I place stock in songs I hear randomly. There was that time where I heard the Screaming Trees sing Nearly lost you that came on during the car ride to a break up. Then there was the time that a song triggred an emotion, which triggered yet another song. We all have songs that take us back to a person, or a moment. There is Crazy 4 u by Madonna. There is the Dog Days of Summer by Florence and the Machine. I remember vividly 5th grade and doing homework in the laundry room and talent show tryouts anytime I hear Paul Revere by The Beastie Boys. I think of my junior/senior year in high school when I was trying to determine what college to go to, and therefore the rest of my life, while Disarm by The Smashing Pumpkins played. The Sarah’s, Adam’s and Michael’s of the music world are the Sextons, Yeats, and Shakespeares of our time and I apply their words, knowledge, and emotions to my life.
The first song I hear in a new year when I press shuffle, is a sign of how life will transpire in the next 365 days. There is a lot of pressure to this fate. But is it fate or ordained?
Today is January 1, 2015 and I went for a run, as people are want to do today. Or at least the day after. The passing of a year brings with it reflections, regrets, hopes, depressions, and a flurry of nameless emotions. New Year’s eve always brings me a strange level of reflection (and typically some Counting Crows). You may be many miles away (or sometimes even in my own city) but I miss you. What would you change in 2015 from your 2014?
there’s things i remember and things i forget
i miss you
i guess that i should
three thousand five hundred miles away
but what would you change if you could
Today is January 1, 2015 and I went on a run today. When I run there is clarity of mind, levity of thought, and words that are dying to exit my mind’s trap. I don’t write much on this blog anymore, as the guards have made the trap more difficult to escape. I wish there was a clearer path, route, existence. Anyway circling back yet again, I put too much faith and fate in the lyrics I hear, and their timing. Today when I pressed shuffle and began shuffling my feet down the sidewalk in this cozy RB town, the song Commissioning a symphony in C by Cake came on. And now I am left to decipher its meaning for my life.
So you’ll be an Austrian Nobleman
Commissioning a symphony in C
Which defies all earthly descriptions
You’ll be Commissioning a symphony in CWith money you squeeze from the peasants
To your nephew you can give it as a present
This magnificent symphony in C
You’ll be commissioning a symphony in CCompletely filling the palace concert hall
It’s warm and golden like an oven that’s wide open
It has a melody both happy and sad
Built on Victoria’s young triadsYou’ve entered the room with great caution
Though no one in the hall is even watching
They are transfixed
They are forgetting just to breath
They are so taken by your symphony…
In CYou’re sitting there thinking your thoughts
They are not about what is but what is not
You are sitting there breathing in your breath
You are seldom breathing life but mostly deathSo you’ll be an Austrian Nobleman
Commissioning a symphony in C
Which defies all earthly descriptions
You’ll be commissioning…
A symphony…
In C
I am not going to be an Autrian Nobleman – but maybe I will be doing something important, or something that leaves meaning behind, like a symphony.
Maybe i’ll be a great uncle to my nephew, but maybe I will be using my nephew to hide from my misdoings.
2015 will be a year of both happy and sad melodies. There will probably be tears, laughter, hearts broken, and hearts healed.
I enter into 2015 with great caution indeed. Every year could potentially be my last. There is always potential of the final time.
But it is the last stanza (is that still a thing) that I think i’ll take the meaning from
You’re sitting there thinking your thoughts
They are not about what is but what is not
You are sitting there breathing in your breath
You are seldom breathing life but mostly death
Whether it be new years eve, fresh starts, new jobs, old friends I am often focused on what came before, or what is not. It is my brain’s natural tendency. I have gotten well accustomed to it. As big as a downfall as that might be on my emotional state, it is also a part that stimulates other good parts of my brain. I am well aware of who I am, and this is part of it. Don’t read this and then preach at me. I digress. Sometimes I let this get too much of me, and I then am breathing death.
So for 2015, my resolution is to be more intentional in stimulating thoughts about what is, versus what is not.
The next song that came on was Here I Am by Skid Row
It’s main line is
Here I am
Close your eyes and I’ll be Superman
So it looks like 2015 I become a super hero. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
Tags: cake, counting crows, madonna, michael hutchence, new year, sarah mclachlan, skid row