The Weepies – Simple Life

Can I get up in the morning
Put the kettle on
Make us some coffee, say “hey” to the sun…
Is it enough to write a song and sing it to the birds?
They’d hear just the tune
Not understand my love for words
But you would hear me and know

I want only this, I want to live
I want to live a simple life.

I dreamed you first
But not so real
And every day since I’ve found you
Such moments we steal
Like little thieves, we rub our hands
We hold our hearts between them.
But will you hear me and know?

I want only this, I want to live
I want to live a simple life.

Move on, move on
Time is accelerating.
Drive on all night
Traffic lights and one-ways.
Move on, move on
Parking violations waiting
Turn off the car, breathe the air
Let’s stay here.

I’ll kiss you awake, and we’ll have time
To know our neighbors all by name
And every star at night.
We’ll weave our days together like lace
And particles of light.

I want only this, I want to live
I want to live a simple life.

SOTD – Get Set Go “I Hate Everyone”

RevCo – Attack Ships on Fire

I wish I was young again and could get lost in music the way I used to.

Of course, I don’t really want to be young again, and probably I never got as lost in music as I supposed. But I still wish something or other.

Attack Ships on Fire (click to play)

Time and time and time again
Tossing and turning and freezing and burning
Time and time and time again
Another bad dream and another dead end

Someone somewhere wake me up!

Time and time and time again
Same old story till the night time ends
Time and time and time again
Same dark covers and the same dark lands

(please, please, oh please) WAKE ME UP!

Time and time and time again
Wake up screaming and wake up dead
Time and time and time again
Wake up sweating and out of my head

Someone somewhere wake me up!
Someone somewhere WAKE ME UP!

Time and time and time again
I’m waking up shaking and waking in fright
Time and time and time again
Same B-movie in black and white

Someone somewhere….

Shivaree – I Will Go Quietly

So softly furious. #love

Shivaree – I Will Go Quietly

I will go quietly
Don’t move your chair
Won’t even try it
Wouldn’t even dare
You come walking down
With a mouthful of sand
We better cut it out
Cause it’s out of hand
And it’s loud out on the street
So please

I will go quietly

Drive with my lights out
Won’t even tell myself when I get there
I’ll go so quietly

I swear

I will go quietly
I’ll leave my speech
Hold down the mystery
With a throat full of bleach
And I won’t go talking now
Not even a sigh
I’ll sleep on a broken bough
With a nail in my eye
And I won’t hear a beat again
I will go quietly

But I’ll stay screaming inside your sleep
I’ll stamp out the moon and I’ll shear all of your sheep

I will go quietly
I won’t brush my teeth
Won’t even change my clothes when I get there
I’ll go so quietly
No one will even see
And they won’t hear
I’ll go so quietly
I swear

Laura Veirs – Make Something Good

This song has been floating around the edges of my mind since I saw her a few months ago. So quiet and hopeful. I hope it all comes true.

Laura Veirs – Make Something Good

I wanted to make something sweet
The blood inside a maple tree
The sunlight track inside the wood,
Make something good.

I wanted to make something strong,
An organ pipe in a cathedral
That stays in tune, through a thousand blooms,
Make something good.

It’s gonna take a long long time,
But we’re gonna make something so fine

I wanted to make something pure,
Emerald field from steer manure,
A wild eyed child in a moon-lit room,
Make something good.

Oh, I wanted to make something built to last,
A bottled ship with a golden mast
And through the squall, the course stays true,
Make something good.

Make something good.

It’s gonna take a long long time,
But we’re gonna make something so fine
It’s gonna take a long long time,
But we’re gonna make something so fine.

The The – The Beaten Generation

This song has been much on my mind of late. It’s too bad that nothing has improved since this came out in 1989. I know I am a cynic, but I do believe our addiction to physical and mental comfort will be humanity’s downfall. And maybe our downfall is not a bad thing.

The The – The Beaten Generation

When you cast your eyes upon the skylines
Of this once proud nation
Can you sense the fear and the hatred
Growing in the hearts of its population

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced
by the greedy hands of politics and half truths

The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation
The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Open your eyes, open your imagination

We’re being sedated by the gasoline fumes
and hypnotised by the satellites
Into believing what is good and what is right

You may be worshipping the temples of Mammon
Or lost in the prisons of religion
But can you still walk back to happiness
When you’ve nowhere left to run?

The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation
The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Open your eyes, open your imagination

And if they send in the special police
To deliver us from liberty and keep us from peace

Then won’t the words sit ill upon their tongues
when they tell us justice is being done
and that freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun

The xx – Crystalised

You’ve applied the pressure
To have me crystalised
And you’ve got the faith
That I could bring paradise

I’ll forgive and forget
Before I’m paralyzed
Do I have to keep up the pace
To keep you satisfied

Things have gotten closer to the sun
And I’ve done things in small doses
So don’t think that I’m pushing you away
When you’re the one that I’ve kept closest

Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh

You don’t move slow
Taking steps in my directions
The sound resounds, echo
Does it lessen your affection
No

You say I’m foolish
For pushing this aside
But burn down our home
I won’t leave alive

Glaciers have melted to the sea
I wish the tide would take me over
I’ve been down on my knees
And you just keep on getting closer

Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh
Ahh, ahh, ahh

Placid as I melt into the sea
(Things have gotten closer to the sun)
I wish the tide would take me over
(And I’ve done things in small doses)
I’ve been down onto my knees
(So don’t think that I’m pushing you away)
And you just keep on getting closer
(When you’re the one that I’ve kept closest)

Go slow
Go slow
Go slow
Go slow
Go slow

Weepies – Be My Thrill

So, the new Weepies album dropped last week. I expected to love it. I just didn’t necessarily expect to love it so much that I want to lay on the floor and cry all day. Usually it takes a few months with a Weepies album before I succumb to the prostrate tears. Nevertheless, it’s that good.

Above is the video for “Be My Thrill.” I have added it so you can hear the song. As cute as it is, I am not a huge fan of it. It’s odd to me that even though I feel very in tune with all of their music, most of their visual choices (album art, videos) leave me pretty cold. There is enough going on in their songs that I feel twee graphics are just a distraction. But. That’s just me.

I have been lately pondering the divide between sentiment and emotion. Thinking about being sentimental versus being emotional, and the level of authenticity that divides those two concepts. Perky, peppy, heartbroken Weepies are a thing that sounds silly and sentimental, but is actually profoundly emotional. And hence my response to them, I do believe.

Be My Thrill

Be my thrill, my little white pill,
my unpaid bill, the one who will
Be my love, my little grey dove,
my push and my shove, my heaven above

And we tumble down like Jack and Jill
and I miss all of the joy you kill
But I love you still, be my thrill

Be my one, my day in the sun,
my little pop gun, the best thing I’ve done
Be my what,my open and shut,
my everything but,my little hot slut

And every morning is like the one before
And everybody needs someone to adore
I’m counting on you
Oh baby say you will
Oh baby be my thrill

Be my youth, my kissing booth,
my little sweet tooth,my beauty and truth
Be my thrill, my little white pill,
my wait up until, the one who will

Also, unsullied by animation, I highly recommend “Please Speak Well of Me.”

Alison Krauss and Union Station “It Doesn’t Matter”

Alison Krauss and Union Station “It Doesn’t Matter”

It doesn’t matter what I want
It doesn’t matter what I need
It doesn’t matter if I cry
Don’t matter if I bleed
You’ve been on a road
Don’t know where it goes or where it leads

It doesn’t matter what I want
It doesn’t matter what I need
If you’ve made up your mind to go
I won’t beg you to stay
You’ve been in a cage
Throw you to the wind you fly away

It doesn’t matter what I want
It doesn’t matter what I need
It doesn’t matter if I cry
Doesn’t matter if I bleed
Feel the sting of tears
Falling on this face you’ve loved for years

The Heavy – What You Want Me to Do

The more I listen to The Heavy, the more I love The Heavy. Fantastic driving music, this. And sounds almost as good live as it does studio.

The Heavy – What You Want Me to Do

I’ve been loved
I don’t feel clever
One mans weakness
Is another man’s pleasure
I got no feelings
I got no heart
Can’t make no sense out of this
But I got to somehow

What you want me to do?
What you want me to say?
How you need me to be?
I can be that way
What you want me to do?
What you want me to say?
How you need me to do?
‘Cause I can do that…

When I feel tender
Like I’ve been lost
Put myself together
‘Cause paid my cost to be the boss
Now I ain’t sleepin’
I aint slept
I see what you see here
But in this life
You give what you get

The Boy Least Likely To – A Fairytale Ending

The Boy Least Likely To – A Fairytale Ending

When I was young I was valiant and bold
I fought off dragons and wrestled with trolls
I was stupid
But I was brave

I’m still as stupid as I was before
And although I’m not that young anymore
I’m still valiant
In my own little way

Limping off into the sunset
With our tails between our legs
Remembering how it all started
And wondering if this is the way that
My fairytale ends

I still remember how gallant I felt
In a suit of armor that I made myself
Out of tin foil
And milk bottle tops

I guess that I’m just like everyone else
I find it difficult to be myself
So I pretend
To be something I’m not

But in the end everything has to
Turn back into pumpkins and frogs
I wish that it didn’t have to
And I’m wondering if this is the way that
My fairytale ends
Ends

Limping off into the sunset
With our tails between our legs
Muttering quietly to myself
And wondering if this is the way that
My fairytale ends
Ends

SOTD – Laura Veirs “Shadow Blues”

Laura Veirs “Shadow Blues”

There’s a shadow beneath the sea
There’s a shadow between you and me
I’ve learned that love is scared of light
Thousand seeds from a flower
Blowing through the night

Your blackened kiss on my cheek
Your blackened kiss runs river deep
A stranded fish dear, I’m on the sand
Blue water from a pool
Up to the clouds I’ll land

Though I am dark ‘bout the whys of wanting
Though I am dark, I’m still a child
Gonna dig a coal mine, climb down deep inside
Where my shadow’s got one place to go
One place to hide…

SOTD Keane—Nothing in My Way

A turning tide
Lovers at a great divide
why d’you laugh
When I know that you hurt inside?

And why’d you say
It’s just another day, nothing in my way
I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna stay
So there’s nothing left to say

And why’d you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don’t know what you lie for anyway
Now there’s nothing left to say

A tell-tale sign
You don’t know where to draw the line
And why’d you say
It’s just another day, nothing in my way
I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna stay
So there’s nothing left to say

And why’d you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don’t know what you lie for anyway
Now there’s nothing left to say

Well for a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you’re having such a nice time
You’re having such a nice time

For a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you’re having such a nice time
You’re having such a nice time

SOTD – Rasputina “My Porcelain Life”

Blah! I can’t find this song online anywhere to link to, so I will just link to a sample from Amazon.

It’s so quiet and calm and sad and lyrically lovely. I. Love. It.

You should buy this album, it’s pretty fantastico. Another song from it (Holocaust of Giants) is available for free download on Amazon right now, and I love that song too, so at least check that one out.

Rasputina “My Porcelain Life”

This letter you get it,
You burn it,
Forget it
It’s not what I meant to say
You might think me a scapegrace
Really a fugitive in decay
I exist here on an acre of nature
In the diminutive
But I’ll be thinking of you, I would wager
My favorite hypocrite

You are a master of the commerce of friendship
So I put all of my feathers on
I wrote you this letter, I’ll send it
When this foul weather is gone
Of your last words to me I am thinking
And of the depth of your eyes
But you can’t halt the profound shrinking
Of this, my porcelain life

You’re vexed that I reject your protection
Well I abhor captivity
I want to live alone in my little section
So very wild and watery
How to preserve my own mistaken perfection?
Or your refined vulgarity
I only tenuously ask you this question
Out of a sense it was for clarity

You are a master of the commerce of friendship
So I put all of my feathers on
I wrote you this letter, I send it
When this foul weather is gone
Of your last words to me I am thinking
And of the depth of your eyes
But you can’t halt the profound shrinking
Of this, my porcelain life

My porcelain life
My porcelain life
I find it very breakable
My porcelain life

SOTD – Swans “I Remember Who You Are”

This song is the song of the day purely because this morning I could not get it out of my head, despite not having listened to it in ten years. So whoever, wherever I read what triggered this song to replay in my head all morning… Thanks? Anyway, now I give this to you:

Swans “I Remember Who You Are”

When other people say
You’re someone to misuse
Shut in behind your young girl’s face
And helpless in your bed of thorns
I’ll remember who you are
Yes I’ll remember who you are
I’ll remember who you are:
A young girl, unchained
Come back here now
I know you’re somewhere still alive
Strong behind your young girl’s tears
I know you’re somewhere unchanged
Oh I remember who you are
Yes I’ll remember who you are
I’ll remember who you are
A young girl, unchained
There stands a young girl naked
In her innocence unused
And she holds me in her small hand
And she smiles down on me
I am innocent in her dark eyes
I will lose my heart in the sand
You’re cruel but you’re good for me
And you hold me in your young girl’s hand
I Remember Who You Are
Yes I Remember Who You Are
I remember who you are
A young girl, unchained