Some, though, are more than what catches my ear or mood. These are songs that grab me and rip through whatever facade I have up currently. They bring me face to face with unexpected truth or emotion. They overwhelm me with feelings that I might not have even wanted to or know I could feel.
It seems interesting to document them. Here and here are the first two in this series.
For April is a track from Johnny Cash's American III: Solitary Man, I See a Darkness, a song written by Will Oldham (as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) who also provides backing vocals on for Cash's version:
This song found me in the middle of a very difficult time, which included trying to sort out two wanted but challenging friendships. The lyrics and feel, a powerful and almost contradictory mixture of hope and despair, love and loss, captured perfectly what I was going through.
My two friends, both of whom sadly aren't really part of my life now, could barely have been less similar. And I needed both of them in ways neither understood very well. They each knew me differently and saw me in skewed perspectives that were true but terribly incomplete. I selfishly wished they could be melded into a single person who would be more fully my friend. And so this song, which speaks of knowing, but maybe not well; love; but not forever; peace, but not yet, was all of the sudden there as an aural description, or even decree, of what was happening. As if my life contained the fire and iron, and this song gave shape to the brand. And I was marked.
No comments:
Post a Comment