everybody's talking to their pockets

I'm feeling melancholy today for no real reason, and I'm struggling to know whether or not to allow myself some good cry into my whiskey time...or to rally. Instead I'm going to slowly lift myself by being gentle and kind to my quietly sighing mood. I believe it's all right to look outside at a marshmallow world and feel completely lost, tiny, and stuck. On a hike today the few feet of snow felt like wet cement. I was staring at the weighted trees and realized they knew what it was like to have branches broken by the piling up of small, feathery things.

But moments that make me feel better involve listening to music that takes the arrow in my heart and points it toward other people with the same barb. First artist to make me feel in solidarity with the senseless ache of taking the next breath...is Bon Iver.

Blood Bank- Bon Iver

I can't seem to stop playing this Bob Schneider song I recently rediscovered due to the genius of my delightful iTunes shuffle. His voice rumbles about true things that I feel but don't know how to express.

I wish my shoes were empty/and I was still in bed/ with you there beside me with your dreams inside your head/ Oh I wish the world would do what I want it to/And I wish the wind would blow me/Blow me back to you

Sometimes it's nice to just lay back and hear someone else confess what my voice wants to say aloud. It doesn't seem so whimsical or far away anymore; that romantic idealism is shared, and it's comforting.
Blow Me Back to You (Live)- Bob Schneider

So the Paste sampler had a positively delightful song called Taller Children by a Brooklyn based indie-pop trio, Elizabeth and The Catapult(I assume Pete Lalish and Dan Molad are the collective catapult. Must be strapping young gentlemen).

Imagine my surprise and happiness that came when I found a soul rousing stomping cover of Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows. Some might say Ryan Adam's Everybody Knows (same title, but not the same song) would be more apropos for the sad and contemplative mood I've found myself in, but Elizabeth and The Catapult take this frank look at the world and add some determined beats and matter of fact perspective on the world that sometimes gets me so damn down.

Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)- Elizabeth and The Catapult

Taller Children is another song (also the name of their album) that explores the absolute ridiculous nature of growing up. Namely how it just doesn't happen.

So the day may not be full of shiny smiles and laughing with abandon, but there is comfort in the slowness of being a little sad. It never lasts forever, just like the music that doesn't ask me to explain a thing.