More sad song love: Mountain Angel

(written early in the year while still at sea...)

I've already established that I like sad songs. This is just a short moment to comment on the latest which is breaking my heart into little pieces. It is nothing new that I'm listening to Dolly Parton. Love, love, love her. Anyway, I've lately been giving her another listen to and "Mountain Angel" snuck up on me and punched me in the tear ducts. (incongruously, my shuffle just followed it with "9 to 5" which is not a transition I'm ready to make.)

Such a pretty little song, but just horrible and so damn sad. It would almost be a hokey tale, but Ms. Parton knows how to write if nothing else. She obviously also knows how to sing, and in this song her two talents combine to terrible effect. The melody is so sweet and gentle, and the story starts out the same but it doesn't stop until the title character is a naked crazy lady scaring children and screaming through the night after her death upon on her dead baby's grave. Don't hold back, Dolly.

I'm sure I've listened to this before and just sat around soaking up its sad, because in college Kearney and Willis got this cd and became obsessed with it. I didn't like her cover of "Shine" (because I dislike the song itself, not her rendition) and was already a fan, so I didn't quite replay it quite like they did, but I am sure I was sat down and told to listen to the song and have my heart stomped on for a little while. I don't remember this specifically happening, but I know this happened because I do remember them (aaaakkkk!!! "9 to 5" again! Too happy, too soon... ahhh, "Dagger Through the Heart", much better) sitting me down and forcing me to listened with focus to songs from this album as they had done with other albums and songs, including most notably "The Coward of the County" by Kenny Rodgers. If you don't know the song, go listen to it; if you aren't crying at the end of the song, you need to see the Wizard and ask him for a heart. Maybe I should blame my obsession with sad songs on them (it totally predated them, they might have made me more willing to talk about it and coached me to cry out loud over songs).

I've said before that even if you have to cry listening to it to be human, ultimately "The Coward of the County" has a cathartic resolution at the end which tempers the brutality of the sadness in the song. In a way this makes it all the more potent and it is usually this little glimmer of hope that is the point at which you crack and breakdown listening to it. The tragedy isn't always as bald as in "Coward" ("...the torn dress, the shattered look..."), but these hokey emotional destroyers are the secret ninjas of country music. They sound so friendly and sweet and you don't even realize you've started listening to the words, you didn't mean to leave it on this station and all of a sudden you are stuck at a red light trying to wipe away the tears before the light changes (or the other drivers notice). Why didn't someone warn you that something named "Teddybear's Last Ride" or "Giddyup Go" or "Christmas Carol" could blow up your heart like that? Hell, if you aren't careful and no one is around to keep face in front of, even "Roll On" can do it, but all these songs leave you feeling exhausted but still somehow a little vindicated. It all works out in the end. "Coat of Many Colors" is this kind of song, actually one of the most potent and dangerous of the genre, only made safe by its ubiquity.

"Mountain Angel" does not do this, does not take you down and bring you up. You probably won't actually cry listening to it; it doesn't do tricks to give the heart a big yank other than start off happy and sound so sweet. But if you are sad and you are open to feeling the cracks in humanity's shiny veneer, this one just keeps dropping, down and down. Sunshine turns to clouds, man leaves girl pregnant, baby dies, she has mental breakdown... it is just getting going.

Sad Song Mix continued: the final cut

I could probably spend the entire damn trip writing about the songs that should be included and why I won't include them, so I'll just cut to the chase (this of course is no guarantee that I won't change my mind several times before hitting land again and give you more boring play by play the whole time) and share the final line up with a few comments on the selections:

1) the longest drive - the Capricorns (for the duration of this commentary, I'm not capitalizing most titles of songs and mean nothing by it other than I'm feeling lazy. )
So maybe in the greater universe this isn't one of the saddest songs of all time, but I've been Capricorning myself to death and obsessed with them since the last trip. In listening to them over and over and over and over again on that trip, it struck me how truly sad this song is, which you would never notice if you just went by the frantic electro beat, but when you give it a good listen that frantic pace only seems to reinforce the desperation and loss this song is a record of.

2) the grand tour - George Jones.
As I said before, the man has a voice made for breaking your heart. This isn't his most desperate song but it packs a wallop. "A Good Year for the Rose" might have edged this one out if I had it in my library.

3) golden ring - Tammy Wynette and George Jones.
Again, I've already discussed why this song is so pointed. You are probably thinking to yourself that I'm not really going to break anyone's heart with my song selection so far, and that might be true, particularly since I imagine my main audience to be comprised of cold hearted bastards (which you must all be since no one ever leaves comments. Of course this assumes an audience...).

4) miss being mrs. - Loretta Lynn.
Too damn beautiful for words. So simple and to the point, just laying out flat how she is missing her husband. No embellishment, just direct and lovely phrasing.

5) letter to mom - Iris Dement.
Enough of just sad, let the soul crushing begin. If she wanted to sing it sad, Iris Dement could make you cry with "Jingle Bells"; there is just something in that voice. If she, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, and Gillian Welch brought their voices together, what hell they could cause. Throw in Lucinda Williams and the vocal combination could destroy us all if they decided it was time for us to cry. They each have a different kind of gorgeous warble that can either make you think of angels or just rip your fucking heart out. Iris is kind of the most punk of them all, with the most unruly voice which can sound so childishly innocent but always barely holding back this ethereal growl. She (particularly with any combination of the above women) could make the most amazing Southern gothic rock opera album. Let's imagine it with all of them...

I'm getting off track. I'll plan out my fictional world where I decide who sings what songs later. Back to sad songs and Iris crushing our souls. "Our Town" might be sadder in a way; it is certainly more defeated, but this song is so wrenching it is hard to believe it was even written much less sung and, having been sung, that it was sung by this voice. It starts so friendly but the subject matter... holy shit. (note: in the liner notes from this album, Ms. Dement points out that this is not autobiographical, but she did write it to help her process a story told her by a friend.)

You could argue that this song is too upbeat sounding or too defiant or...no, listen to it again and cry some tears.

6) six o'clock in the morning - ?
I don't know who the artist is. I can't remember for the life of me and have lost all the other songs I had by him, but I remember all the ones that I had were somehow in this same vein of wow-life-is-miserable-but-you-have-to-trudge-on. It is just sort of plodding misery and the weight of life's futility piling on instead of any one tragedy. Instead it focuses on that horrible moment of any routine day -getting out of bed- and treats it as the Sisiphean task that it is.

7) one more dollar - Gillian Welch.
One more soul-crushed-by-daily-life, there-but-for-the-grace-of song. Something in this song is so sad to me. I listen to it and cringe (and then listen to it again).

8) cold missouri waters - Richard Shindell with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplanski.
This is cheating. This is from the album Cry Cry Cry which was made by these three sadists for the express purpose of collecting tear jerking tunes. But I don't care. The atmosphere in the song, the way the story is shared, the death bed confessional of it all. So damn amazing. Just a good plain sad song.

9) lonlier than this - Steve Earle.
Steve Earle can write a fucking song. And though he does great rebel songs and love songs, his sad songs are pretty hard to beat. I love this song. From the first time I heard it, I was mesmerized by the direct wallowing of it all. "It doesn't get any lonlier than this," is a pretty bold statement but he catches that emotion that makes that statement seem truly pained and sincere rather than hokey. I love singing this song, but Mason blatantly refuses to play it ever on account of it being too sad (this is from someone whose favorite song to sing in "Long Black Veil").

10) travelling soldier - Dixie Chicks.
I wanted to include "Am I the Only One", which is one of my all-time faves, but somehow in all these other songs its existential howl seemed too far away. "When You Were Mine" was a close second, but for just sheer complete and utter sad-songness this one can't really be beat. Natalie Maines has the voice to deliver it, and the story is so sweet then so lonely and hurt. It starts so pretty and you kind of have a moment when you know it is going to turn bad, but really, the image of the lonely girl in her band uniform crying under the bleachers while no one else cares is so insanely heart breaking.

11) ruby, don't take your love to town - Kenny Rogers and The First Edition.
The groovy back beat and finger picking makes the song sound amazing in a way that it is easy to forget some old country songs used to sound. But Kenny's quiet pleading in the song contrasts that so perfectly. It can't be just a man wishing his woman would do right by him; it has to be a song about a crippled vet watching his woman slip away from him because of his war injury as he lies there slowly dying. Don't hold back now. Of course, the song most likely to make anyone anywhere cry is Rogers' "The Coward of the County" and I haven't forgotten this, but I figured one rape song is enough for any list and anyway in the end of that song, you get revenge and get to feel an explosive surge of everything-is-right-in-the-world that kind of nullifies the pure sad-songness of it all. (Note to Kenny on the off chance that he ever reads this: drop the 'touching' mellow adult contemporary stuff for a while and make a kick-ass rough-around-the-edges album. And do a duet with Dolly on it. In a perfect world, the duet would be a cover of the Mountain Goats' "No Children" a la Kiki and Herb).

12) if we make it through december - Merle Haggard.
Just one of the most heart breaking songs ever. Not woe-is-me-my-baby-left-me or any crap like that, but a poor man being crushed by not being able to provide for his family at Christmas time.

13) martha - Tom Waits.
I've already written extensively about this song, so I won't beat a dead horse. Just so beautiful and sweetly sad. Tear-jerkers don't have to all be soul crushing.

14) getting over you - Janice Ian.
The way this woman writes and the way she sings... damn! "At Seventeen" could have been here, but teenage misery only deserves so much sympathy, even when it is captured so perfectly. And this is just so sad. From the first moment you hear the voice in the song, there is this tension of "I'm fine, no problem" and just-about-to-lose-it. There is that moment when she sings "You want answers that I can't give; you want words I don't know!" where her voice explodes at "know" and does something that gives me chills. The phrase is powerful enough and then she has to do that thing with her voice and it blows my mind every time.

15) red dirt girl - Emmylou Harris.
Again, one of these warbly angel voices that can kill. Of all my beautiful tremulous ladies, Ms. Harris's voice is completely other-worldly. Almost too hypnotic to break your heart at times, because you can get so lost in it, but this song kills me. Maybe it hits me all the harder since it is set in my landscape. Red-clay Alabama is my homeland, and there is something about that dirt that gets to you. That may seem like a dumb thing to say, but... I don't feel like discussing the affect of the soil on the mood of the landscape from my childhood. Let's just say when she sings about a red-dirt girl, it has immediate impact for me and there is built in tragedy in that landscape and the story in the songs fits perfectly. I wonder if I'd feel the same about the song if I were from somewhere else.

16) billy grey - Robert Earl Keen, Jr.
Just a plain beautiful tragic love song. This man doesn't get near enough credit as either a song writer or singer. Something in this song always gets me.

17) ruby's arms - Nanci Griffiths.
So Iris can growl and Emmylou can make you feel like you are in a legend, but for just breaking your heart straight out, nobody's got nothing on Nanci. Something in her voice cuts like a knife. This song is kind of pleasant and billowy, but the sadness is so overwhelming. It is one of those songs where I start wanting to pick it apart as I listen and scream at the protagonist not to leave, to question motives and all that crap, but her voice pushes that away and I'm just left with no doubt that he has to leave, that he truly loves her, that he can never turn back and I accept it all kind of soothingly, but then Nanci sings "Jesus Christ, this cold hard rain; won't someone put him on his train?" And my heart breaks right down the middle.

18) sweet loraine - Patty Griffin.
This is the first song by Patty Griffin that caught my attention. When I was in college in Charleston, the local music store had listening stations and I used to go between classes sometimes and just bury myself in songs. This album was up for a while and I listened to this song over and over and over again. It blew my mind everytime. It still does. The little phrases in the song are the ones that kill you. "Her mother threw stones at her on the day she moved. Now isn't that a funny thing to do, from someone who never really wanted you?" and "Her daddy calls her a slut and a whore on night before her wedding day; the very next morning, at the church, her daddy gave Lorraine away." would be gut wrenching by themselves, but again we've got a singer here who makes you feel it.

19) anymore - Travis Tritt.
This almost feels cheesy next to "Sweet Lorraine" but Mr. Tritt can deliver sad and be believable in a way that too many of "Today's Hottest Country" artists can't. I would just consider this a nice sad song, but I've got the indelible memory of the video attached to it. He had this series of relentlessly heartbreaking videos to go along with his songs and this was the clincher (if I'm remembering correctly). In this one, he is a wheel-chair bound vet whose best friend is an old black man who walks with a cane, who is working on his boat when his very pregnant wife brings him a snack, slips on the boat, hitting her head as she falls into the water. He crawls out of his wheelchair and sprawls helplessly on the dock reaching for her in the water as his old friend wades into the water to pull her to safety. She dies, but the baby lives for him to raise alone. The song is being sung as he his preparing to explain to his now adolescent daughter how her mother died. The video ends with them pulling up in their boat to the place where the mother is buried and his daughter turning to him and saying "Why do we always come here on my birthday, Daddy?" It sounds too schlocky to stand, but somehow they pulled it off without making seem like a farce and basically just pile as much tear-jerk as can fit in one video. The song by itself is sad and beautiful, but the memory of that video won its place in my mix.

(update: note that in the comments, some kind person corrects my memory, pointing out that the video I described remembering above was "Tell Me I Was Dreaming". This was actually a video trilogy, with "Anymore" showing him in the VA hospital, becoming friends with the black guy, trying to push his wife away and finally breaking down and returning her call and finding her still in love with him. She takes him home and every -including you- cries and smiles. The end of the trilogy with him taking the little girl to her mother's grave is chronicled in "If I Lost You". To make sure I got it straight this time, I just re-watched all three videos and had my heart smashed to bits again. Do not watch these unless you really want to cry.)

20) sometimes i still feel the bruise - The Mountain Goats.
Again, I've already covered this song ad nauseum so I won't recap here. Go read the other post.

21) You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive - Patty Loveless.
It isn't a warble that makes Patty Loveless's voice so deadly, but there is such unbelievable power in her voice. And few people can sing sad like she can. There are a couple of other songs from the same album which are heart breakers, but this song still stands out. The story is beautiful and tragic, but the whole sound of it kills you. If it didn't have words and she were just singing the sounds you would still get your heart destroyed by this song. You don't need the words. More than any other song on this list, it just sounds tragic. Brad Paisly also recorded this song, and I can't imagine what he was thinking. Actually, I can. It is a beautiful song and who wouldn't want to sing it? But damn, the list of people who could do it justice after this version is a very, very short list and Paisly is a great entertainer but only a good singer. Raul Malo or Toby Keith or Dwight Yoakam might be able to make a passable swipe at it, but still...

22) he was a friend of mine - Willie Nelson.
It is no secret that I love Willie Nelson. Obsessively. But all that aside, this song is a killer. So quietly sad. And this isn't a song that is easy to sing (try sing along for a minute. I'll wait), but Willie's voice captures something so perfectly here. The song has this tremendous potential, but without the right voice it would be nothing special. The lyrics are kind of repetitious and bland, which are strengths the way it is sung here, but in different hands you would just have a plodding, pleading yelp. Oddly enough, I have three versions of the song on my computer. Cat Power does ok with it. Nothing special. And I've got Mercury Rev doing it. They do a suprisingly good job with it, but the song just doesn't break your heart without Willie wielding it.

Anyway, that's gone on long enough. If anyone has good sad song suggestions, I'm always looking for some tear-inducing heartbreakers.

Sad Song Mix is totally back on!

So I still don't have "There Were Roses" (hint hint Mason, email it to me), but I found that I do have "Billy Grey" and "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive". Besides, "There Were Roses" skates the fine line into activism songs. Don't worry, I'd still include it happily (or sadly, I guess), but I'm trying to talk myself out of including "Black Boys on Mopeds" which is totally an angry at the world issue song, but so damn spot on in sad-songness with the emotion in O'Connor's voice; and also Johnny Cash's "Ballad of Ira Hayes" which is also super issue-y and sung with more growling defiance than sadness and is sing-songy, but it is so damn sad and wretched that you can't really help having your heart broken. But if I include it, I feel like it is a small step to suddenly including "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" which is totally moving but all issue and completely not what I am going for with this time-wasting exercise.

I know that having mentioned Sinead O'connor that the obvious song for a sad mix is "Nothing Compares 2 U", but it was so popular and is so connected in my memory with images of the video that it takes a moment of active dissociation before I can just lose myself in the song, so it is out.

As long as we are talking issue-y but moving sad songs, "Tomorrow, Wendy" was a contender but is also out. The sound of the song is too pleasant and the voice too defiant. Of course this combination juxtaposed with the subject matter and lyrics is what makes it such a moving song, but still, out. I am tempted to let "Joey" in, though. Its melody might be a little too upbeat too, but damn that voice. Knife straight in the heart. If they hadn't backed her with pleasant upbeat tempos we'd have all killed ourselves or been scarred for life listening to Concrete Blonde. But the song is kind of a make up song, not the completely heart stomped tragedy we are going for here. If we were going to let "Joey" on board, then I feel like I'd have to also include "Jesse". "Jesse come home, there's a hole in the bed where we slept now it's growing cold," is about as pleading a line as you could ask for, but still it is a reconciliation song that only might be hopeless and besides, if I wanted my heart ripped out and stomped on by Joan Baez (which is exactly the kind of thing I am sucker for), I would include "Prison Trilogy", which I don't have and which brings us back full circle to issue songs.

Sad Song Mix: ain't gonna happen

Like I've said before, I love sad songs. Really, really, really love sad songs. And a favorite time waster on the the boat is compiling playlists. Some of these actually materialize as mix cd's for friends, but sometimes I just pick a loose theme and run with it. Tonight I decided to, you guessed it, make a sad song mix. I've told myself that I am going to make the ultimate cry your eyes out mix cd, but this aim is going miserably. First there is the issue with suddenly remembering songs which have to be on it that I know I don't have. You can't make the saddest cd ever without Kathy Matthea singing "There Were Roses" or Patty Loveless's "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive", both of which I should have, but don't have with me.

And then there is the issue of whether or not picking songs that make you cry because they are so touching is allowed. I don't mean horrid shit like "Butterfly Kisses" or "Holes in the Floor of Heaven" (which, being honest here, both of which I found touching-ish when I first heard them -I totally have a soft spot for cheesy sappy stuff like that- but they were beat to fucking hell on the radio and only sort of tolerable from the start), but stuff like Red Sovine's spoken word tear-jerk trucking tales like "Giddyup Go". Yes, just as patently cheesy and intentionally schlocky but the sincerity is sweetly subtle and doesn't feel quite so fakey-fake to me (maybe just because I grew up listening to it) and really, if you can listen to "Giddyup Go" or "Teddybear's Last Ride" without tearing up, you should be institutionalized. Same goes for "Christmas Carol", which oddly enough I would totally include on this mix if I had it, even though I wouldn't allow the other aforementioned touching tear-jerkers. It is kind of in its own league of make you cry retardedly songs, and strangely the first Christmas song I heard on the radio this year, after several years of not hearing it (and it is one of those songs that is only effective if you hear it randomly on the radio).

Anyway, I kind of decided that I was trying to find actual sad songs, not just weepy things (though again, "Christmas Carol" still counts. If you know what song I'm talking about, you know why). Things were going ok until I decided that I would peruse some George and Tammy. Now, when you want to break a heart with voices, those two have criminal talent. This only makes it more difficult. Sometimes they both get a little too goofy with their phrasing. Now George Jones totally clowns intentionally, and you can tell he knows he being cute with his words even when he's singing tragedy, but Tammy Wynette does not. She may know it is a gimmick, but damn if she doesn't sing those songs even more sincerely and deadpan, and faced with this delivery and these horrific messages in cute packages I can't decide whether to bawl or crack up.

I told myself that "He Stopped Loving Her Today" may in fact be one of the truly saddest songs ever written, but it is so omnipresent that it feels like cheating and doesn't have some of the oomph for me that other songs might, so I settled on "The Grand Tour" for Mr. Jones. Mrs. Wynette on the other hand, she is killing me. Seriously.

It is her cheeseball songs which kill you. "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" might be the most ridiculed song on earth because of how silly the concept of the song is, but on the other hand, it kind of rips your damn heart out exactly because of this goofiness letting the heartbreak story sneak up on you.
But you can only hear so many of these songs before you kind of just have to bust out laughing. "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and "She Didn't Color Daddy" and "I Don't Want to Play House" are each heartrending in their own right, but with her whole resume of songs in this vein, at a certain point you lose it.

But being country's power couple of heartbreak, their best stuff is together. "Two Story House" and "Golden Ring" both made the cut. Maybe they aren't exactly what I had in mind when I first started this mix, because either of them if you listen in passing sound cheerful. I remember having listened to them for years and then one day had them both on an album and really listened to them for the first time. I had to listen to them on repeat to just wallow in the horror of this quiet tragedy that slips up on you. "Golden Ring" might really be the true winner, though both are so wretched and effective because they are being sung by both sides at the same time, with no one party singled out as the offending party, instead the breakdown is presented as almost inevitable and unnecessary at the same time. Maybe this is what makes these songs so effective: we know the narrators have personal knowledge of this kind of tragedy, but they sing it from a neutral if sympathetic distance which make the wrong turns and misunderstanding seem so misguided and avoidable.

The whole project is unworkable though. I just remembered that I don't have Robert Earl Keen, Jr.'s "Billy Grey" which is pretty much unmatched as outlaw tragedy love song. Ok, that isn't true, Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is right there neck and neck, though for some reason though I find it harder to imagine it inspiring tears.

"Twin high-maintenance machines"

Again, I'm back to the Mountain Goats. When there is no one to talk to you can always write...

Anyway, I'm listening to "This Year" now. I've heard it before and knew I liked it, but the perfection of the phrasing is blowing me away this time. "Twin high-maintenance machines"? So simple, so perfect describing... actually everyone in every relationship ever. I was going to say teen love or some shit like that, but let's get a grip: we are all high-maintenance machines on some level when we get in a relationship. I kind of like to pretend that I am low-maintenance as far as dating goes but that is a complete lie. I am patient and calm and don't like drama, but just because the engine don't whine and blow smoke doesn't mean it don't need to be checked from time to time. (I know I misused 'don't' in that sentence and just couldn't care less right now)

I was asked once by someone I was dating if I thought they were high-maintenance, so of course I said yes, because they were and I figured that anyone asking that question had to know that simply asking it makes them so. As I've said before, I often don't understand people so I missed the mark by a mile, since anyone besides me would know that anyone asking that wants to be told that they aren't, even if -especially if- they are (which I've already said we all are). I always say just the wrong thing with people I love and usually at just the wrong time, so I'm in a constant state of trying to figure out how to not sound like an ass the next time a friend or family member or bf asks some seemingly innocent question. I usually fail, but at least I know that if I can't run them off with my normal idiotic responses then they must be tough enough to enjoy having around.

This is off course, not what I originally was planning on writing about when I started this. I really did just need to share how much I'm loving this song and that line in particular (again, wow!), but I've just gotten back to sea after going and visiting my friends and basically spending three months on the move with my foot firmly in my mouth.

Not really that I said anything terribly horrible. I just always managed to just not quite hit the right tone and felt seriously disconnected around people. Of course, I've kind of always felt this way around people; that's part of why I hang out with fish. But this time was remarkable in how on the move I was and how many different people from how many different places and times I was around and seeing. I guess it is more remarkable how connected I still felt with so many of these people who I haven't seen in so long.

Particularly in New York, I really felt a disconnect. The time flew by faster than I expected and it was harder to find time with people like I wanted. I spun around like a top on fire (not that kind of top, you perv) and found it hard to slow down. And I was so excited to see everyone that I just talked non-stop or couldn't find anything to say, and with some of my closest friends I didn't get to just sit and hang out or spend time like I wanted to outside of bars and parties.

I did get to see perhaps the one person who knows exactly what I am talking about as far as saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time: Brock. We met at a time when both of us were kind of in a limbo and soon realized that we complemented each other well, partially because we both had a bluntness that often got us into trouble. He was the king of answering honestly questions that weren't asked because the person (usually a girl) asking wanted an honest answer. I would coach him on things not to say or things that needed to be said, and he would coach me on the same. We couldn't see our own blind spots but were pretty good at catching each other, either pointing out and laughing after the fact or, as time went on, warning the other ahead of time that the other was about to say something stupid.

I guess most of my problem is that when I ask a question, I usually don't have an answer that I want to hear ahead of time or I at least don't expect to get the answer I want. If I don't think I would want to hear the wrong answer, then I don't think a question should be asked. Granted, half of my problem comes from me volunteering random information that no one else in the world remembers. I can't remember names to save my life, but I have this uncanny talent for remembering sorid and amusing details from my and all my friends' dating/social/family histories, which I have a tendency to blurt out when something reminds me of it. I, of course, love it when people blurt stuff like this out. I'm always interested in who slept with who and what weird habit drove someone mad or what kind of weird quirk you'd never guess so-and-so has. Unless someone is saying it maliciously, I'm all ears. I figure we all have our excentricities that someone somewhere remembers and still laughs at (with me, it is usually my friends laughing at mine, usually somewhere in the vicinity of right in my face), so I don't find it exceptional or cruel to discuss other folks weirdnesses and histories. Other people do, and this I always forget. It is part of my charm.

Maybe this is why I like this line in this song, the acknowledgement of being a needy, difficult thing right in tandem with the one beside you doesn't happen near often enough or sincerely enough.

"I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared."

Ok, so maybe I shouldn't dwell on one thing, but I'm in the ocean and on a boat where I am pretty much working around the clock (seriously, writing this now means that if I sleep today at all before the sun comes up tomorrow it will be one or two hour) so I'll dwell if I feel like it. So I'm back to the Mountain Goats.

I'm listening to "Woke Up New" for the first time (ok, now I'm listening to it for the third time on repeat, but you know what I mean). This one I don't want to talk about because of the poetry of it, because he makes you understand how he feels. This one makes you feel like he understands how you've felt.

Perhaps no one who has ever dated me believes that I know how to sing this song. My heart is made of bricks, built for storms and anticipating them, not so moved except by earthquakes or sometimes hurricanes that really mean it, so I can't blame them for thinking that. But there is life inside the damn thing, and if ever there was a song that I know how to sing, this is it.

Sometimes hearing something put into words like this is too much. It isn't just sad. It isn't weepy. "I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared," says it. There isn't this wild sadness or woe is me about it, just this honest terror and emptiness and loss tinged with openness and newness. It is too soon for the openness and newness to not hurt, to not scream, but there is this blank hope in the song, in that moment, in those feelings. This song isn't about that hope though. This is all what-now? howling into the vacuum. You know the hope is there, is going to matter one day, but right at the moment this is sing, it is all "What do I do?"

Ok, I promise I'll listen to something less melencholic (it is fall, so this is probably a lie).

I'm an idiot

(I didn't realize that "I Was Meant for the Stage" was originally written by the Decemberists. and so I sounded like an ass. Thank you to the kind commentor who so politely pointed out my error. I still think the song sounds flat, but do love it. I'll have to think about who I'd like to cover it most...)

Seems to be all songs all the time right now. I'm sick of writing about politics and can't keep up with them anyway being cut off from everything like this, so songs and books and fish and the weather are all that I've got an opinion about these days.

Anyway, I was excited to see that The Decemberists had covered "I Was Meant For the Stage", thinking that since I liked the song and the band that I would like them combined and we all know how I like my covers. Wrong wrong wrong.

I am only just hearing this for the first time these last couple of times and I keep trying to tell myself that I am going to like it, that I just need to listen to it one more time. Nope, it just isn't good. Dull, flat, boring. They fall for the silly indie trap that if you just slow a song down and try to make it sound dramatic it will be something special. It takes more than that for it to be an interesting cover.

I've tried telling myself that I am being unfair because the only other version of this song that I have at my disposal now is the Kiki & Herb version, which is heavy company to compete against. It isn't just in contrast though; the Decemberist version straight up sucks.

"I am under no illusion..."

(warning: I've been obsessed with the Mountain Goats lately; this is only going to get worse.)

I like sad songs. I generally don't like horror flick or scary movies. I can appreciate them in their place, but I love sad, sad, sad songs and stories (not that horror and sad stuff are really naturally comparable things, but it somehow made sense to me in the middle of the night in the middle of the ocean). Believe me, I love a happy ending, but I can really get into those rip your heart out kind of stories and songs. This is not the same as the stomp-on-your-soul stories like Faulkner's _Sanctuary_ (this is not one of those dont'-read-it warnings that is meant as a challenge to your honor anticipating that you would pick it up, this is a warning against something no one should ever go through, trust me), but the tragic beautiful. _Giovanni's Room_ by James Baldwin is perhaps my single favorite piece of fiction ever. Tragic books and tragic songs have one big difference: the scope of the story they can share. A book can end tragic or have little tragic bits all along and still give you enough to buoy you up, which is generally how I feel about most sad stories. They only get to be tragic because the other parts are so beautiful. If anyone ever described _Giovanni's Room_ as a story about an execution, I'd be torn between punching them and having them committed and probably settle on giving them a look piled with so much indignation that I wouldn't have any room left for the scorn they deserved. Point being, the tragic in them is contrasted. In so much space, you've got to tell of more than just the pain.

Songs are different. They are shorter; only so much can fit in there. A sad song has to reflect enough of what ever it was that was so beautiful that you can relate to the sadness. The lyrics have to make you care and the music has to hit you just right to take you there. But they have to do it while usually really only telling you the tragedy. The beauty is hinted at, alluded to, mentioned but you only know how bright it was by how dark the song is without it.

I don't know why I love sad songs so much, but I do. I guess my whole thing is that for something to really be sad, you've got to really care about it, someone has to care about it and if someone can really communicate that caring and that pain, then I've got to be able to celebrate it. Often times, it is the sad songs which communicate more love and caring and hope (even if it has already been crushed) than the flat out love songs. "Some one loves me and I'm so happy," well, whoopty friggin' do. Lucky you (this isn't fair at all since I've been writing about how much I love some love songs, but whatev). "Somebody left me but I still love them," whoa, they mean it.

This of course is in stark contrast with my general view of the world and romance, but not really. As a general rule, whenever someone gives me crap about being lost without someone else, my response is only slightly more sympathetic than, "Oh, get a grip. You are better off without them." If I'm close friends with them, I know that if they were expecting sympathy they would have called Mason or Lisa, so I can be even more blunt. This isn't because I am down on love, just I'm don't care to call other things love and have no sympathy for codependence or fear of being alone or whatever other wretched, but oh so human, response to break-ups and such people so commonly have and call love. My curmudgeonliness comes from a tender place, though, so when I listen to sad songs, I let them totally get to me. Of course, this is only if they are well written and well played/sung. If they are just stupid and cheesy (how did we get back to Kenny Chesney again?), they get the same sympathy that most real life break-ups get. Ok, I'll leave K-Che alone for a minute (not because I've suddenly stumbled upon some sympathetic kindness, I just only have a few of his upbeat songs on my computer and figure that if I am going to write about how lame someone's sad song is, then I should at least be listening to it at the time). Luckily, there is always Brad Paisley pick on.

All my music is still in Alabama, so I'm slowly piecing together a music collection from what friends have so i have some random shit on here, including a fairly eclectic country mix. I've got nothing in particular against Bran Paisley, just normally wouldn't include him in my collection, but since he is here, let's talk for a minute about "Who needs pictures?" It is decently written, even if a little to kitschy, but only decently written. With just the right voice, it could be a sad song. When George Jones is in the right mood, he has a voice that was meant to rip your heart out and he isn't afraid to do it. Patty Loveless can do it with her hands tied behind her back and blindfolded. Bran Paisley can't. With a sad enough song, his voice might not pull down the lyrics, but with decent lyrics that need someone to make them sympathetic, no way. I know he has won a hundred thousand awards in country music and I know that he seems to be a likeable new country guy who actually loves and appreciates old country and cares about respecting those that made country something special. And sometimes he picks some good music and is a good singer and a good guitar player and... flat as a pancake. The man can feel the music, you can see it when he sings, but damn if he doesn't sing like a kareoke star. His voice has no soul. It is the soul of a cardboard cut out, not a soul musician. And his musicians are technically great, I am sure they are the best of the current "Nashville sound" session musicians, but the end effect is boring as dirt. Blank music doing exactly what it is supposed to do, blank singer doing exactly what he is supposed to do, decent lyrics having to carry it all and you feel exactly the sympathy you would feel for any other whiney-ass bachelor who wanted to tell you about how a camera reminded him about the girl who dumped him. In some people that might rustle up some sympathy; I just change the station.

This wasn't originally about how sad songs can suck. Griping gets as boring as Brad Paisley's music. I was inspired to write because I listened to The Mountain Goats' "I Still Feel The Bruise".

Holy shit.

As sad songs go, this is a whole 'nother ball-game. Right from the start, the music gets you. There is enough placid kindness in the notes to not just sound miserable, but before you hear the first word you feel the pain. Then he starts singing.

The same thing that was in the music is in his voice, in spades. He doesn't have to push it; these aren't lyrics that could be pushed. And what fucking lyrics they are! The first verse is sad enough; there is plenty of plainly stated sadness for you to know how he feels. Then the chorus slips in and knocks the breath out of you and leaves you sitting there with chills wondering if there is any way you could turn the song off now, knowing that you are going to play it on repeat. "I'm under no illusion, as to what I meant to you. But you made an impression, sometimes I still feel the bruise, sometimes I still feel the bruise..."

I can't remember the guy's name who is The Mountain Goats. I should, but I can't and I'm in the middle of the ocean and don't have the benefit of Google so you will have to google it yourself (which you have to have if you are reading this at this moment). Anyway, my first introduction to him was listening to "Korean Bird Paintings" on some music blog (maybe Thus Spake the Grammophone or Fluxblog). Of course this was right at the moment that he was appearing on the radar of everyone I knew, so I wasn't any ahead of the curve but I wasn't behind it (keep in mind this was in music nerd Brooklyn land, so not being the last to know about a musician like this took some doing). KBP was upbeat and cheerful, this pleasant love song rolls in and sounds so wonderful and you listen to the lyrics and this joy and wonder isn't just happy inloveness, it is past the breaking point desperation/ idon'tgiveafuckness. I had to listen to it a few times over and over again. Here is this crisp little cut-out from this bigger picture, so detailed in its description telling so much about the story surrounding it while kind of telling you nothing about it except that this is where the story has gotten to, leaving you to wonder how it got there and where can it go from here.

Then I got home and as with all new music I ran it past Mason. Suddenly I'm listening to "Going to Georgia", which quickly became a home hootenany staple. Mr. Mountain Goat can write like a motherfucker. He can sing like one too, and plays like he sings, but his lyrics are poetry. Phrased slightly differently, sung/played slightly differently and these songs would be straight up obnoxious, but they aren't phrased differently or sung/played differently: they blow the top off your head. I'm sure there are times he doesn't hit it just right, but damn when he does.

He followed this with "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton". That is one of those titles that you want to both hate and love so you wait for the song to see which it is going to be. And it starts as just silly enough to laugh and like, it is just a song about some kids putting together what was probably a wretched obnoxious band and adults reacting the stupid way they so often do to such things. But it takes a turn. There is this dark moment calling this parental/authority reaction for exactly what it is and it makes you love all sincere punk forever. I can't remember the line verbatim so rather than sharing a butchered remembrance, I'll leave it to you find it and listen to it.

I saw him play live once. He played a sort of coffee house tour and played at Fix in Williamsburg. It was insanely crowded and way too hot, but he sang like a manic angel. Don't go hear him hoping to hear some song of his you want to hear live. He informed us that he hates playing old stuff so he only plays things live that aren't on any album yet. At first this made me cringe and fear for what I was in for; my fears were quickly assuaged. Given the chance, go see him live, especially if you are somewhere out of the way enough that he will be in a small uncrowded venue. I'd kill to see him in the coffee shop/bar at the Princess theater in Columbus, MS.

"Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise", like all the best Mountain Goats songs, takes you to exactly where the narrator in the song is. In my mind, this song is exactly the message. I imagine it not as the song version of some conversation, but as written to be a song, to be heard or not by someone who may be or not be in the audience. Sort of hopeful that they are, but assuming that they wouldn't be and that even if they are, not singing in hopes that it would bring them back, just singing it because it had to be let out.

This is the kind of song writing that makes me want to hole away and just pour everything into writing songs. Not because I think I could write like that, although he is the kind of writer who makes you wish you could, but because he is the kind of prolific writer pouring so much in to it that it makes the action of it, the effort itself into a work of art. The lifestyle when well done makes it seem like something worth doing; the few people who do it so well forgives all those who do it poorly by showing the world why they are trying and asks the rest of us why we aren't.