The Kills - Black Balloon

Black Balloon :: The Kills

“Let the weather have its way with you.”

***

I was reminded of this song, and corresponding video, while reading my friend’s post on unnerving music videos on her fantastic music blog. While remembering, and then recommending this video, we starting discussing the video itself, and what we felt and saw in it.

I mentioned that the video had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness to it, as well as a desperation, despair, and a feeling of giving up - especially in the scenes where Alison Moshart is alone with her mirrored reflection watching what she is turning into. To me, this eludes to the loneliness of being on the road/on tour and how it must feel to start turning a bit into something else while living in such a outside of reality kind of life.

My friend keenly pointed out that the blood on the microphone could be conveyed as the emotional vampirism fans exhibit toward artists. I think she is spot on with that.

This is the first Kills song I ever heard, and remains my favorite of theirs. I especially love the lyric “let the weather have its way with you”, which suggest to me the giving up/giving in to things beyond one’s control (weather, fame, love perhaps).

The Tide That Left and Never Came Back

The Tide That Left and Never Came Back :: The Veils

“‘Cause it’s a small town,
it misses you,
my love.”

***

I'm feeling nostalgic today and a bit blue. I think it has a bit to do with reuniting with an old friend who I’ve not spoken to/heard from in near nineteen years. He was part of a chapter in my life that held such significance to who I am, in the best, and not so shiny and bright of ways.

He was best friends with my first love, and my first real rip your everything out and leave you inside out kind of hearbreak. He was my friend, too. For a summer the three of us spent nearly everyday together. When we broke up though there was damage that happened between us. He had a part in the break-up and a part in the illusions that split apart and shattered, he kept up his part of a deceit, and I think at the time I couldn’t forgive so easily.

Time heals, and even if we don’t forget, we forgive - or I do, or I have, for that matter. Truth is, I miss the both of them, and I miss the girl I was then. Well, perhaps I don’t miss her in all that she was, but I miss pieces of her. I miss the unconditional and blind trust she had in love most of all. She never did come back with her heart completely intact.

This song, The Tide That Left and Never Came Back, it fits that kind of looking back and missing to me today.

Black Dirt

Black Dirt :: Sea Wolf

"Here on the ground,
I cannot hear a sound,
just a strong and steady rain,
getting louder as you sing."

***

I’m thinking black dirt would be a fitting addition to the Full Moon playlist, which the more I think of it suits the Season, as well. I’ve been contemplating a Halloween/Spooky October mix, and this may work as both.

This song has a sadness to it, a feeling of loss, and of giving up. There is that line about the heart no longer beating, yet the song continues - a hint of living post-something lost. Perhaps it is an afterlife haunting the living, the marks that the no longer here leave on the earth, or on us. Skid marks and shadows that we may miss as we walk by, but that those with the right emotional temperment, or the right kind of lonely, cannot miss.

It reminds me of the after shock of a break-up, too. That hollowed out feeling, the wreck that is left when one’s heart is truly broken. Haunting song, and haunting emotions, I think.

Howl

Howl :: Florence and the Machine
“If you could only see the beast you’ve made of me.”

***

This morning I finished the second Dresden Files book, Full Moon (Jim Butcher). I’ve been listening to the series on the recommendation of my boyfriend, as well as the knowledge that James Marsters does the voiceover work on the books.

I love when a book, or in this case book series, catches me off-guard and surprises me. This is not a well-read genre on my part, nor would the book covers be something that would have caught my eye. All the same, I’ve become quite taken by Harry’s tales of the supernatural, crime, and intrigue - and am drawn to him the same way he seems drawn to darkness, to beauty, to love and to finding hope in an otherwise hopeless reality.

I tend to make playlists for everything. Give me an excuse or a theme or an event, and i’ll leap (and dance) at the opportunity to try and set it to music. This last book, with its werewolves of many kinds in tow, as well as the explorations of passions and love, has me left contemplating what I’d have playing along. Florence’s Howl is the first on the soundtrack, and the first for my new song-of-the-day entry.