Songs of the Week #16- Editors Pick
“summer is gone, and that we must, again, quietly cuddle-up”
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JOHN:
"The Way We Fall" -- Alela Diane
This is from Alela Diane's heart-wrenchingly beautiful divorce record About Farewell. It speaks to me emotionally as I too have recently gone through a divorce. Her lyrics are open, honest, and do not point fingers. It is heavy on the moving forward after a split, the tough spaces of love where being lost is how one gets found, the painful unknowing, as exemplified on my favorite track.
O, I didn't know it was the last time
You never know when it's the last time.
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SHENYAH:
"Have You Forgotten" -- Red House Painters
This song always has it's special way to ground me, it takes me home. The lyrics paint memories so familiar that I'm pretty sure they are mine. In fact, some of them are definitely mine. I appreciate the acoustic simplicity of this track, from the album titled Songs for a Blue Guitar (I even had a blue guitar when it was released). There is also something to be said about the voice of Mark Kozelek (now the front man for Sun Kil Moon), his voice comforts me, reminds me I'm alive and dying all at once.
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REYNA:
“Bicycles” -- The Clientele
To me, The Clientele has always sounded like autumn. Perhaps there is a little late summer mixed in; maybe some early winter, but any and all of their songs make a beautifully moody soundtrack to a crisp fall day.
This song in particular feels like riding through cool, damp air, on rain-messed streets strewn with red and gold leaves. It feels like gloves and hats, sweaters and scarves. It feels like a soft acceptance that summer is gone, and that we must, again, quietly cuddle-up to the gray chill of the current season.
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CARRIE:
"She Don't Care" -- Ty Segall
The whole Sleeper album is awesome; simple melody-driven songs grounded in Segall's voice and a few musical outbrusts/tantrums (which I quite enjoy). I like how "She Don't Care" employs strings and a hopeful, sunny-day-shooting-out-from-behind-the-clouds sound, contrast the blunt and slightly cruel lyrics. Nice work.
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STEPHEN:
"Green Blood" -- Sonny & the Sunsets
I ain't no homewrecker, but outside of that small detail I have basically lived the relationship detailed in this song in every relationship I've ever had. Okay, maybe also not having my loved one get shot either. But, the spoken interludes, they are the most real thing. "Something happened, I fell in love." "I don't have to tell you how great she was... she was AMAZING!" "She lived." "And we really tried, y'know. Tried to make a life, but we were so different..." I try every time with love, but love is basically like trying to make a jell-o cocktail, you know it can be done because your grandparents did it and it always looked great and was edible, but in your own hands it's just powder in a box and hot water. It never seems to look the way it's supposed to—just a collapsed green thing. The exact same shape as your heart.
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