Left and Leaving - Sarah Harmer

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July 29th was the kind of day that Summer Days are made of. First there was a garage sale. Having a garage sale is kind of like hosting a party for a bunch of older, freakish people and charging them quarters to take home the crap you were going to throw out or give away. They're rude and pushy and sometimes they smell, but you can't help being a little charmed, and it gives you an excuse to wear your father's Greek straw hat without feeling stupid. There was a McDonalds meal before noon. There was sitting in the grass and playing with dogs. There was an afternoon nap and cheap pink wine. Dinner was all-you-can-eat sushi, and sitting across from a person who had the flesh-eating disease a month ago and lived to tell the tale. And then, the Weakerthans at the Harbourfront stage.

There are lots of free summer concerts at Harbourfront, but I've always missed them, and it was good to finally make it to one. Watching music outdoors is a kind of magical thing - the twinkling lights, the crushes of people. We were way at the back, by the lake, and the evening rain had cooled things down a bit. People were happy, there were cowboy hats at regular intervals, and we could smell the freshness of the lake. It was nice. The music was good and loud and everyone just seemed happy.

As much as John K. Samson writes perfectly crafted songs, I can't always get excited about his voice, so here is Sarah Harmer, a straw-hat, breezy summer music kind of girl, singing one of his heartbreaking songs. (Taken from here, where you can also download songs of Sarah and the Weakerthans covering the Shins, the Replacements and more).

Wolves - Josh Ritter

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Whenever Andrew and I go on vacation, he'll dump a bunch of albums onto a few CDs, and we'll listen to them as we drive around, picking favourites. This past Canada Day weekend it was the Handsome Family, Art Brut, English soccer anthems, and Josh Ritter. I first heard Josh Ritter half-asleep after midnight in a car somewhere on the road to Cape Breton. It woke me up. Josh Ritter is cut from the same, rusty mold as Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen, and is best listened to on dusty, empty roads, preferably at night or twilight. But, he holds up in the city as well.

While I'm a fan of the entire album, "The Animal Years", this song is the one I've played the most. It comes close to falling apart. Like, if his accent was a bit twangier, if the lyrics were a bit flatter, if the drums were mixed a smidge louder, it just wouldn't work - it would be cheesy. But as it is, it's perfect. The galloping drums and punchy piano are the precise backdrops for the lyrics, a kind of mystified eulogy to a relationship gone bad.

I like how the song starts off about dancing. Songs about dancing, in general, get bonus points in my book. And when he ends that part with, I was singing without knowing the words,you know exactly the feeling he is trying to evoke: a giddy, unexplainable happiness. Then there's this verse about wolves (wolves in the piano! wolves underneath the stairs!) that gives the song a darker, growlier side, and it ties everything together, saves it from being too cloying. It's (almost) as rousing as an English soccer anthem.

Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair - Richard & Linda Thompson

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For awhile I had a notion that Richard and Linda Thompson’s music would change my life. I hadn’t heard any of their songs, but I liked the idea of them. I knew they had been married and then divorced, that they were in the male/female vocals/folk-rock genre I seem to fall for a little too easily, and that some of my favourite bands had covered their songs. When I bought their classic album "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight", the guy working cash at Soundscapes nodded his head in approval. I felt redeemed. So, when I finally actually listened to them and realized that they were not going to change my life, I was disapointed. My opinions of their songs are inconsistent: when I like them, I love them, and when I don’t, I can barely tolerate them.

I realize that I approach most music the way I approached Richard & Linda Thompson: I am always looking for songs that will change my life. I’m not so demanding of people (life would be too exhausting) nor do I expect so much from literature (I figure that even if the books I read are bad, I can at least learn something about how to write a book or how not to write a book). But I like my music to be transcendental, sublime, otherwordly. Not that the music I love is any of those things to anyone else, but I do know that there are some songs that I feel a little too rapturous about, and I’d like to figure out why.

So, here is a Richard & Linda Thompson song that I love, wildly. It’s kind of unhinged and mad - it’s live and you get the feeling that they could mess it up any second. They’re both shouting, the lyrics as whole don’t make much sense, but it’s a song of resolution. It’s the way they sing, I’ll change this heart of mine this time. I listened to this song most in February, the hardest part of of winter, driving to and from work, feeling a little unhinged and mad myself, and the buoyancy of this song was strong.

I offer it up as one of the first songs on this blog, for its resolve, for its erraticness, and, ultimately, its loveliness. On the first few listens I also misheard the phrase “cross fingers and head for home” as “crossed fingers and headphones”, which I realized made for a decent music blog title. So there you go.

An Introduction

My name is Teri. I live in Toronto, but will be moving to Montreal in the fall. I’m twenty seven. I couldn’t find many songs about being twenty seven years old, but there is this:

I feel a little strange
Feels like I’ll never get my shit together
27 and I’m fucked
Well, it’s 10 years from teenage
and that’s a freaking lot.
I think I’m getting old
and I thought I’d never say
that I bought Nevermind
and it changed my life
some fifteen years ago.
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Which is from “Not on Top” by Herman Dune, and despite the lyrics, it’s a very upbeat, poppy kind of song, the kind that you wouldn’t mind kicking off a roadtrip with, the windows rolled down and sun streaming into the car. And while I do feel more grounded than those crazy SWEDISH Dune boys, there is still something to be said about the fact that time is passing, that some of my favourite records, which were once very new, are now over a decade old. When I was younger, finding/discovering music was akin to finding God. I mean, it was overblown and dramatic like that. I want to find words for why I like certain songs, why music is still so important.

So. This blog is going to give me an excuse to practice writing about music, to pinpoint things I like in a song, and to share the occasional song or two with you. My tastes are diverse, but ultimately predictable, and if you have any kind of musical recommendation, please send my way.

P.S. The title of the blog is explained in this entry.