Someday I'll be like the man on the screen

The new Fleet Foxes album is so, so good. My dear compatriots, when you think the best of music is behind us, know that there is no wrong side of history. If you need more proof (as there are so many astounding musicians in this generation) I think Fleet Foxes have provided it with 'Helplessness Blues'. Since you asked, yes, I think Crosby, Still, Nash, and even Young would admire it. That's the thing with great music, when it's good, it's timeless. Gosh, I still can't get over the lyrics... I imagine laying in a sunny wheat field contemplating my whole life, and when I was done making all of those life changing decisions, I'd go to my orchard and work 'till I'm sore.

I can't quit playing Montezuma, Helplessness Blues, The Cascades (which makes me feel like I need to run away from New York City and join a band of traveling gypsies on and American adventure), and Blue Spotted Tail. Instaclassic.

I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station
Oh just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful
And say "Sure take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls
And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing
It's that every thing that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable
Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy
And I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm raw
If i had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables
And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight
My light in the dawn
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be
Like the man on the screen

'Tis the Swell Season!

STOP THE PRESSES!

I usually let it go a week, or 3 months, or so until I say anything on here. However, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, (you may recall weeping over their albums together as The Swell Season.. and let us not forget Once) released Strict Joy on the 27th, and subsequently completed my second, and maybe third, life. They got the name right, that's for sure. Their lyrics and melodies swell in the heart and what overflows can only be described as complete and unadulterated joy and sorrow and love and awe. It's quite impressive, really.

It's happy and heartful and souful and haunting; a candid shot of a heart on a sleeve. If you're truly aching for something that will catch all the fish hooks surrounding your heart and tug up the greatest and most genuine ardor lurking under the surface, Strict Joy will have you reaching for a Kleenex and and hand to hold. Still trying to figure out how to speak the fiery Goidelic language of love, maybe this Irishman will look at me with those deep pools of blue green eyes and sing In These Arms.... Sigh.

From Strict Joy:

1. Low Rising
2. Feeling the Pull
3. In These Arms

Cheers,

Merman