Originally, I was planning on telling you all about this short, 5-song mix that I came up with and I was just going to give you basically all of my thoughts about the 5 songs. However, instead, I’m going to tell you all about this OTHER short, 5-song mix that I came up with because I told somebody about the first one and thus, I ruined it for myself. It just didn’t feel right to use that one after I’d already talked about it to someone.
To you though, it is really neither here nor there because you never new about the first one. As such, this one might as well be the only one I ever came up with. And to be honest, I didn’t change EVERY song in the first list. Some of them are still in here.
OK first song is Cutting Off the Blood to Ten by Right Away, Great Captain!. NOTE: this song is mildly depressing and intense. Consider yourself warned. A of all, I’m pretty cray cray about this band. (cray cray = crazy for those of you not up with the lingo of future generations) This band is the solo project of the lead singer of the band Manchester Orchestra. Also a really good band though nowhere near the caliber of the solo project.
I feel like the picture should help validate my argument that he’s legit. And by the way, if you’re going to try to look up Right Away, Great Captain!, some good songs are actually Right Away, Great Captain!, Right Ahead, Young Sailor!, and Devil Dressed in Blue. So start there. But anyways, this song is intense. Which is why I like it. He starts off with talking about “cutting off the blood to ten, with a rope around my wrist”. I’m not positive, but I am pretty sure that is a reference to committing suicide via tying something heavy to your hands and throwing it overboard. (he likes nautical references so this may be talking about an anchor?) Then he moves on to talking about how he knows his wife cheated on him with his brother and how pissed he is about that. Ok, this is sounding like the kind of song that you would usually label as “too intense”, so let me explain why I like it. If you listen to the song, it starts off really slow and quiet. Then later on in the song, there is a part that get’s really loud and intense. Then it quiets back down at the end. I like it how this song illustrates that you don’t have to be screaming for a song to be filled with emotion. There is almost more emotion and intensity in this song when it’s being all slow than there is when it picks up. I think it’s cool. Also, look up the lyrics. They’re crazy-poetic and, if you haven’t already figured it out by now, I’m kinda into songs with good lyrics.
In the end, you can make your own interpretation of what he’s talking about in this song if anything. My take on it is that he’s basically sitting there at the end of his life, completely pissed about how his wife and brother hurt him so much. But yet he’s having this realization that he’s even more angry about the fact that he was never able to move on. I feel like the point of the song is that no matter how crappy a situation is, or how mad something makes you, you’re always going to be better off in the end moving on than you are going to be holding onto it. I can relate in a much smaller way.
Next song!! (I may not get through all these before I choose sleep) California English by Vampire Weekend. If you start listening to this song, you will immediately find that you can’t really understand what he’s saying very well. He sings in a really broken voice and says the words with strange inflection and very quickly. BRILLIANT! The reason I think that is so cool is that, if you can decipher the lyrics to this song, you can see that basically he spends the whole song basically talking about the differences in the way that people in California speak from the way that that the rest of the country speaks. He does this by “telling a story” about a girl he likes and all that jazz, and as he’s telling the story, he just throws in a bunch of ironic California stereotypes. Take the first line for instance. The first line is “wouldn’t ever gag you with a spoon, my only true love”. In this line, he’s referencing the phrase “gag me with a spoon” I’m pretty sure. I’m also pretty sure that is a phrase that comes from the valley-girl-type girls in California. And he continues to make references like that throughout the rest of the song I think. I can’t figure out what some of them mean but there are a bunch of the lyrics that are definitely referencing California-talk.
So as a band from California, I think the point of his song is to say that California English is different from English everywhere else and that really, we can’t understand the band in the same way that someone who has experiences Cali could. On top of brilliant lyrics, he sings the song in a way that is ironically hard to understand. So awesome.
Before I move on, I would like to state that obviously, I might be completely wrong on the meanings of these songs. If you hear something completely different in them than awesome, tell me about it.
The next on my list is a song called No Intention by Dirty Projectors. I’m going to go ahead and start off with telling you that I have absolutely no idea what this song is talking about overall. I mean there are individual lines that I think are really cool and really clever. But I can’t seem to make sense of the song as a whole. The reason that I’ve added this song to our playlist is for it’s bobble-head quality. You know what I’m talking about. You know when you see people moving their head all around the place while keeping their shoulders completely still? That’s exactly what happens to my head whenever this song comes on and I hear that simple but inspiring beat. Thus, I love it. Dirty Projectors is a band from somewhere in the northeast of America. New York maybe? I can’t remember right now. However, they are coming to play in Norman for the Norman music festival which is debatably either this weekend or sometime in April. Nobody really knows at this point though I’ve heard it from a reliable source that multiple people have been saying it’s not this weekend as we originally thought. Either way though, I’m going to be there in Norman when they are and I’m going to be right up front when they sing this song straight to me. Plus, don’t they just look really cool and down to earth?
Ok, I’m kinda tempted to keep typing about the other two songs cause they really are legit but I’m getting really really tired and I don’t think I’m going to make it much longer. It’s about 3:30 AM right now so I feel like my sleepiness is justified. Unfortunately though, I probably won’t be able to post this until sometime tomorrow afternoon because our internet is being all kinds of weird tonight and I just don’t have the will to go fix it right now. So what will probably happen is that I’ll shut my computer here in about 45 seconds and then, tomorrow, I’ll reopen it at some point and either continue typing about the other two songs or I’ll just take this post as is and put it online for you to do what you will with it.
Peace.
**NEXT MORNING**…well, let’s be honest. **NEXT AFTERNOON**
Well, I woke up today pretty much ready to just keep typing my little heart out. So this may be one of those posts that is just so long that many give up on it. That’s alright…which reminds me. “Jesus is still alright with me! Jesus is still alright!” The word alright always makes me think about that song. Whatever, that’s neither here nor there.
The next song. Mansions of Los Feliz by Eels. No. It was going to be that song but I just changed my mind. I think I’m going to change it to A Shot in the Arm by Wilco. Yeah, I like that one better for the here and now. I should inform you again that Wilco is easily one of my absolute favorite bands. They are the only band that I have ever seen 3 times live (other than like Hero Factor or other local bands). Originally, when I listened to them, I wasn’t a big fan. I wasn’t just a one song and done, but I probably was something like a 6 song and done. They just didn’t catch me. WOW, how did they not? I’m almost embarrassed about it.
So then, and this is back during like my sophomore year I think, one of my best buds Joseph Harvey Hanson basically forced me to listen to them again and he walked me through some of the songs and why they were so awesome. So I’ll give him 50% of the credit for getting me hooked on Wilco. The other 50% is split 48% to Wilco and 2% to me for being awesome (I couldn’t go unaccredited)
Out of all the heaps of absolutely amazing Wilco songs, why did I pick this one? Well, the reasons are three-fold though you might be able to combine two of them so that the reasons are only two-fold. That doesn’t seem necessary though so I’ll keep the reasons at three. A of all, this song has a lyric in it that is in my top 5 lyrics. And I’m not saying that it’s PROBABLY in my top 5; it is EASILY in my top 5. The lyric is the opening line. It is as follows: “The ashtray says you were up all night.” Oh my face how awesome of a line is that? It is beyond brilliant. Actually, give me just a second. I’m going to look up brilliant in a thesaurus and find a better word for it. Ok I found it. That lyric is PROFOUND. I don’t even know how to talk you through how awesome it is if you don’t get it. I mean if you can’t read that line and see the poetry, than I don’t know that any kind of explanation by me would even help.
Ok, before I go to B, I’d like to make it clear that this entire song is lyrically awesome. It’s not just that first line. But B of all, this song is just plain fun to see live or to listen to loud in the car. About halfway through the song, he starts freakin out. The reason that this freak out is one of my absolute favorites is because he starts singing with almost a mix of yelling and singing. And the pitch is the kind of pitch that is in everyone’s range. So if you blast this song in your car, you can basically just lose yourself in yelling/singing these lines. He doesn’t worry about keeping his voice pure and smooth, so you don’t have to either! And he doesn’t try to fly up out of your range or anything, so you can really just easily start having a blast with this song. I hope that kinda made sense.
C of all, (and this is the one that probably could have been worked into A because they’re kinda related) I have a funny memory associated with this song. There was one time that I was writing a song (probably not a very good song), and the aforementioned Hanson boy was my roommate. ..you know what? I’m going to stop this story right there. I’m going to leave you hangin! And you know why? It’s because yesterday, this girl started telling me a story but then she had to leave all of a sudden and I didn’t get to hear the end of a story that I was genuinely kinda interested in. After she left I wondered how horrible she must feel about herself for not finishing the story. So now I know…man, it really doesn’t feel bad at all. I could move on right now no problem. And I think I will.
Ok the last song that I was going to talk about will no longer be talked about. It was actually two songs by the same artist but I just feel like I’ve hashed out enough about music at this point. I’m ready to move on to something else.
Lately, my little brother, my little sister, and I have been going rock climbing a lot at the indoor rock climbing place here in town. It’s kinda disconcerting to see my brother climbing around because he’s the kind of good that I’ll NEVER get to. Like it just won’t happen. And it kinda makes me realize that I think the time of my life where I’m better at things than my little brother is over. It’s a weird feeling to see your little bro surpass you in basically every arena. I can deal with it though cause I’m a big boy.
Seriously though, how do you compete with that?
Next on my list is the next big craze in the United States. First came "Do tha Heizman", then came the "Superman" where we learned to "superman that hoe". Now, we're all about to experience the FLEX!!! My buddy showed me this video a little while ago and even though these dudes are nothing right now, I'm calling it, this song is gonna be the next big song in the genre of "Introducing New Dance Moves". See it here: Party Boyz - Flex
There’s something else I kinda want to write about but at the same time, I don’t want to write about it. I feel like I’m just cutting off all my talks and I should probably just shut down this post. Save my other thoughts for another time. So I think I’m just going to have to…
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