loads, click on it again to see it full-screen.  It really does make a difference with this one.

My 18th Favorite Song of All Time

“Oceans of Envy” by Seven Mary Three

I’ve got a photobooth picture
reminding me of something you said
to me.
“If everything you want is so far out of reach,
move a little closer to me.”

I held my breath as the water rushed in.
I was drowning in the man I’ll never be;
a castaway, but you were there for me.

I did a perfect imitation
of someone who’s alive
before I met you.
Now color seems to have
a taste and a temperature
and everything doesn’t seem so far away.
Forever seems like it’s never gonna be enough.

I held my breath as the water rushed in.
I was drowning in the man I’ll never be.
A castaway, but you were there for me.

I held my breath as the water rushed in.
I was falling through a faded memory.
A castaway, but you were there for me.

 

Camden

Some of you may have heard me mention the city of Camden, NJ, in previous blogs.  Camden (directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia and about a 10 or 15 minute drive from where I live in Mantua, NJ) is regarded almost without question as one of the most dangerous, poorest, blighted, and decayed cities in the country.  Percentage-wise, Camden has the highest murder rate in the nation in 2012, with 67 murders in a city of only 77,000 people. (Read this article).

Of course, if you’ve read my blog for long, it shouldn’t surprise you that this place intrigues me.  Blight intrigues me.  In addition, Camden has a long and storied history and hasn’t always been so sad and gloomy (it’s still home to Campbell’s Soup’s corporate headquarters).

But seriously folks, listen…you don’t just go into Camden. I am typically pretty fearless, at least when it comes to cities and slums and things of that nature, but I hesitated until today to go into Camden.  Now, yes, there is a “safe”, tourist-friendly area of moderate size that I’ve been to quite a bit, but as far as the residential, murder-capital part of the city…not so much.  And the pictures and videos that I’ve embedded after this won’t really convey the seriousness of what I encountered when I finally braved it and checked it out today.

I’ve seen plenty of slums and ghettos in my day, but this is on another level.  It is like a war-torn ruin on another planet.  If your first reaction is to say something like, “Oh, this looks like such-and-such a neighborhood around here,” then I haven’t done my job.  It is not just a matter of my own experience, but a matter of on-the-record fact: there aren’t a lot of places in this country like Camden, NJ.  I unfortunately did not film or photograph the most striking, jarring aspects of the city, because yes, I admit, I was scared at points.

Check out the video.  Come summer time, I expect to explore the city a bit more thoroughly:

My 19th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire

“We Used to Wait” is about as great as a rock song can get: it’s about big but real human stuff (how is technology changing basic human emotional experience?), discussed in unique, innovative ways (lyricist Win Butler never feels the need to over-explain, while not being overly daft or dense), on top of layered sound which is not too-produced but is obviously passionate.  Please enjoy the live version of the song below (and in a nod to Dellinger family heritgae, notice the images of U.S. mail the band uses on a screen on the stage, mostly toward the end of the song.  And seriously, how rad is that to use this as the main propulsion of the concept of the song, that we don’t have to wait to recieve our discourse in the mail anymore?  Writers of any ilk—let alone songwriters—would be extremely fortunate to find such a creative and effective linguistic device!)  And there is very little triumph of rock and roll more succinct and powerful than the ending crescendo of this song, with Butler belting out “Wait for it!”

Oh and one other thing real quick: may I plead with you to re-familiarize yourself with this blog post of mine, about Arcade Fire’s truly incredible online experience centered around “We Used to Wait”, and if you decide to do it, I encourage you to go through the experience a few times, using different addresses from your past.

We Used to Wait
by Arcade Fire

I used to write letters,
I used to sign my name.
I used to sleep at night,
before the flashing lights
settled deep in my brain.

But by the time we met–
by the time we met the times had already changed.
So I never wrote a letter,
I never took my true heart,
I never wrote it down.
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown.

Now our lives are changing fast;
hope that something pure can last.

It may seem strange how
we used to wait for letters to arrive,
but what’s stranger still
is how something so small can keep you alive.
(We used to wait.)
We used to waste hours just walking around.
(We used to wait.)
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown.
(We used to wait.)
Sometimes it never came.
(We used to wait.)
Still moving through the pain.

So I’m gonna write a letter to my true love,
I’m gonna sign my name.
Like a patient on a table,
I wanna walk again,
wanna move through the pain.

We used to wait for it,
now we’re screaming,
sing the chorus again!

I used to wait for it,
hear my voice scream
and sing the chorus again.

Wait for it!

I Am Not Great

I am not great.  I am only nice to strangers through a concerted, concentrated effort. I judge people by the grammar they use, not the content of their words.  Even as a 35 year old, I can’t keep the interior of my car clean, or my bedroom organized.  I am selfish with my time and dread others asking to make plans with me during time I consider my own.  I can be manipulative, especially in order to have my ego inflated.  I think I’m smarter than everybody (no, really, I’m pretty sure I am).  I make no allowances for opposing political or philosophical viewpoints.  I bounce around in weight a lot, have bad teeth, bad skin, hairy feet and hands and still get a fair amount of pimples.  I am either dressing like an old man or a teenager, but I also judge those who choose any other style of dress.  I clam up when asked probing questions about myself and lash out at the questioner; I don’t understand this reaction of mine in the least.  I can be cranky, lethargic, overly-sensitive, intensely private, pissy, mean, and judgemental.  I overthink things.  I put things off, am a procrastinator.  I expect other people to simply understand what I’m thinking.  I have very little patience for people who aren’t great communicators.  I can’t build things, can’t understand cars or motors or complex machines, nor do I have any desire to.  I think my experiences are more important and valid than yours.  I screen my calls: all of them.  When walking in the city, I put my headphones in even if I’m not listening to anything, so I can ignore strangers.  I am not great.

My Favorite Music of 2012

Well well fair blog readers, it is time once again for my year-end favorite music list.  Unlike in years past, this will be the only year-end list here on Notes From the Fire, as I simply haven’t been paying enough attention to anything else to make a decent list.

If you’d like to go back in time, here are links to previous years’ lists:

2011

2010

2009

There were two years of lists before these, but they were on my MySpace blog, which has mysteriously disappeared.  As usual, a mix disc representative of this blog has been made and will be automatically sent to those of you on my “mailing list”; if you aren’t and you want to be, contact me!

All music on this list was released in calendar year 2012.  The list itself is limited to only full-length albums, but there are some runners-up after the list by artists that either didn’t release full-length albums, or whose album sucked, but since this is literally a list of my “favorite music” released this year, it seemed silly to continue limiting it to only full albums.  Now: the list!

10.  Benjamin Gibbard, “Former Lives”

Death Cab for Cutie frontman Gibbard unleashed his first solo effort this year, and of course, it sounds and feels a lot like Death Cab, but lyrically, the album sticks solely to relationships (mostly romantic, but occasionally musing on friendship, too) and never veers onto some of the larger topics Death Cab albums often deal with.  A highlight is Gibbard’s duet with Aimee Mann on “Bigger Than Love“.

9.  Delta Spirit, “Delta Spirit”

The California indie rocker’s, on their second album, grow and evolve from the raw, straight-ahead power they used on 2010’s “History From Below” into a band with more textured, layered sublety, while still retaining their ability to outright gut-punch their listeners.

8.  Alabama Shakes, “Boys and Girls”

The Shakes have spearheaded a new movement of indie Americana, and nobody is going to do it better than they do. They’re not writing songs for the radio.  There are no enormous, sweeping, soundtrack-ready singalong choruses (hello there, annoying second chapter of the Mumford and Sons story), just genuine feeling and the ache of living and working in an America that doesn’t notice you.

7.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Psychedelic Pill”

Young and Crazy Horse had quite a year this year, putting out an album of covers, as well as this album, their first new original music together in many, many years.  And it did not disappoint.  A double-disc album, it only has eight songs on it, as these crunchy blasts of feedback perfection keep stretching over the 20 minute mark.  Not to be missed if you’ve ever been a fan of what Young and Crazy Horse do together.

6.  El Ten Eleven, “Transitions”

Practitioners of the dark art of Post-Rock, this duo uses live looping to replicate their large sound in the live setting.  This year’s album, “Transitions”, found them reaching even further toward the epic, big-idea tomes their genre-mates usually turn out, although they still often give their songs goofy titles, like “Thanks Bill“.

5.  Public Enemy, “The Evil Empire of Everything”

I know what you’re saying!  “Rap?!”  Well, yes.  Way back in the day when I was solely into rap (ie, high school) Public Enemy was one of my favorite acts.  Chuck D is an amazing lyricist and they are very hard-hitting musically.  A review in a magazine prompted me to check out this new album, and I was instantly smitten.  Their music is, in fact, closer to “rock” than most hip hop acts, and Chuck’s radical social conscious speaks to my ever-more-liberal than last year ideals.  But warning: this dude is more liberal than you are (whoever you are), and if you have a problem with a black dude still accusing the white establishment of fucking with black folks (which definitely still happens, black president or not) then you should stay away from Public Enemy (and enjoy your Kenny Chesney concert).

4.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Americana”

The first album Young and Crazy Horse put out this year, “Americana” is a collection of classic American folk songs, re-written in gritty, in-your-face grunge style that goes great lengths of changing (or in some cases, re-enforcing) how we view these songs we’ve all heard hundreds of times.  Read more about it and stream the entire album here.

3.  Emily Wells, “Mama”

Emily Wells, a solo artist who utilizes live looping much like El Ten Eleven, writes haunting, unconventional visions of angst and longing, but on this year’s “Mama” she took things a step further by writing flat-out stunning poetry for lyrics.  On previous albums she had always witten very effective, affecting songs, but on “Mama” she gets subtle, roundabout, and mysterious while keeping things just within reach of accesibility.  If she continues to evolve at this rate her next album will cement her status as a cult hero.

2.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!”

Aside from perhaps classical and some jazz, there is absolutely nothing more serious in the world of music than Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  Do not approach this band if you are not capable of listening to music to ponder your absolute and complete reason for existence.  And to explore where the line between perfect joy and utter despiar lies.  The godfathers (and godmothers) of post-rock, Godspeed hadn’t released an album in 10 years, and speculation had asserted they probably were not going to.  So when “‘Allelujah” was announced, it sent shockwaves through the post-rock community, with most people assuming no album they could release would possibly be able to live up to expectations.  But they proved everyone wrong.  The album came out to almost universal acclaim.  Most people are actually somewhat baffled by the post-rock perfection that goes on here, and how, after 5 of their own albums and countless (truly, countless) copycat bands, Godspeed is somehow still able to surprise us and find new, truly incredible ways to make this kind of music.  Also, having purchased the album on vinyl, I have a code for a free download of this album that I will pass along to the first person who asks for it.

1.  Band of Horses, “Mirage Rock”

Over the course of the last few years, Band of Horses have come to the forefront of my music-listening life (although I hesitate to crown them my “favorite band”, as other bands might be more at the forefront if they’d been on the same album release and tour schedule as Band of Horses).  The band’s sound, the lyrical content and the overall subject matter of the songs, and even all the albums’ packaging (every album so far has come with a packet of photographs that don’t say anything on them and are just assumed to be a visual accompaniment to the music) steers me to this band.  This year’s “Mirage Rock” only ramped up this enjoyment all the more.  Songs like “Slow Cruel Hands of Time” seem to not only be about my own feelings, but practically a plot-specific memoir of my life.  For the last six months, “Mirage Rock” has been a steady and constant companion, the true soundtrack to my life, and as such, it gets this year’s number one spot!

Runner-up songs:
Imagine Dragons, “Radioactive”
Bruce Springsteen, “We Take Care of Our Own”
Gary Clark Jr., “When My Train Pulls In”
GROUPLOVE, “Itchin’ on a Photograph”
Silversun Pickups, “Skin Graph”
Grizzly Bear, “Yet Again”
Kaiser Chiefs, “Little Shocks”
Mogwai, “San Pedro”
Hey Rosetta!, “New Year Song”