i am trying to break your heart
The National is doing just that: snapping heartstrings and tying them back together, again and again. It's "England," and I don't want to know what the words really are, because I hear "Afraid of the house / stay the night with the sinners," and that's what I want it to say. That's what I want to hear.
Last night I had all the Alkaline Trio albums in my collection on random when a certain song came on that I associate, incredibly strongly, with a boy I never even met. It was summer; it was still Diaryland, mostly, sort of, and there were mix CDs and long emails singing between Southern California and my mom's deck in Oregon, where I sat and composed letters that bordered on epic in scope. We never met. We were just friends communicating in borrowed lyrics and long conversations with deniable undertones. But this song is always him in my ears.
I could make a whole mix that way. Years. A decade and change - a lot of change, really - in songs that never stand alone. I can't pin them all down, but some are unmissable: Luna: "California (All the Way)"; Superchunk, "100,000 Fireflies"; Death Cab for Cutie, "Company Calls Epilogue"; The Halo Benders, "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" (a song I can barely listen to); PJ Harvey, "You Said Something"; The Jealous Sound, "Anxious Arms"; Alkaline Trio, "Blue Carolina."
And more I can't admit to.
I wish I were wearing different shoes today. I wish I could sit in the sun and have a conversation with a half-stranger with whom I'd be friends by the end of half an hour talking about Fluevogs and Jets to Brazil. I wish I didn't have to do work. I wish I could round you all up for an adventure in the park and giggling in the back of the movie theater. I've been half hibernating all summer, and I want to make a mess of friends, a puppy pile of connections, of people with whom I never feel like I'm not myself.
I want to be known.
Blame these songs.
Last night I had all the Alkaline Trio albums in my collection on random when a certain song came on that I associate, incredibly strongly, with a boy I never even met. It was summer; it was still Diaryland, mostly, sort of, and there were mix CDs and long emails singing between Southern California and my mom's deck in Oregon, where I sat and composed letters that bordered on epic in scope. We never met. We were just friends communicating in borrowed lyrics and long conversations with deniable undertones. But this song is always him in my ears.
I could make a whole mix that way. Years. A decade and change - a lot of change, really - in songs that never stand alone. I can't pin them all down, but some are unmissable: Luna: "California (All the Way)"; Superchunk, "100,000 Fireflies"; Death Cab for Cutie, "Company Calls Epilogue"; The Halo Benders, "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" (a song I can barely listen to); PJ Harvey, "You Said Something"; The Jealous Sound, "Anxious Arms"; Alkaline Trio, "Blue Carolina."
And more I can't admit to.
I wish I were wearing different shoes today. I wish I could sit in the sun and have a conversation with a half-stranger with whom I'd be friends by the end of half an hour talking about Fluevogs and Jets to Brazil. I wish I didn't have to do work. I wish I could round you all up for an adventure in the park and giggling in the back of the movie theater. I've been half hibernating all summer, and I want to make a mess of friends, a puppy pile of connections, of people with whom I never feel like I'm not myself.
I want to be known.
Blame these songs.