New Music Tuesday: the Happiest Day of the Week
Well, it’s Tuesday again, the happiest day of the week for U.S. music lovers. And, if this were a ‘normal’ Tuesday, the space below would be filled with lengthy verbal applause, music videos, sneak peek tracks, etc. In other words, I’d have something more inspiring to say about the today’s releases than “Hey, two of them have the word ‘magic’ in their titles!”
Today, with apologies, I need to take a brief break from the Tuesday tradition— not because there aren’t great releases today (there ARE), but because I’ve had a fever on/off since Sunday and have the attention span of a Golden Retriever puppy.
And now for The Longest Metaphor Explanation in the History of This Site:
An owner throws a tennis ball, the puppy chases it and runs back immediately, ball in mouth. The owner tosses it again. The puppy (who we’ll call “Bre” for the sake of this story) gets super excited, bounds around all drooley-faced, chanting “Ball! Ball! I love you ball!” The owner throws the tennis ball a third time and the puppy dashes off. It seems like this could go on forever. And yet, halfway through the third retrieval, the puppy discards the ball without warning and begins to wriggle her fluffy belly around in the grass. “Grass! Grass! I love you grass!”
Soon after, she’s picking at some tree bark; she’s peeing on the deck; she’s eating a rock; she’s chasing the shadow of her own ears.
A half hour later, she finds a round, fuzzy, fluorescent green item in the yard. She stares at it with glossy, brown, bewildered eyes. “Hmm, I wonder what this thing does?”
In my lucid moments, I’ve thought a lot about the following lyrics from “How Do I Know” from Brooklyn-based Here We Go Magic.
How do I know I love you?
When I sure like your bread
The way that you tucker and straighten your bed
But how do I know if I love you?
How do I know if I know you?
When you come out clean from the shower
You squeak to the touch and you smell like a flower
How do I know if I know you?…
How do I know if I love you?
When all these things come and go?
You can’t stand them together in a neat little row?
So how do I know, how do I know, how do I know?
Surely, this song was written about a person; a person who does things like eating bread, and showering, and walking about. But, since I’m straight off a lengthy email correspondence on the subject of “song love,” I’m going to take a little creative freedom with the meaning of these lyrics. Please give me some rope…
Music journalists listen to A TON of music. It’s exhausting, and admittedly, at times, enough to make me want to just power my ears down for a couple days and “accidentally” leave my laptop some place I can’t find it. When I choose to write about a song—one song, out of the hundred I may have listened to that week— it’s because I’ve fallen in love with it. Maybe not head over heels every time, but certainly a noteworthy crush. This crush is a prerequisite for any words to appear, let alone a full post.
In select, very special instances, there’s such extreme love that words or documentation are a disservice. Like the crush in “How Do I Know,” it’s simply unquantifiable. There is no method for stacking the reasons why last week, I listened to a single track for 5 full hours every morning; for why I spent ½ of my waking energy with the same lovely best friend. There just isn’t.
There’s a pile of songs released today that plenty of well-meaning people have told me I should love. And, let’s say about another 5 albums that MOG, Spotify and FB advertising have swept my way. Today, I’ve listened to the better part of ALL of these. I write “the better part” simply because there were A LOT of tennis balls and tree shadows that were vying for my attention. To all of these songs: “I’m glad you were made. And, even if I don’t quite hear the reasons why, I’m glad you’re making my friends happy.”
To the select group of songs below, I say, “For whatever reason, you have been, and will continue to be perfect to me. When I trudged home and hung my coat after this long, feverish day, I wanted so badly to shut out the world. And yet, in my weariness, I still wanted you be with me… So, thank you for being the “sounds” I needed, at the moment when I felt like cursing off all sounds. Thank you for being the words I needed, when I was tired of every syllable. Thank you for being the warmth I needed when the blankets and tea weren’t enough.”
“Big Apple,” by Shayna & The Catch
I’ve been waiting to own this song since I heard it live at SXSW 2011. That’s all I’m sayin’
How Do I Know, by Here We Go Magic
“Blood Mary (Nerve Endings)” by Silversun Pickups
“Two Angels” by S.Carey
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