I am finally at an age and state of mental clarity wherein I feel like I am not living my life by blindly stumbling around in some kind of very large, very dark, very cluttered room.
(you know, one of the ones where you are almost guaranteed even under the best of circumstances to knock over some kind of rare porcelain music box or jam your toe into the impassive leg of a Very Old Very Heavy Piece of Furniture. like a grandma-place.)
So anyway, what I am saying is, I am sort of starting to feel like at least I might know where the major landmarks are, perhaps the larger bits of furniture, and maybe where the door is. Obviously there is still a lot to not knock over or stumble into, but I have a somewhat reasonable confidence that I will not cause grievous bodily harm to myself or to any other of my fellow occupants of this very large, very dark, very cluttered room of "life".
Well this metaphor is getting torturous. What I want to say is, at least now I know what I like.
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I like steady and bright percussion, usually snare-y
I like voices that are expressive and bold and clear and beautiful
I like lyrics that address real human emotions without dipping into cliche or melodrama (or at least doing that dip well)
I like songs that use their own song-ness as a metaphor
I LOVE a good emotional crescendo
and I have loved this song since I first heard it when I was 18 and too dumb to know what "the needle" was:
The song: Neko Case, "The Needle Has Landed"; 2006
The moment: 0:59
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Incidentally, I also love zeugma, which is a term I never would have learned if I had not dated a Classics major for a brief-but-painfully-bright time in my freshman year of college.
And what's crazy to me now is to think that I have loved Neko Case for so long that I loved her before I loved that guy, or any of the others.
That's what music does for people, it threads their life in an interesting fashion.
Let it play.
Yrs,
AW
PS It is Tuesday and that means you can Turn It Up with me later this evening if you so choose. 3am-6am Eastern time, 88.3 FM or wcbn.org
