LOSING THINGS
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

A crouching man, from Black and WTF blog

Flaming Lips - "Watching the Planets". Sometimes you reach for that crystal bottle because you want it to shatter. You want to grab it with your pink pretty hand and pour a dollop of wine and then when you take a sip - for all the monster in you to sour and redden, for your tendons to burst your gown and your eyes to glow like furnaces. You've taken a little drinky-drink, late at night, alone; and you know what that means, you know what that's supposed to mean. Stand up raging; shatter glass, bottle, cabinet and lamp; wreck everything; wreck yourself. That sip of ruby port and now you will find him, blow the sleep from his eyes. You'll roar in his face and tell him everything you've hidden. [Pitchfork did its thing today, and well; this is mine. / buy the startling and wonderful Embryonic]

Red House Painters - "Cruiser". My confession: I don't follow Mark Kozelek's story, here. I never do. I am not a story-song man. I can't trace lyrics, sung. I get lost in lilt and longing. I sink too deep into feel. And so no, I don't follow Mark Kozelek's story, here. Something about driving with a girl from Tokyo, listening to songs. I want Mark to know I feel sorry about this. I feel guilty. I have done him a dis-service, I think. But what I also want Mark to know is that even the people like me, way out here in Canada, listening to his songs without hearing the stories - we're listening real hard. We're listening and breathing, slow. We've put on records by Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon on so many late nights, slipped into chairs, streetlights hazy through the window. We've taken these songs with us on journeys. We've treasured them. I would not give away this song, give it up, for $20. Not for $50. Would I accept $200 to never hear this song again? I do not think I would. This song whose story I never follow. It's a song I do not understand but that murmurs to me, no matter what, you do. [buy]

(photo source - thanks andrew, see you in december)

Posted by Sean at November 5, 2009 1:49 PM
Comments

"Cruiser" is so beautiful. Sean, you have a tendency to word things in the exact way they need to be said.

Posted by Priya at November 5, 2009 8:00 PM

Wonderfully said -- so wonderfully that I may've written a slightly creepy blog post about you: http://adriaticwater.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-blog.html

Posted by Katie Norris at November 6, 2009 7:02 PM

Sean -- You tweeted about us not leaving you enough comments anymore. Sorry. Thank you for the Red House Painters. Can you forgive us?

Posted by Taryn at November 7, 2009 1:33 PM

i love what you wrote about cruiser. it is so beautiful. thank you.

Posted by lane at November 10, 2009 3:19 PM

I had never heard Cruiser before and now my life is better.

Posted by s at November 18, 2009 1:08 PM

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Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

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