Only Air is Perfect

Only air is perfect.
The blouse is stained, the cat
unsatisfied,
the hinge that props up the window
has broken
and I dreamed that, at the edge of my bed,
a confused shadow was pulling me,
pulling me to the floor.
How rigid were the threads of my sheets!
And where was she but the bathroom,
the mirror, her lipstick.
Only air is perfect.

My 6th Favorite Song of All-Time

“White, Discussion” by LIVE

Unlike most of the other songs near the top of this list, “White, Discussion” isn’t an incredibly personal or emotional song for me.  I have just always liked it a whole, whole lot.

I talk of freedom,
you talk of the flag.
I talk of revolution,
you’d much rather brag.
And as the decibels of this disenchanting discourse
continue to dampen the day
the coin flips again and again and again and again
as our sanity walks away.
All this discussion,
though politically correct,
is dead beyond destruction,
though it leaves me quite erect.
And as the final sunset rolls behind the Earth
and the clock is finally dead
I’ll look at you, you’ll look at me, and we’ll cry a lot
but this will be what we say:

Look where all this talking got us, baby.

 

The Woods Behind My Mother’s House

 

 

My 7th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Rearviewmirror” by Pearl Jam

No song in my life has meant as much to my sobriety—and hence my continued existence—than “Rearviewmirror” (also known as RVM) by Pearl Jam.

RVM is a song with lyrics that are vague, but are about the narrator overcoming an abusive (or at the very least, very shitty) relationship of some kind.  Eddie Vedder’s intention with these lyrics was almost certainly to convey the triumph over abuse by either a parent or a romantic partner, but thousands of people the world over feel a deep connection to the song, as everyone in the world has some bullshit in their past that once sucked, but they feel they have conquered it.

When I was still a drinking man, I already had a connection to the song: the woman who had broken my heart was the focus of the song’s energy.  I didn’t have a good reason for hating her—she just didn’t love me like I loved her, but it sucked a lot, anyway—but I latched onto the song’s air of “fuck you, I’m better off” and broke a lot of shit in my garage while I was wasted and this song blared.

Later, after I got sober, I was listening to this song sometime during the first few weeks of sobriety, when it occurred to me the lyrics worked perfectly if I made the antagonist alcohol (or alcoholism, if you wish, but that’s a thorny differentiation).  It didn’t take long for me to label it my “sobriety anthem” (along with this song, which sadly missed the cut for this list).  I understand that the term “sobriety anthem” could be a turnoff, and strike some as too self-serious, but if so, you’ve probably never had to go from day to day, not knowing if you’d drink, and if you did, if you’d drink until you lost your job, your friends and family, and died.  If you need a fucking anthem to not do that, you get yourself a fucking anthem.

I latched onto this song more than almost anything during my first two years of sobriety.  My first few blogs borrowed their titles from the lyrics (“The Shades Are Raised” was one, “I Gather Speed” was another).  But nothing could ever beat the first time I saw it played live.  I’ve had plenty of crying fits during songs I have emotional connections to in concerts, but my first RVM (at my second-ever Pearl Jam concert, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on July 12th, 2003) was a moment of purest emotional astonishment, surely never to be equaled.

I took a drive today,
time  to emancipate.
I guess it was the beatings made me wise.
But I’m not about to give thanks
or apologize.
I couldn’t breathe,
holdin’ me down.
Hand on my face,
kissin’ the ground.
Enmity gauged,
united by fear,
Supposed to endure
what I could not forgive…

I seem to look away,
wounds in the mirror waved.
It wasn’t my surface most defiled.
Head at your feet.
Fool to your crown.
Fist on my  plate,
swallowed it down.
Enmity  gained,
united by fear.
Tried to endure what I could not forgive.
Saw things clearer
once you were in my
rearviewmirror.

I gather speed from you fucking with me.
Once and for all, I’m far away.
I hardly believe, finally the shades are raised.

Let’s Extinguish the Fire Without Water

Let’s extinguish the fire without water, or sand, let’s ask the wolf
and the rotunda statues to pursue us through yet another summer—
unplant me, shapeshift you, loveflesh the flesh back into us—
roust the moon into some new patterns. Let’s open the museum
inside every letter, every hidden name, and share one chrysalis where
even you and I sleep together to form a different myth.

My 8th Favorite Song of All-Time

“Wake Up” by Arcade Fire

I fell in love with the band Arcade Fire via their debut album Funeral around 2007, a full two years before their song “Wake Up” (from the Funeral album) would be used to much ballyhoo in the trailer for the film “Where the Wild Things Are”, which would be my favorite movie of all-time from 2009-2011.  My point here is, “Wake Up” has been a major force in my life even before that famous trailer (one of two trailers to be able to move me to tears by force of trailer alone…the other one was this one).

“Wake Up”‘s lyrics are, admittedly, a little sophomoric.  They talk about how much it sucks to grow up (which it kinda does), and lyricist Win Butler may approach the subject just a bit too simply, but the emotion-drenched music and delivery transform the simple words into a towering screed of sorrow and triumph.

I have included only the live version, because it is all you need:

Liar, Liar

This is a real article from yesterday’s South Jersey Times.  Every time I read it, I laugh out loud, at almost every paragraph.  The actual event was probably not that funny, but the way the writer chose to word things just kills me.

My 9th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Honey of Generation” by Seven Mary Three

Talk about a band firing on all cylinders!  A bona fide one-hit wonder after their first album, Seven Mary Three was nonetheless a band to watch in our culture as they released their sophomore attempt, “RockCrown”.  Where their first album (which is really fucking good) was mostly straight-forward, Southern-tinged American rock, this follow-up was perpendicular to that.  By turns soft, mellow, creepy, eerie, crushing, daft, folksy, blunt, obtuse.  “RockCrown” is the rarest of albums: it is a complete thought, without being a “concept album”.  It is a statement, by an entire band, on what it is like (to them) to be alive.

“Honey of Generation” exists as the apex of this harnessed power.  It creeps.  It lashes out.  It burns you, and retreats.  It sloughs around on the ground like a puddle of sentient motor oil, and it does not call you in the morning.

Jason Ross’s lyrics here are unclear, but far from nonsense.  These words beg interpretation; I won’t here waste time doing it for you, this being a rare instance where your guess actually is as good as mine.  But read them you must, and listen you must. I double-dog dare you to listen to it all, there are some killer changes throughout:

“Honey of Generation” by Seven Mary Three

What your mother say?
You never listen to me.
I know you want back in,
you don’t get it for free.
Did you read the book?
Hear what they say?
You never learned the rules.
Sit up straight.

Liquid used to surround me,
my freedom, swimming and drowning.
Today, we throw it up for sale.
Today, we’re giving it away.

It’s the honey of generation,
makes you forget where you came from.

What your daddy say?
You never listen to me.
I know you’re tryin’ hard.
You don’t get a reprieve.
You never read Good Book.
You never bid Good Time.
Did you push ahead?
I bet you stood the line.

Liquid used to surround me,
my freedom, swimming and drowning.
Today, we throw it up for sale.
Today, we’re giving it away.

It’s the honey of generation,
makes you forget where you came from.

It’s the honey
that is yours.

 

Woodbury, New Jersey

 

 

My 10th Favorite Song of All-Time

First, let’s recap everything that has come before:

100.  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something
99.  “Jack & Diane” by John Mellencamp
98.  “Hotel California” by The Eagles
97.  “American Pie” by Don McLean
96.  “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson
95.  “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” by Dr. Dre
94.  “Bushwick Blues” by Delta Spirit
93.  “For the Workforce, Drowning” by Thursday
92.  “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes
91.  “Shimmer” by Fuel
90.  “Rubber Biscuit” by the Blues Brothers
89.  “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
88.  “Asleep at the Wheel” by Working For a Nuclear-Free City
87.  “There’s an Arc” by Hey Rosetta!
86.  “Steam Engine” by My Morning Jacket
85.  “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest
84.  “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
83.  “Fits” by Stone Gossard
82.  “Spring Flight to the Land of Fire” by The Cape May
81. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service
80.  “Sober” by Tool
79.  “Dream is Collapsing” by Hans Zimmer
78.  “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” by The Beatles
77.  “In This Light and on This Evening” by Editors
76.  “Lemonworld” by The National
75.  “Twin Peaks Theme” by Angelo Badalamente
74.  “A Comet Appears” by The Sins
73.  “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists
72.  “Pepper” by Butthole Surfers
71.  “Life Wasted” by Pearl Jam
70.  “Jetstream” by Doves
69.  “Trieste” by Gifts From Enola
68.  “Oh My God” by Kaiser Chiefs
67.  “The Righteous Path” by Drive-By Truckers
66.  “Innocence” by The Airborne Toxic Event
65.  “There, There” by Radiohead
64.  “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band
63.  “Symphony 1: In the Barrel of a Gun” by Emily Wells
62.  “The Best of What’s Around” by Dave Matthews Band
61.  “Old Man” by Neil Young
60.  “Cumbersome” by Seven Mary Three
59.  “Knocked Up” by Kings of Leon
58.  “Machine Head” by Bush
57.  “Peaches” by Presidents of the United States of America
56.  “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones
55.  “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden
54.  “The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie
53.  “Call Me Al” by Paul Simon
52.  “Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs” by Eazy E
51..  “Evening Kitchen” by Band of Horses
50.  “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods
49.  “Top Drawer” by Man Man
48.  “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull
47.  “We Used to Vacation” by Cold War Kids
46.  “Easy Money” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
45.  “Two-fifty” by Chris Walla
44.  “I’ve Got a Feeling” by The Beatles
43.  “Another Pilot” by Hey Rosetta!
42.  “Revelate” by The Frames
41.  “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann
40.  “Sample in a Jar” by Phish
39.  “Spitting Venom” by Modest Mouse
38.  “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth
37.  “I Shall Be Released” by The Band
36.  “When I Fall” by Barenaked Ladies
35.  “East Hastings” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
34.  “Terrible Love” by The National
33.  “Jolene” by Dolly Parton
32.  “Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event
31.  “This Train Revised” by Indigo Girls
30.  “Mad World” by Gary Jules
29.  “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes
28.  “Once in a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads
27.  “Growing Old is Getting Old” by Silversun Pickups
26.  “Brian and Robert” by Phish
25.  “Is There a Ghost?” by Band of Horses
24.  “Be Safe” by The Cribs
23.  “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland
22.  “Ashes in the Fall” by Rage Against the Machine
21.  “We Laugh Indoors” by Death Cab For Cutie
20.  “Dondante” by My Morning Jacket

19.  “We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire

18.  “Oceans of Envy” by Seven Mary Three

17.  “This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

16.  “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

15.  “What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies

14.  “Styrofoam Plates” by Death Cab For Cutie

13.  “Hard to Imagine” by Pearl Jam

12.  “Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead

11.  “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles

…and my tenth favorite song of all-time is:

“Rattlesnake” by LIVE

I have written extensively already here on this blog about the song “Rattlesnake”.  I talk about it a lot in this blog entry about why you should love LIVE, and then I posted a lot of pictures inspired by the song, here and here and here.  If you don’t feel like clicking on all that shit, let me sum it up for you: LIVE is from the same place, roughly, that I am from (and that place, roughly, is this).  This song directly addresses being from this area, but feeling a disconnect with the general culture here.  It also happens to address these things during the band’s creative peak.  Musically and lyrically it is as artful, un-obvious, non-cliche as a rock band of their stature is going to get.  A lot of people I know actually make fun of this particular song’s lyrics; they might seem truly random, silly, or meaningless to some.  But I beg to differ, and think he’s working on on higher level than just about any songwriter ever, on this song, and the whole Secret Samadhi album (for a more detailed breakdown of my opinion of the lyrics to “Rattlesnake”, click the link above about why you should love LIVE).

And there is just some very special feeling, upon hearing those foreboding, badass few chords, and the slow rock creep that starts out the song, in knowing that sound is designed to thematically represent the life we live here in Central PA, and the thoughts and feelings of not being a hunter or truck driver, and not “skinning hunted deer”.  In another place, in another time…

Do yourself a favor, Chachi, and watch the live performance video after the studio version I’ve embedded here.

“Rattlesnake” by LIVE

Let’s go hang out at a mall,
or a morgue, a smorgasbord.
Let’s go hang out in a church,
we’ll go find Lurch,
and we’ll haul ass down to the abbey.
Is it money, is it fame?
What’s in a name? Shame?
Is it money, is it fame
or were they always this lame?

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town,
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time,
I’d be drivin’ trucks, my dear.

Let’s go hang out in a bar.
It’s not too far.
We’ll take my car.
We’ll lay flowers at the grave
of Jesco White, the sinner’s saint.
The rack is full, and so are we
of laughing gas and ennui.

It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time,
I’d be drivin’ trucks my dear
I’d be skinning hunted deer.

 

 

 

Washington and Lafayette

For the last few months, I’ve been slowly trodding through Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life. I love biographies, especially “life” biographies (meaning books that trace a person’s life from beginning to end, as opposed to some biographies that focus on a specific time in a person’s life, like the very hip Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals ) because full-life biographies not only allow you to see the amazing or substantial things that person did, but also allow you to see how their life, like just about everyone’s life, is kinda sorta like yours, no matter when they lived or what they did.

George Washington’s life was certainly very different than mine, at least as far as its “plot” is concerned.  But in many ways, it was very similar.  He had obsessions, failures, doubts, triumphs.  Women he could never get, purchases he could never make, expecations he wrestled with, and the insidious pallor of mortality.  Reading Chernow’s biography–widely considered the most accurate yet written–is really making the man come alive for me, and I’m finding this book to be not only very informative, but quite surprisingly emotional.

One of George Washington’s best friends was French general Marquis de Lafayette (Gilbert to his pals), one of if not the largest French figure of the American Revolution.  Layfayette was 25 years younger than Washington–he was only 19 years old when he came to our young nation to help us win our independence, and at first, Washington played the role of a mentor to the young Frenchman.  But by war’s end–a war that certainly had to be one of the most emotional and amazing experiences in the history of mankind, and the participants were far from unaware of its immense magnitute—Washington and Lafayette had become great friends and equals.  A portrait of Lafayette hung in Washington’s parlor in Mount Vernon.

I tell you all this so I can put in here a passage I just read that moved me to tears.  It felt odd to be moved to tears by a biography of George Washington, but this is why I love history so much.  There were real people doing extraordinary things.

After all the incredible things these men had been through together in the war, there was a time of relative tranquility, before Washington knew he would become president, when he was looking forward to just farming his land in Virginia and resting.  Lafayette visited him for an extended stay, but eventually, it came time for him to go back to France.  This almost certainly meant the two close friends would never see each other again.  Ocean crossings were no small deal in those days.  Washington rode half the way from Virginia to Philadelphia (where he’d be sailing from) with Lafayette, and somewhere along the road, the two men said goodbye.

A short while later, back at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote Lafayette a letter (they never would see each other again, by the way).  The portion of the letter that moved me so is as follows:

In the moment of our seperation upon the road, as I traveled and every hour since, I felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me.  I often asked myself, as our carriages distended, whether that was the last sight I should ever have of you?  And though I wished to say no, my fears answered yes.  I called to mind the days of my youth and found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been 52 years climbing; and that though I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon expect to be entombed in the dreary mansions of my fathers.  These things darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the picture, consequently to my prospects of seeing you again.  Know, my friend, that I have loved you true, and my life stands altered for it.  But I will not repine—I have had my day.

My 11th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“A Day in the Life” by The Beatles

There are (arguably) three main kinds of Beatles songs: the early, wanna-hold-your-hand stuff, the straightforward (but amazing) blackbirdy-I’ve-got-a-feeling type stuff, and then the artsy/experimental stuff like “Piggies” and the completely amazing “A Day in the Life”.  I am a big fan of the second and third types (of course there are random songs in their catalog that are whole new things) but I am a bigger fan of the experimental stuff than I think most people seem to be.

“A Day in the Life” is an epic artistic statement, and it has sections written separately by John and Paul, which is not only a vanishingly rare instance in the songs of the Beatles, but it could not show any clearer the difference in their songwriting approaches.  (John’s big-idea, social criticism, and Paul drawing similar conclusions via small, personal everyday life). Both lyricists skills are at their art-house highest prowess here; if you think John chose to say “He blew his mind out in a car” instead of “He blew his brains out in a car”, or that Paul chose the unpleasant verb of “drag” for the sentence “dragged a comb across my head” lightly or easily, I dare say you’ve probably never worked very long or hard at writing much of anything.  The soaring, disjointed, multi-part music is wholly unique for this band (as well as groundbreaking at the time), and helps tell the story just as much as the lyrics.   The possibilities this song implies set my young mind on fire.

Additionally, this song was my first encounter with having to do some research to figure out what a writer was talking about (and this was pre-Google).  For those not in-the-know, you may encounter these things in the lyrics to this song:

The House of Lords

The 4,000 Holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

The Royal Albert Hall

My 12th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead

A song whose tone and tenor will forever be, to me, about early recovery, the first snow of the year, smoking delicious cigarettes in freezing cold cars, and the hottest sex imaginable.

“Everything In Its Right Place”
by Radiohead.

Everything in its right place.
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon.
Everything in it’s right place.
There are two colors in my head;
what was that you tried to say?
Everything in its right place.

There Aint Gonna Be Any Middle Anymore!

Things I Don’t Feel Like Talking To You About

The weather, beyond what is happening right now.  The TV show you watch that I just told you I don’t watch.  The roads and highways I decided to take to get somewhere.  Your favorite commercial.  The incredible ins and outs of purchasing your home.  Traffic.  Your kid’s teacher.  College sports.  Why your boss is stupid.

Things I Like To See Depicted in Paintings

People on deathbeds.  Animals.  Historical scenes.  Children acting like adults.  People doing hard work.  People eating.  Life in big cities, long ago.  Sun-dappled valleys.  Oxen with steam coming out their nostrils.  Indoor scenes where other paintings are hanging on the walls.  People playing games.  Things in Pennsylvania.  People laughing.

Things I Most Often “See” in Clouds

Goldfish.  Multiple men rowing canoes.  Lit cigars.  Grabbing hands.  Rubber duckies.  An old woman on a rocking chair.  A lillypad.  A key.  A vine wrapping around a dilapidated newell post.  Shirts.  Elbow macaroni.

Names I Wouldn’t Mind Having

Toby.  Zachary.  Morton.  Milton.  Harrison.  Seamus.  Daschiel.  Winston.  Ezra.  Vincent.