A Playlist Series

American Crisis Playlist #39

Lonely Days, Lonely Nights

Last Wednesday our daughters left town again after spending one week with us. We had fun: cooked, played dominos and Chick-A-Pig, and listened to tons of music. A day later, my wife left for three days at the beach with her sister as they face the one-year anniversary of their mother’s passing. Max, my dog, and I have maintained good spirits, walking and playing with his nerf football in our lower yard near the creek, where creature and waters pass by, waving or not.

When you’re basically alone, you might dream that little creatures wave at you while passing downstream amidst thunderstorms and the occasional tornado warning.

Still, this is a much better scenario, fate, that driving to Hilton Head on your anniversary and being killed in an act of road rage, a horrible story I read about today, amidst all those others of angry men firing guns or wearing body shields and packing assault rifles in Atlanta area Publix Markets. I also read about a preacher who’s declaring an impending civil war where he might have to take up arms against all the liberals which include his own children.

You know we liberals: we’re the ones who want sensible checks on gun ownership; who believe in voting rights for all; who support equality in marriage for everyone; who want all of us to earn a decent living wage; and who think about Jesus as a social activist, that is, if we think about him at all.

As I write this I realize again that liberals aren’t uniform believers; that we differ on many things, too. I support, for instance, a woman’s right to control her own body, including having an abortion if it comes to that.

And, if you don’t want to get Covid-vaccinated, that’s your right, too. But I’m getting my second one on Tuesday night, and I sure wish most would follow suit.

All of this might be the result of my having too much time on my hands to ruminate. My wife will be arriving home this afternoon, and among all of the other reasons I miss her, our house is so quiet without her, not that she’s a big talker. No, we both “lean introvert,” and so it’s more that my head isn’t such an echo chamber when she’s here, and at certain moments we find time to ask how the other’s doing.

So I’m doing fine, could be better, but as I turn to this week’s music, I hear good things coming, including baseball Kathryn Dillon! Buy baseball tickets and not assault rifles with that hard-earned cash!

AMERICAN CRISIS PLAYLIST #39

1. “No One is Missing,” Valley Maker, from their 2021 release, When the Day Leaves. Maybe I don’t fully understand this song, but my thoughts wander to why no one is really missing. My mind and my memory keep everyone here, before me. “Time slips,” the singer sings, and that’s true, but a moment’s glance and I am standing again in my mother’s house on a rainy Sunday, as she asks me to order us some lunch from The Bright Star in Bessemer. She doesn’t feel well; the road is short now. I get the lunch, and the restaurant owner, Jimmy, will be a ghost soon, too. But when I see these scenes, they both are there, making sure it’s all been paid for, that all orders have been rendered accurately. A taste and a memory like no other.
2. “Headstart,” Jade Bird, from a 2020 single. I love the way the song builds here and she helps us fold on into the momentum. I’m having a hard time compiling my list of artists I have to see once I can venture into a club or hall again. But Jade is someone I think my wife and I would love to see and dance to. Just a short piece so we don’t lose each other, our breaths, or our late-night stamina. That was what happened when our girls were here: we made it to 11:30 each night. Wow.
3. “Stuck in the Middle,” Tai Verdes, from another 2020 single. “She said, are we exclusive or not?” I remember the days when dating was this tentative. What was the longest-term, on and off again romance you were ever stuck in? I had one that went on for three years. Long distance though it was, I couldn’t understand how it kept reviving when, to be honest, we had so little in common except love for the person who brought us together. Such was college romance, and I got stuck between her and her old boyfriend, and then she got stuck between me and my new girlfriend. And still it took another year to end.
4. “Forever,” Haim, from 2013’s Days Are Gone. My daughters are big fans of the Haim sisters, and so I realized that I hadn’t listened to this record in a while. I love how our roads, lives, keep intersecting over music, especially music this good. There are certain constants in life, and being in one’s den or living room, with music supporting a dice roll, or the placement of a double eleven domino so that the next move is more expansive, seems a scene that I have been living forever. The pile of dominoes that we draw from is called “the boneyard,” or so said my beloved Nanny.
5. “Sometimes I Don’t Know How to Feel,” Todd Rundgren from A Wizard, A True Star (1973). Yeah, I’ve been in a real Todd mood lately, and this song strikes my other mood — that stuck in the middle with or without you mood — that paralyzes my emotions. I find Todd’s music, songs like this one, “Hello It’s Me,” “We’ve Got to get You a Woman” to be more romantic, in that late-night longing, listening alone in your room and staring out a darkened window into nothing kind of way. Some find him to be too over-produced. But his echoing effect, the over-dubbed voices and the keyboards make me lose myself. And it oddly feels pretty good. I thank my friend Les for making me listen to this record so long ago.
6. “I Might Be Wrong,” Radiohead, from Amnesiac (2001). Radiohead has been a popular entry on The Riff lately, which caused me to want to dive back into their heady mazes. This song appealed to me early on, and yes, Noah Levy, I know I’m selecting a single song off an entire record, and I understand and even agree with the desire to listen to a complete record. Though I could be off or even wrong, this song seems to fit into my muddled mind’s playlist today. And it’s pretty damn pretty, too. I love its relentlessness, and of course, Thom’s voice.
7. “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” Donavan, from 1968’s The Hurdy Gurdy Man. So I’m cheating here, or at least double-dipping, and you would know if you read my story on Zodiac: https://readmedium.com/singing-songs-of-love-2f5909b0f952?sk=0f6ed4a88b31b90e82870ec56e3fbfce. I don’t remember this song from the year I turned twelve. Did it make it to the radio? Did Dick Clark play it on American Bandstand? And if so, did I hide under the covers when I heard it, not even trying to pretend how weird it was and how much I wanted it all — whatever it was — not to be true? The season of the witch and of the looming Manson family. Remember?
8. “Blunt Force Concussion,” The Dirty Nil from F*** Art (2020). Not sure what I think of his voice, but I do like the way the songs kicks my ass and makes me feel happy in that way rock and roll has always seemed to. I’ve never had a concussion, but that Clash concert in 1983 made me think I had experienced the head-on onslaught of something bruising. I appreciate the knocks, too, because when something hits this hard, it’s hard not to feel pushed, alive, and unstuck from whatever middle you or I might have landed in(Cautionary note: I don’t feel as if I’m making any sense today, but you understand, right?).
9. “Skateaway,” Dire Straits, from 1980’s Making Movies. In 1980, I was starting my second year of a Master’s program, and my friends — Les, Mary, Crafton, The Beach-Man — we loved this record, and I see us walking down the campus strip, anticipating Friday nights at whichever local bar might accept us. I keep thinking of how I understood Faulkner well, or so I thought, but couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to do, whom I wanted to love. These were happy days, and yet I’d feel lost at the end of the evening. Which way was my place, and would Friday please come again soon so we could start all over? “She gets rock and roll, in a rock and roll station, in a rock and roll dream. She’s making movies, on location. She don’t know what it means.”
10. “I Know the End,” Phoebe Bridgers, from 2020’s Punisher. Okay, Jeff Goodwin, I finally got to watch Phoebe’s performance on SNL. I didn’t know that it was this song she played and then smashed her guitar to at the end. All the way through the song, while admiring its beauty and its shifting tone and rhythm, I felt sorry for her gorgeous black guitar, knowing how it would end. This might be one of my favorite songs of the last two years, even. Poor guitar. “Romanticize the quiet life, there’s no place like my room…The billboards say the end is near.” Don’t they always? But in that circular way that life keeps playing, isn’t it only the beginning?

Thanks for making it through this struggle with me. You know who you are, and aside from those I’ve already named, why not also read these great Riffers: Gary Chapin, Vince Coliam, Harry Male, Nia Simone McLeod, Rob Janicke, Kevin Alexander, Matt Comeau, If Ever You’re Listening, MDSHall, Christopher Robin, Frank Mastropolo, Steven Hale, Alexander Briseño, Kathryn Dillon, S.W. Lauden, Sarah Paris, Kathy Gerstorff, and my Rushmore friend, Jessica Lee McMillan?

Last week’s list may be found here: