One More Time With Feeling

One More Time With Feeling - Regina Spektor

your stitches are all out
but your scars are healing wrong
the helium balloon inside your room has come undone
and it's pushing up at the ceiling; and the
flickering
lights it cannot get beyond

everyone takes turns
now it's yours to play the part
and they're sitting all around you
holding copies of your chart
and the misery inside their eyes
is synchronised
and reflecting it to yours

hold on
one more time with feeling
try it again, breathing's just a rhythm
say it in your mind until you know that the words are right
this is why we fight

you thought by now you'd be
so much better than you are
you thought by now they'd see
that you have come so far

and the pride inside their eyes
is synchronised
to a love you'll never know
so much more than you can show

hold on
one more time with feeling
try it again, breathing's just a rhythm
say it in your mind until you know that the words are right

this is why we fight

Se Destruyan

Over the last year a lot of questions have come up for me. My whole life I would classify as one, enormous, self-persisting question; beginning when I was maybe 5 (when I remember acknowledging that time moved so quickly and how desperately I wanted it to slow down), and continuing to this day with the equivocally insoluble and ever-changing questions of faith.
These questions, you know, the big ones, keep me up at night. (As a white, middle class, pretty permeable-minded citizen of my time, it's only natural that I reference a Coldplay song here; one that I think can generally sum up my view of everything logical and reasonable: Questions of science, science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.) But more legitimately than something Chris Martin penned to soothe Gwen Pal is this universal idea that there are simply things in life we cannot explain, reason, or affect. There is only so much we can take on every day, and these questions without easy answers only serve to complicate our thoughts that much more.

I think, though, that these questions are important. And that these sort of complications are okay. I don't believe that I'll ever know a lot of things. The only thing I'm really sure of is that there are A LOT of things I am completely unsure of.... All the time. And I think that's alright. For those kind of moments though, I need music.Every day, despite some of our best efforts at avoiding these questions or, my faaaaavorite, the kind of people who pretend they know the answers to them and love to tell you just-what-they-are, the searching persists. The meaning is limitless. But the music is there. Two of my favorite Mason Jennings songs take the questions right out of my head and into a verse. The endless wondering, the at times demanding that I have done to the universe exists because I let it. The questions that I've thought about this past year mostly revolve around change and faith; and most interestingly: their intersection.

Things Change - Mason Jennings
How'm I gonna live with all this pain in my heart
Never thought that I would have to make a new start
Strange, how the moment just can't last
No way of living inside the past

Now that you're gone
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

I mean every - everything
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

God it's been so long, I don't know where that we've been
Try to find a way to let the light back in
I can't stop thinking of what you said
Only one person could live inside my head

Now that you're gone
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

I mean every-everything
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change
Some Say I'm Not - Mason Jennings
To look at a baby
You've gotta be brave
In the black of his eye
Is your own grave
And something darker
You wanna touch
It must be love
Cause it hurts so much

Love

I've been to Egypt
I've been to Rome
I was a young man
When I left my home
Looking for something
I couldn't find
Now I'm back where I started
It was here all the time

Time

Out of the darkness
Into the light
I had it wrong
You made it right
I had it right
You made it wrong
Same old story
Same old song

Song

Some call me Allah
Some call me Tao
Some call me Buddha
Some call me now
Some call me Jesus
Some call me God
Some say I'm real
Some say I'm not

BangBangBang

Bang Bang Bang, the latest remix by music genius Mark Ronson, may just be the perfect kick start to your September. Collaborating with Q-Tip (whose laid back vocals upgrade any track with effortless cool) and the up and coming electro-rockers MNDR, Ronson has created an instant catch.
MNDR is an electronic music duo out of New York featuring frontwoman Amanda Warner. Warner has co-written Bang Bang Bang along with other tracks displaying her undeniably modern French-siren sound. Check out the video for an aesthetically pleasing throw back to some international hits.

Beg Steal or Borrow

Three tracks I think you should get your paws on by any means necessary:

1) Beg Steal or Borrow - Ray Lamontagne & The Pariah Dogs
So your home town's bringing you down
Are you drowning in the small talk and the chatter?
Or are you gonna step into line like your daddy done
Punching the time and climbing life's long ladder

2) Revofev - Kid Cudi
Let go life does get tough
No need to stress, hold your back too much
Let's go I heard they found a solution
Where will you be for the revolution?

3) Journey of the Featherless - Cloud Cult
Honestly I'm missing you
And I hope that you're missing me
Cause I could use your lips on me
And a little bit of Dramamine

Thermal Dynamics

Portland rockers The Thermals have garnered plenty of acclaim in their decade of punk-influenced music-making, but it's their latest single I Don't Believe You, released last week, that is sure to attract even more sub-pop buzz to their already electric repertoire. Kickass drummer Kathy Foster really showcases her talent on this single, which is equal parts Piss-Off-Anthem and upbeat late-summer jam.
Their full-length album, Personal Life, is set to debut September 7th.

To Shake A Memory

On the road back home from a cozy cabin in the woods, the lovely Laura Berger introduced me to one of her favorite artists, Bill Callahan of Smog. Every track of Callahan's conjurs up intensely ethereal imagery secured in an almost dream-like oscilation of intimacy and isolation. His lyricism is on another level entirely, and anything but accessible.
Using animalistic, natural metaphors, Callahan is a poet of the highest degree, leaving the listener free to associate his melodies with their richest, most personal memories. For me, I draw an instant connection from Callahan to Cormac McCarthy, the natural world, and Edgar Allen Poe. Like any good poet, he leaves much to interpretation, but his words are so essential I can't help but share some here.

From "Eid Ma Clack Shaw"

Last night I swear I felt your touch
Gentle and warm
The hair stood on my arms
How
How
How?

Show me the way, show me the way, show me the way
To shake a memory

I flipped my forelock, I twitched my withers
I reared and bucked
I could not put my rider aground
All these fine memories are fuckin me down

I dreamed it was a dream that you were gone
I woke up feeling so ripped by reality
Love is the king of the beasts
And when it gets hungry it must kill to eat
Love is the king of the beasts
A lion walking down city streets

I fell back asleep some time later on
And I dreamed the perfect song
It held all the answers, like hands laid on
I woke halfway and scribbled it down
And in the morning what I wrote I read
It was hard to read at first but here's what it said:

Eid ma clack shaw
Zupoven del ba
Mertepy ven seinur
Cofally ragdah

Show me the way, show me the way, show me the way
To shake a memory
What is so innovative and instinctive about Eid Ma Clack Shaw is the nonsensical verse he remembers from a dream. So much of our subconscious, our gut instinct, is inexplicable and therefor never expressed. Many of our dreams never make sense, but what does that make them?

Another instant favorite is Jim Cain, a beautiful, fragmented lullaby:

I started off in search of ordinary things
How much of a tree bends in the wind
I started telling the story
Without knowing the end
The more upbeat, Dress Sexy At My Funeral, is almost unrecognizable as Callahan's but equally as genuine. If you care to get lost in more of Callahan's work, here are some of my favorites:
-The Wind and The Dove
-All Thoughts are Prey to Some Beasts
-Justice Aversion
-Strayed
-Rock Bottom Riser

Franklin Avenue

The other day on my way to a psychic,* I pulled up to Franklin Avenue and sat impatiently in front of the red stoplight, letting the hot rain hit the side of my face through the open window. On the current at that particular moment was Jeremy Messersmith's Franklin Avenue, the refrain of which pulled me out of my own thoughts and into the words seeping from my stereo.

Cars crashing, tires slashing, Franklin Avenue
Waiting for that sinking feeling
It's all that keeps me together
And I'm so scared to let it unwind

This beautiful song instantly made me feel re-connected to where I was in that particular moment, though it's hard to explain why. With a voice and lyrical street cred to match Elliot Smith, Messersmith won me over that day. (He's also feckin hawwwwt).
Maybe he wouldn't have if it weren't for that small coincidence, but sometimes serendipitous moments, especially connected to music, have a way of making you feel a little less lost. And as a Minneapolis native, I think I put some of my trust in JM that day to let the day take me where it would. Besides, he knew I was on Franklin Avenue didn't he? Maybe he was the psychic I needed.

[Some of Messersmith's other gems include Easy Lovers, Hardly Friends and Lazy Bones although I fall in love with a new JM track every day]

*I have an inexplicable obsession with psychics. Not because I think they are always legit, but because they fascinate me. And it's kind of like expensive, interactive therapy. You can feel free to judge me on that one.