It all started by hearing
1957 on The Current. I had only heard the first few lines before I had to answer a phone call and turn down the radio. All it took was two lines and I was hooked, like an addict clinging to any trace of the drug it desires. I heard it, I knew it, and like any great song I felt it knew me. I memorized that string of words that stuck in my brain like gum to a shoe - relentless, borderline annoying, impossible to remove. I searched those words like the junkie I know I am and discovered
Milo Greene, the
Fleet Foxes-inspired band whose debut album was completely new to me.
(Sophia Loren has nothing to do with Milo Greene other than I also adore her.)
I searched endlessly to get my paws on all 13 tracks, hooked on the melodic interval songs vaguely reminiscent of early
Radiohead and the more verbose tracks with gentle monikers such as
Perfectly Aligned and
Son My Son. I heard the struggle of actualizing adulthood with the words "When we're older/can I still come over?" on
Silent Way and I was urged to stop resisting things as they were upon hearing "Close your eyes/everything is perfectly aligned" on
Perfectly Aligned. I looked around. I breathed in and out. I slowly digested every chorus.
There are days when we exhaust all our resources. We lean on friends or family or distractions or feelings to quietly ease the noise in our head distressing our present moment. I believe any self-aware individual has these moments. They are the nervous tick motions of the head to the left, as Andrew Bird would describe them. They are the thorns in our paws, the soft spots we drift to when life seems to pile us under all of its massive expectations. If ever there were a quote I could get behind, "music is the opiate of the masses" would be it. Music is the one resource that is almost inexhaustible. There is always something new to discover. A new harmony or a couple of words or a note that hits you at the exact moment that you have
felt that note in your soul. These moments are what make me an obnoxiously loyal follower to the cult of music. I will follow new music to the edges of the earth! (Or maybe just the middle of the night). I will be forever chasing that next wonderful moment that keeps me believing, that assures me of my humanity and all of its decency.
Milo Greene was inexhaustible for me today, and that is why we fell in love.
