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So, Sarah made a mix of songs that give her goosebumps, & because she kept running in here all excited-like to tell us about it, & because I’m still not up for actually cleaning & getting ready to move back to Erie, I’ve followed suit.
01. walkaways - counting crows
“& anyways, this change i’ve been feeling
doesn’t make the rain fall.”
when i was in middle school, i used to turn all the lights out, crawl into my sleeping bag, & play this song on repeat. it’s just over one minute long, but it never really got old to me-i’d cry & wonder when i was going to catch up with the world. i’d pretend to be invisible, but this song made me ache for someone to see me. adam duritz’s voice was always able to settle me down; he sang me to sleep for years. um, i guess that hasn’t stopped completely yet.
02. champagne high - sister hazel
“where will i be when i stop wondering why?
on a champagne high,
i'd toast to the future, but that'd be a lie.”
the lyrics are some of the saddest i’ve ever heard, but what gets me more than anything is the music. the way it will quiet down to just a guitar & then sweep into the chorus, changing tempo & going back again-by the first chorus, i am completely undone. i made a playlist for times when i need to cry, like when kara leaves or my grandma died or i’m getting to the end of a really sad book, & this was the first song i put on it. yesterday while i was crying, sarah cringed when this song came on & pronounced it the saddest song ever. i’ve decided that she’s right, & still, i can’t stop listening.
03. welcome home - tegan & sara
“he sat me down, he said he was incomplete,
he thinks true love’s gonna get him back on his feet.
he said you only find love once in your life,
so i guess when you find it, you’re gonna hold it right.”
i’m such a sucker for vocals over quiet music. especially here, since tegan & sara’s voices are just shades off from each other, so the overlapping & the harmonies are more haunting, somehow; & there’s this sweet sort of yearning in their voices that always kills me. this song always makes me homesick for wherever i left last.
04. sideways - matt caplan
“& at least i've got the sense to sense what's coming
& realize that good things never come to those who wait too long,
because everything i've ever done, i've done because i love you-
silly, you should ask.”
this song always worries me, because every time i listen to it, i hope that i won’t connect with it so much, & i’m always wrong. everything about this song kills me-the way that you can hear matt breathing between words, the way the chorus builds, the desperation of it all. when he sings, “i'm afraid that i'll spend the better part of next year scared that i might need you,” i hold my breath & bite my lip in spite of myself. someday, i will maybe hear this song & it won’t hurt so much-but you know, i’m not so anxious for it to happen.
05. time - tori amos
“& the things you can't remember
tell the things you can't forget
that history puts a saint in every dream.”
so, it’s actually a cover version, but while i can listen to tom waits’ original on mellow afternoons, tori’s cover always slays me. part of that the song on its own is poetic & painfully sad-again, with time passing & me looking back, feeling terrified. & when tori sings about napoleon, i just get weepy. but mostly, it’s the way that tori’s voice cracks on the chorus, & how she drops down to a whisper at the end of certain lines. oh, my god. just, please, listen if you haven’t already; there is nothing to say for this song.
06. kind of love you never recover from - christine lavin
"it was the kind of love you never recover from-
even though she found another one to take his place,
she never will escape the truth.
at times like this, when the moon is bright,
when the air is foggy like it is tonight,
she'll think about what might have been
if she had just held on to him.”
okay, i am convinced that this is the most frightening song in existence. it’s slow & so folksy that it would be silly, if it weren’t so fucking scary. it’s about lost love-people who said goodbye to lovers & moved on, married & raised children, swore they had no regrets. but then they wonder, always, what could have been, whether they’d have been happier. & if that isn’t worrisome enough, the song gets really personal, with the singer pleading with her lover to stay, lest he spend the rest of his life regretting the night he walked away. fjdsaklfjds;k, um, okay, i can’t even think about this anymore. don’t even listen to this song. pretend you don’t know it exists. or, um, put it on repeat & freak out the way that i always have; that works, too.
07. sweet avenue - jets to brazil
“budding at my fingertip-
touching you, i start to bloom.
alive with trains and passing ships,
soft and sweet along your lips now.”
an old, old eljay friend posted about this song once; she wrote the lyrics on her sandals and said it would always make her feel like she was in love. she was right. this has been one of my favorite songs for years. there’s a sense of ceremony about it: when i realize that i’m falling in love with someone, i have to listen. it feels like a mellow afternoon in the springtime. there are no words for how much i love this song.
08. weatherman - kris delmhorst
“i'm not a good lighthouse ‘cause i don't always shine;
i make a safe shore so hard to find.”
i don’t remember why i downloaded this, or why i hurriedly put it on a mix cd before flying home for thanksgiving. i was on an escalator in the detroit airport when it came on, & i stood still in the terminal, in front of the fountain, until i had restarted it & listened all the way through. i wish there weren’t so many occasions that seemed to call for an “i’m sorry, i’m kinda failing you again, huh?” song, but at least i’ve got this one. i am such a sucker for that moment when the drums kick in for the chorus, & i love kris’s voice with the slight twang & all that longing in it.
09. needle in the hay - elliott smith
“i’m taking the cure
so i can be quiet.”
i heard this song playing in my older cousin’s room, once, & downloaded it as soon as i got home. i’d leave it playing on repeat while i was at school, so that it would already be on when i came home from another awful day at school. i learned to be efficient in my angst, i guess. now i associate it with that scene in the royal tenenbaums, where richie slits his wrists, but before that, it used to calm me down, somehow.
10. you were here - sarah harmer
“i can just see you, show me your gardens-
i thought you'd grow roses and grapes on low vines
i wanted to know you when we were both older;
i thought there'd be more of those wonderful times.”
it’s strange, because i’ve had this cd since the summer after eighth grade, but i never even really listened to this song until the night she left for the first time, i don’t think, & then i fell apart. it didn’t even fit anything in my life until later on, but it’s served consistently as my soundtrack ever since that night. i love the way the music builds up to the chorus, i love the lyrics, i even love the way i tend to cry when she sings, “it’s a fortress now, but you know how it used to be.” i wish i’d bothered to appreciate this song years earlier, is all.
11. 100 years - five for fighting
“the sun is getting high;
we're moving on. . .”
this reminds me of that night last may, when kara & ash & i ate dinner on the beach & then got emotional over ice cream. we curled up on kara’s bed & held each other & cried while this song played; it was cathartic & completely necessary. from the second i hear the opening notes, i’m pretty much gone. is there anything more terrifying than the passing of time, seriously? i haven’t found it yet.
12. you had time - ani difranco
"how can i go home
with nothing to say?
i know you're going to look at me that way. . .”
the first two minutes are just piano, no vocals-& still, they’re almost painful. the resignation in ani’s voice, the way you can hear her fingers sliding over the strings-it’s so intimate that i always want to listen with headphones just to keep the sound contained, somehow. when she sings, “the only one who really loved me is you,” i usually end up crying, if i haven’t started already by that point. this is probably my favorite crying song-it’s so simple, so quiet, & still, it overwhelms me every single time.
13. collecting you - indigo girls
“i could paint you in the dark
‘cause i’ve studied you with hunger,
like a work of art.”
because not all of the songs that give me goosebumps are entirely depressing. i mostly connect this story with ellen-i’d put it on in the wintertime & sit with a notebook on my lap, trying to write down every detail i could remember of her. i tried to recall mundane conversations, what she had been wearing that day, things i overheard her telling other people. i taped down notes she’d passed me in class, even, & mementos from places we went together. i threw the notebook out in the winter of grade ten, because my mother had read some of my diaries & i was sure she’d find the notebook next. i still don’t know if she ever did; i wish i’d held onto it. hearing this song is the closest i can come now to getting it back.
14. i remember - damien rice
"i remember it well:
there was wet in your hair;
i was stood in the stairs
& time stopped moving.”
i first heard this song last november, & i only ever really listened to the first half. i kept stopping & restarting over winter holiday, when i was stuck in erie, crying over tiny memories, scribbling down bits of conversations i was afraid of forgetting. now, i’m in love with the entire song, & the way that it transitions from soft & pleading to loud & raging, oh my god. i love that the line “i remember december” is in it, because that’s the month this song always takes me back to.
15. you’re aging well - dar williams
"’we're so glad that you finally made it here.
you thought nobody cared, but we did; we could tell.
& now you'll dance through the days while the orchestra plays,
& oh, you're aging well.’"
there are more people singing this song, & i have never been able to find out who they are. but um, this song makes me a little less afraid of growing old, which is remarkable. i love the variety of vocals, especially when the older woman comes in. there are at least five dar songs that consistently bring me to tears, but this is the most hopeful one; when i get strung-out on melodrama & worry that i’m destined to die alone, this song always soothes me.
16. burning bridges - chris pureka
"oh, and sometimes you say, ‘you know, nothing can happen,’
& then she leans over & lifts off your glasses.
& next thing you know,
you're just tangled and guilty. . .”
i’ve wanted to be in love with chris for the past year & a half, & this song alone nearly does it. it was pretty much all i listened to for about a month of my life, so it reminds me of coming home from afternoon classes & crying over situations i’ve already forgotten & making love in early evening & staying up late to write papers & all of the day-to-day living, i guess. this whole stage of my life is wrapped up in that song that i got to see chris play once; when i hear it, i have to close my eyes & just remember, because it’s overwhelming to me now. this song is perfection, to me, & if you haven’t heard it yet, let’s fix that.
17. asleep - the smiths
“there is another world,
there is a better world-
well, there must be.”
this was like a soundtrack for suicide fantasies, but i needed it, really. it’s so simple, so repetitive, like a lullaby about wanting to die. all the same, i mostly listened to angry music; this was something i could sleep to, a song i could play while i hid out & waited for that better world. robert yelled at me & told me not to end with a song about suicide, but it feels right, somehow, so fuck it.
I tried to make it not a completely depressing mix, but given the theme, that didn’t work out so well, so. I’ll counter it with a sunny springtime mix soon, since it’ll give me an excuse to procrastinate on packing.
Speaking of which, I am not ready to leave Asheville. Too many loose ends, too many fears about what I’m coming home to. I’m kind of hiding out, the past few days-worried about failing people, fucking up. If I pretend that certain tensions don't exist, if I forget that my extended family is falling apart, if I pretend I've something waiting for me in Erie, then I can still sing Indigo Girls in the shower, still function. Ro_bert & I made up, & cemented our reunion by watching Dashboard Confessional’s MTV Unplugged performance, yessssssss. And my mom keeps sending me inspirational e-mails, & I still kick ass at Oregon Trail, & we’re going to watch Velvet Goldmine very soon, & the friends I haven’t pushed away are the greatest people in the world, & so, in spite of the recent melancholy, I remain a lucky, lucky girl. Who is listening to Rockapella without a trace of shame, oh my god, hahaha. Too bad ELJAY SUCKS & FUCKED UP MY TEXT FORMATTING. But Jose is back (!!!) & so is my voice (damn laryngitis) & tomorrow has to be better; it has to.
I love you all, okay? I know I don't say it enough, but I do.