Raking the Leaves

Apparently I have this thing inside me where, come years end, I feel compelled to share with the great Nowhere-of-the-Internets the music that has meant the most to me that year. I try to avoid doing this because I think it is a lame and fruitless enterprise, but can't. And this year is no different. Involuntarily I've been combing my iPod for all things 2010 and have made a list. Ugh.

Like the leaves on the tree in my front yard (here comes an analogy!), songs are deciduous. Each year gives birth to new buds, then leaves of all kinds. Eventually the autumn wind comes along and blows the leaves down. I bag most of them up and the city takes them away. Some fall artfully and dissolve into the soil to become my grass, my vegetables, my air. They continue with me. Then there are those few stubborn leaves that stay on the tree somehow, all winter long. I don't know how or why that happens, but I continue to hear them.

So in the spirit of leaf raking, in the spirit of housekeeping and this (admittedly nonsensical) business of list-making, I've got a November's worth of posts already written and scheduled to publish at the palatable rate of one per day. These are my favorite songs from 2010.

Enjoy! (or flame, as the case may be)

Here are a handful that I enjoy very much, but did not make the cut:

Gauntlet Hair: I Was Thinking (mp3)
Menomena: Queen Black Acid (mp3)
Active Child: She Was A Vision (mp3)
Clogs: Raise the Flag (mp3)
Ratatat: Drugs (mp3)

Led Zeppelin & Patty Griffin go Mormon

Well, not really. Robert Plant does, however, cover two terrific songs by Low on his new album "Band of Joy". Patty Griffin adds her vocals to the mix. It's official, the apocalypse is near.

Well, let's not hold our breath for a team up with MoTab. (Maybe post-apocolypse. Maybe.)

Robert Plant - Monkey (Low cover)

Feist: Look at What the Light Did Now

Strand of Oaks - Pope Killdragon

Take note of this album. It's really good.

Strand of Oaks: Last To Swim (mp3)

Starting Again in Eden

Consider the lyrics of Joanna Newsom's "'81". Any thoughts?

I found a little plot of land,
in the garden of Eden.
It was dirt, and dirt is all the same.
I tilled it with my two hands,
and I called it my very own;
there was no-one to dispute my claim.

Well, you'd be shocked
at the state of things-
the whole place
has just cleared right out.
It was hotter than hell,
so I laid me by a spring, for a spell,
as naked as a trout.

The wandering eye that I have caught
is as hot as a wandering sun.
But I will want for nothing more,
in my garden:
start again,
in my hardening to every heart but one.

Meet me in the garden of Eden.
Bring a friend.
We are gonna have ourselves a time.
We are gonna have a garden party.
It's on me!
No, sirree, it's my dime.
We broke our hearts,
in the war between
St. George and the dragon,
but both, in equal part,
are welcome to come along.
I'm inviting everyone.

Farewell to loves that I have known.
Even muddiest waters run.
Tell me, what is meant by sin, or none,
in a garden
seceded from the union
in the year of A.D. 1?

The unending amends you've made
are enough for one life.
Be done.
I believe in innocence, little darlin.
Start again.
I believe in everyone.
I believe, regardless.
I believe in everyone.

The Triumphant Return of Sufjan Stevens, part II

First of all, nobody else is writing music quite like this. Asthmatic Kitty, Sufjan's label, describes "Djohariah", the final song of the EP, as "a 17 minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers." In reality it is about a 12 minute guitar jam, which segues effortlessly into a more traditional lyric song for the last 5 minutes. There is a lovely and heartbreaking female dichotomy at work here. Desertion, abuse, financial ruin, and shame juxtaposed with birth, victory, beauty, and love. No joke, no hyperbole...I am more moved by the final minutes of this song than I have been by any other in a long time. I say that as a son, a father, a husband, and a man.

No need for expounding. Here are the lyrics. Listen/Purchase HERE.

"Djohariah"

Know you won’t get very far
With the back seat driver in the carpetbagger
With the dagger heart grabber stuck in your car

And the yard is grown to a hilt
And the money spent money spent where it went
Embarrassment, embarrassment to pay for the car

And the man who left you for dead
He’s the heart grabber back stabber double cheater wife beater
You don’t need that man in your life

And you worked yourself to the bone
While the people say what they say
It’s the neighbors anyway
They don’t know what’s good for your life

And I see your head hangs low
In the black shadow, half shadow
Living room is fitting is sitting room is fit for your crying

Don’t be ashamed—don’t hide in your room
For the woman is, woman is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Djohariah Djohariah, etc.

And the time you held to the light
When water ran water ran with the strange attic
And when the walls were wet with your life

And you pushed yourself to the floor
And the spirit went where it went
Hovering discovering uncovering your life, on the floor

And the walls were wet with your love

For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Don’t be ashamed, don’t hide from me now
For the woman is the woman is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Djohariah Djohariah, etc.

Don’t be ashamed, don’t cry in the bath
For it’s the story of, story of, morning glory story
It’s the gloriole that comes to your path

There is a time when the lights will arise
For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours to enjoy

Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours

Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For you’re beautiful, beautiful
All the fullness of the world is yours

credits

The Triumphant Return of Sufjan Stevens, Part I

In 1965 Paul Simon dumped upon an unsuspecting world "The Sound of Silence", one of the greatest songs ever written. Beloved by everyone. Seriously, can you show me one (reasonable) person who does not like that song? And it is worthy, scalp to toenail, of all the praise thrown its way over the years.

The song's message has only become more relevant with time. Simon sings of a dark vision cut and complemented by a neon sign/idol distracting everyone "and in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never share." The uncomfortable, damning silence is the communal response of his generation and continues to be so in ours. "'Fools', I said, 'You do not know. Silence, like a cancer, grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you.' But my words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence." This silence metaphorically sends a message all its own, in many different forms all sharing a common root - at least part of which (in my ears) seems to be a lack of communion and dialogue. Simon says.

Here we are 35 years later, and Sufjan Stevens just released, yesterday, an 8 song, 60 minute EP titled "All Delighted People". The first and last songs are masterpiece bookends. This post is labeled part 1, because it deals with the first track, which his label describes as a "long form epic ballad...a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon's "Sounds of Silence"".

Sufjan jumps right at Simon's vision in the first line, "Tomorrow you'll see it through the clouded out disguises put you in the room...and I remember every sound it made...I'm not easily confused...And the people bowed and prayed. And what difference does it make for you and me? All delighted people raise their hands." That refrain of "all delighted people..." becomes progressively more sad and ironic as the song progresses. Simon pleaded with the people to take his arms. Sufjan responds, "And I took you by the sleeve."

It's not the only time he's taken a sleeve. In Sufjan's song "No Man's Land" (which in was a response to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land") he sang, "This land is not your land, for the right hand takes what it can. Ransacks with the madman. For this land is not yours or mine to have. This land was made for the good of itself." Our culture's obsessive solipsism and it's death grip on the world play a role here as well.

Ultimately the last stanza pokes at those existential questions. This is a bitter confused slosh of a world. "Oh! But the world is a mess. And what difference does it make if the world is a mess? If the world is a mess! I tried my best. I tried in vain. Oh! But the world is a mess!" The back and forth of it is painfully uncomfortable. We tend to reach plateaus in life where we think we've learned to cope & compromise with the unfairness/horrors/messiness of the world. Probably because its finger isn't immediately upon us at that moment. Then it touches us again and sends us spinning. There is a yearning in his voice for connection and communion. "Oh! I love you a lot; Oh! I love you from the top of my heart. And you can see through my mistakes." The last line is a plea for the children, "Suffer not the child among you or shall you die young...", that last ellipses alluding, but not yielding at last, to the song's title.

The subject matter is everything but "delightful". But isn't it an amazing, joyful, awe-inspiring, yea, even delightful thing that this song was even written today? Lady GaGa, despite all her shock and awe domination of music media, is entirely banal. And I'm not advocating that all music must be all Sound-of-Silencey all the time (I will sing loud and strong anytime "Since U Been Gone" and "Irreplaceable" pop up on my iPod). But I do worry, are we missing a dialogue here? Are we as a culture still spiraling downward in a lack of true human communication and connection? All delighted people, raise their hands!

Feel free to listen to the song free of charge HERE. And/or pay 5 bucks and buy the EP.

Jamie Lidell

Among several terrific artists that will be gracing a new stage at the Twilight Concert Series this year is Jamie Lidell, whose album "Compass" dropped today.

Salt Lake City is a great place to live. Can you believe we get to watch this stuff for free?

Dance Yrself Clean

I interrupt this touchy-feely poetry fest to bring you breaking news from the world of music.

LCD Soundsystem is streaming their forthcoming album, This Is Happening, on their website. Be good to yourself and go listen to "Dance Yrself Clean". Turn up the volume. Perhaps, if you feel like it, move your hips a little. It's easily one of the best songs of the year.

Beach House: Teen Dream

An absolutely terrific album.

Record Club

Beck, the living legend, has an amazing little thing going on called "Record Club", which his website describes as "an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens."

The album which is the object of the latest installment is Skip Spence's "Oar". We've got a team of Beck (of course), Wilco, Feist, Jamie Liddell, and others lending a hand. (Sweet!!)

Favorite Songs of 2009

January is always a weird month in music. The shadows of the past year still hang heavy, and no great bands want to release an album the first month out of the gate (unless you're Animal Collective, then you can pretty much do whatever you want). A little late for a year end list? Perhaps, but it's never too late for great music.

Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
Dirty Projectors: Stillness Is The Move
Animal Collective: Bluish
Monsters of Folk: Temazcal
Cass McCombs: Executioner's Song
Phoenix: 1901
Bill Callahan: Too Many Birds
Sufjan Stevens: You Are The Blood
Bon Iver: Beach Baby
Yeah Yeah Yeah's: Dull Life
The Decemberists: Sleepless
The Big Pink: Velvet
Dirty Projectors & David Byrne: Knotty Pine
Tiny Vipers: Dreamer
Matt & Kim: Daylight
Throw Me The Statue: The Outer Folds

In The New Year

Colouring of Pigeons

Could it be possible that the best song of the year has already dropped? Check out the eleven minute monument...

The Knife: Colouring of Pigeons (streaming live from their website)

Favorite Albums of 2009

15. Ramona Falls - Intuit

Going Once, Going Twice (mp3)

14. Anni Rossi - Rockwell

Las Vegas (mp3)

13. Bowerbirds - Upper Air

Northern Lights (mp3)

12. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

Careless Love (mp3)

11. Atlas Sound - Logos

Sheila (mp3)

10. Beirut: March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland

La Llorona (mp3)

9. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca

Two Doves (mp3)

8. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest

While You Wait For The Others (mp3)

7. Throw Me The Statue: Creaturesque

Ancestors (mp3)

6. Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Eid Ma Clack Shaw (mp3)

5. The Mountain Goats: The Life of the World To Come

1 John 4:16 (mp3)

4. Cass McCombs: Catacombs

Harmonia (mp3)

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!

Skeletons (mp3)

2. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Lisztomania (mp3)

1. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion

Summertime Clothes (mp3)

Lyricist #1 - Will Sheff

I follow the blog of the poet Ada Limón, and she posted recently about an assignment given to her by Indigest Magazine to interview an artist who works in a different genre. She chose Will Sheff of Okkervil River. And I'm so glad she did. He is a truly brilliant lyricist. He rhymes without sounding compromised or cheesy, he uses repetition without it turning to filler, he can use tricks without sounding forced or contrived. He chooses his words so carefully. The lyrics read brilliantly on their own, but are understood more deeply when coupled with the music (not always the case with good lyrics). There might be a danger to approaching songwriting in too literary a manner, lest the words overshadow the song and melody itself. But whether his songs are whispy or loud he always maintains a balance. Will Sheff, a lyricist himself adored by poets.

Here are two examples:

"A Stone" is sad & superb. The narrator doesn't give any reasons why this girl should love him instead of this stone. He doesn't vow to lay her down in a bed of roses, so to speak, or raise her up so she can stand on mountains, as it were. He just flays her with this indictment of misdirected love. The end just kills.

"Unless it Kicks" is a tour de force. How many songs have we heard over the years about the trappings of rock and roll, and life on the road, etc.? None is more forthright about "living the lie" as Sheff is here, but through shared experience Sheff is able to find some jubliance, some wonder, some meaning despite the doomed nature of the whole affair.

A Stone (mp3)
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I'm found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I'm phoning my friends, and then I'm shouldering the blame, while you're picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going f*&%ing insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive you'd stop living alone.

And I think I believe that if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago

Unless It Kicks (mp3)
Okkervil River - The Stage Names (2007)

What gives this mess some grace unless it's kicks, man - unless it is fictions, unless it's sweat or it's songs? What hits against this chest unless it's a sick man's hand, from some midlevel band? He's been driving too long on a dark windless night, with the stereo on, with the towns flying by and the ground getting soft.

And a sound in the sky, coming down from above, it surrounds you and sighs and is whispering of what pulls your body down, and that is quicksand. So climb out quick, hand over hand, before your mouth's all filled up. What picks you up from down unless it's tricks, man? When I've been fixed I am convinced that I will not get so broke up again.

And on a seven day high, that heavenly song punches right through my mind and just hums through my blood. And I know it's a lie, but I'll still give my love. Hey, my heart's on the line for your hands to pluck off.

What gives this mess some grace unless it's fiction - unless it's licks, man, unless it's lies or it's love? What breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan, floating up from the stands with her heart opened up. And I want to tell her, "Your love isn't lost," and say "my heart is still crossed!" I want to scream, "hey, you're so wonderful! What a dream in the dark - about working so hard, about glowing, so stoned, trying not to turn off, trying not to believe in that lie all on your own."

Lyricist #2 - John Darnielle

For almost 20 years John Darnielle has crafted intense, uncompromising, original music. Whenever you hear the Mountain Goats you know it is them and not another. As far as vocals go I've never been his greatest fan, but I've come around the long way to that nasal deadpan delivery. And when it comes to lyrics there aren't many musicians out there that can even come close to John Darnielle. He is also staggeringly prolific. The first thing I ever heard from the Mountain Goats was "The Sunset Tree" in 2005, which by that time was already pretty far along in the discography. It marked a departure from his earlier material in that it was the most confessional collection of songs he'd ever released (and I am a true sucker for the honesty that accompanies that sort of thing). A large part of the album's subject matter deals autobiographically with Darnielle's relationship with his abusive stepfather. At one point he sings about a fantasized confrontation with the man, "I'm going to get myself in fighting trim, scope out every angle of unfair advantage. I'm going to bribe the officials. I'm going to kill all the judges. It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage." (!). By the album's end, however he seems to be coming to a sort of reconcilliation with the stepfather, and closes it out with this little beauty:

Pale Green Things (mp3)
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (2005)

Got up before dawn. Went down to the racetrack, riding with the windows down, shortly after your first heart attack. You parked behind the paddock. Cracking asphalt underfoot. Coming up through the cracks. Pale green things. Pale green things.

You watched the horses run their workouts. You held your stopwatch in your left hand, and a racing form beneath your arm. Casting your gaze way out to no man's land. Sometimes I'll meet you out there, lonely and frightened. Flicking my tongue out at the wet leaves. Pale green things. Pale green things.

My sister called at 3 AM, just last December. She told you how you'd died at last. At last, that morning at the racetrack was one thing that I remembered. I turned it over in my mind like a living Chinese finger trap. Seaweed in Indiana sawgrass. Pale green things. Pale green things.

Lyricist #3 - James Mercer

A friend of mine once commented on how unfortunate it was that The Shins came about at a time when "The" bands were so ubiquitous. It would have been easy to lump them into the mix of wannabe throwback hipsters. For every gift like The Walkmen or The Decemberists there were outfits like The Vines, The Killers, The Ravonettes, or The Strokes (not a fan). And although the exposure they got from Garden State almost became a cruel joke ("You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear." ::vomit::), James Mercer's endlessly creative melodies and equally creative lyrics speak for themselves. The Shins have something to say, and say it poetically.

One of the greatest break-up songs of all time, in my opinion, is Past and Pending. The song opens up in the Fall, the year is dying along with the relationship. Betrayal and infidelity burn in one set of eyes, and the narrator is caught in that painful moment between an idyllic past and lonely future. Anyone suffering from a broken heart knows what its like to "loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines disecting love." The risk the lyrics run throughout is in the complexity of metaphor. Mercer takes the figurative "lines" disecting his relationship and doubles their meaning, sadness, beauty through the lyrical lines he's writing, disecting his love in song.

Past and Pending (mp3)
The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)

As someone sets light to the first fire of autumn, we settle down to cut ourselves apart. Cough and twitch from the news on your face and some foreign candle burning in your eyes. Held to the past too aware of the pending, chill as the dawn breaks and finds us up for sale. Enter the fog another low road descending away from the cold lust, your house and summertime. Blind to the last cursed affair, pistols and countless eyes, a trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running. Feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch. Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love. Your name on my cast and my notes on your stay offer me little but doting on a crime. We've turned every stone and for all our inventions in matters of love loss, we've no recourse at all. Blind to the last cursed affair, pistols and countless eyes, a trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch. Loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love.

Lyricist #4 - Sufjan Stevens

I've never regretted the day I went to the record store and slapped down $14.99 (plus tax) for a brand new album called "Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State." (Record stores? What are those?) I'd been perusing various internet music sites and found the song "Romulus", which blew me away. Sufjan Stevens has been one of my favorite musical artists ever since. He graduated from The New School with an MFA in creative writing, where he also won the Chapbook award for fiction. (You can read some of his peices online. I recommend "All The Nonsense of Suffering" and "We Are Sheilded By the Holy Ghost".) Though it may not seem like it, based on the quantity of output, he is a feirce self-editor, which is essential in any writing (lyrical or otherwise).

One of my favorite Sufjan tracks is Vito's Ordination Song. Christy and I have two sons. When I hear this song, I can't help but think of taking each one into my arms, annointing their heads, and wanting for them every good thing, no matter what.

Vito's Ordination Song (mp3)
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan - The Great Lake State (2003)

I always knew you in your mother’s arms. I have called your name. I have an idea placed in your mind: to be a better man. I've made a crown for you. Put it in your room. And when the bridegroom comes there will be noise. There will be glad. And a perfect bed. And when you write a poem I know the words. I know the sounds before you write it down. When you wear your clothes, I wear them too. I wear your shoes and your jacket too. I always knew you in your mother’s arms. I have called you son. I've made amends between father and son. Or, if you haven't one, rest in my arms. Sleep in my bed. There is a design to what I did and said.

linked images = paintings by Brian Kershisnik

Lyricist #5 - Collin Melloy

Storytelling is one of the most time-honored branches of songwriting. And while still pretty central to most genres of popular music, especially pop country music, the form has devolved, in many respects, into a paint-by-numbers routine. Then there's Collin Melloy. Whether its a concept album based on a Japanese folktale or theatrical tracks about seafarers or gymnasts (and regardless of how such stories strike your fancy), you must admit he is a true storyteller. I recognize the trust he has in his listeners. He tells stories full of metaphor and symbolism and action without talking down or oversimplifying.

One of the key tenets of writing is "show, don't tell." In his song "Red Right Ankle" he shows three stories, each one speaking to a different aspect of the same relationship. He doesn't hand it to you in a to-go bag, but instead relies confidently on the interpretation of the listener. That's hard to do without being overly cryptic and vague.

Red Right Ankle (mp3)

The Decemberists - Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003)

This is the story of your red right ankle and how it came to meet your leg. And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled and how the skin was softly shed. And how it whispered, "Oh, adhere to me, for we are bound by symmetry. And whatever differences our lives have been we together make a limb." This is the story of your red right ankle.

This is the story of your gypsy uncle you never knew because he was dead. And how his face was carved and ripped with wrinkles in the picture in your head. And remember how you found the key to his hideout in the Pyrenees? But you wanted to keep his secret safe, so you threw the key away. This is the story of your gypsy uncle.

This is the story of the boys who loved you, who love you now and loved you then. And some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you, and some just layed around in bed. And some, they crumbled you straight to your knees-- did it cruel, did it tenderly. Some, they crawled their way into your heart to rend your ventricles apart. This is the story of the boys who loved you.

This is the story of your red right ankle.