This post won’t go where you think.
The Songs of National Freedom is a song by Richard Swift. I first heard it over a decade ago on some playlist somewhere and like songs often do, it stuck with me.
These are complicated times. They’re not the first ones we’ve experienced, but they’re certainly strange. I spend a lot of time thinking about whether the place I lives reflects my own values, how to imbue more of those values into the community and through what means (e.g. financial, labor, et. al.)
Music plays a part in this confusion. I have a vast musical library (to rent) at my fingertips, and will sometimes vacillate between genres I had no idea existed a few years ago. Some days shift wildly from Brazilian shoegaze, to West African highlife, and ends with some hard-bop jazz or Korean R&B. It’s a weird time to be alive, and frankly for me, probably not a better time in history than now.
Reconciling what that actually means in practice, is an entirely different thing.
Speaking of listening to rented music libraries, the Canadian band “The Wooden Sky” put out a record a bunch of years ago called If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone. I saw them live once on my birthday — in Los Angeles — back in 2012. It was pretty great, but I never owned that album because it was always available on streaming. Until it wasn’t. After a recent trip to Toronto, I had a hotel room with a record player (I probably wrote about it in my last newsletter) and I decided that listening to music on vinyl wasn’t so bad after all.
Anyway, I bought a copy of that Wooden Sky record and it’s like reconnecting with an old friend.
I had a cheap record player I bought when I lived in my Bloomington apartment, but gave it away when I moved to Portland. I want a better one. I also need to make space for that and some records. One of the things about moving a lot, is that it’s easy to keep a small footprint because heavy things or large catalogs get to be a real hassle to ship. (Not to mention expensive.)
Over the years, I’ve done a much better job — though not a perfect one — of culling all of the extra stuff I was carrying around. Still, there is something a bit joyful to me about reconnecting with my old self from time to time. I started writing in a journal that is a five-year diary with the days stacked on top of year other, so the next year on that day you can see the previous entries.
I’ve been meaning to do that for a while — a diary — and so, I’ve been pretty good about writing notable things in it most days. It’s real brief, and meant to get to the point or else, I’d waffle and not do it. I’m curious at the end of Year 5, what I’ll think of the previous four.
The funny thing about liking semi-obscure music is how often it can connect me to people. I’ve made some of my best real life friends starting music conversations and being able to spend hours listening to records, being introduced to bands, and getting to shows for artists with whom I’d never heard of; only to discover were missing from my life.
It’s not why I listen to music. It’s pretty personal, really. I can tell you the cassettes I brought with me when I left home after high school. It was a real process, too. I didn’t want to carry my entire collection, so I picked albums I wouldn’t get tired of listening to on a long trip across the country.
The Sundays - Static and Silence
Garbage - Version 2.0
I don’t remember the only one, it’s very possible I brought two Sundays albums with me. And then I recall picking up more music that summer, though the small town where the camp I worked was didn’t really have much of a music store to speak of.
What’s I’ve been listening to lately..
According to my last.fm, it’s been as strange as usual in these parts. Happy to curate personal recommendations, if you get in touch though.
Until next time,
RB