“It All Feels Right”

Washed Out and summer friendships

Back at the end of 2013, The Bitter Southerner announced its list of top “southern” albums of the year, and on that list was a record called Paracosm by a band named Washed Out. I had never heard of them (him), but after sampling a song or two, I decided to head on over to my favorite record store and pick up the CD. I may have picked up a few more on that list, but my musical memory has lost whatever they were, or maybe it was that Paracosm eclipsed, overwhelmed, everything else.

How can I describe the sound? “Lush” is the word that comes to mind first. Layers of voice textured with guitars, synths, drums, and even a pedal steel on the title track, whirling, spinning toward me but never out of control. I put the CD in my car’s player as I idled in the parking lot, and then I sat there for the next 45 minutes, not moving, not thinking.

Just remembering.

Taken immediately by the first two numbers, “Entrance” and “It All Feels Right,” which segue almost seamlessly, like my thoughts — the here and now finding the then without my even trying.

How long ago was it? that summer day, conjured by these words:

“Call your friends, I’ll call mine We’ll head out for a long ride Sun is coming out now It all feels right Close my eyes Think about the old times What’s it all about? The feeling when it all works out…”

Can you see us riding that early summer afternoon, tripping, searching for some mowed meadow, maybe even the one by a friend’s lake house? We stop, and flare out in the field with someone’s master frisbee, and we fly it back and forth, around, for what? An hour, three? We pause for a smoke, a new energy, and then indulge that lake, ourselves, floating, grasping, all safe and secure, despite what the fiery minister once told us about jumping in unknown waters, about the snakes that live there, that send you down, down, down.

But nothing happens other than our joy, the sun, some music from old car speakers, The Moody Blues, or maybe Yes, my true friend Fred’s love.

So what if some of these friends turn sour? So what if they turn on the old times and insinuate racial insults at my love?

So what if I can no longer speak to some of them, have to block them from my memory, though of course, it’s impossible, because a new song has the power to bring it back, to bring them back.

What feels right?

And that night, I settle into my grandfather’s chair and pull out The Magus, a gift from my friend Jimbo who never turned on me, or I put it down and watch the lawyer program my dad loves, and I think about riding again, about the afternoon when none of the ugly words had been spoken, and my friends were my friends and I imagined they always would be.

A song can do this. It All feels Right, because it once was, and it still is for other true friends like Jim and Jack and Joe. The memory fades but is never lost though you think it could be, might be, and maybe you even want it to be.

It all feels right to remember because that’s who we were in those days, in that summer day, when the music, like the lake, washed us, and we soared frisbees into that deep blue sky as if they might never return.

I awoke from my music dream and headed up the mountain as the sun set — to therapy, to healing, to other hands that steady and hold me.

It all feels right: A voice, sounds from newer worlds that still keep me, alone/not alone, sitting in that place, that car.

That Paracosm.

By Washed Out.

Thank you for reading, for listening, for following Christopher Robin and Samantha Drobac at Sonstories, and all the others who give their words: Jessica Lee McMillan, Kathryn Dillon, Rob Janicke, Kevin Alexander, Steven Hale, TheWellSeasonedLibrarian, Harry Male, If Ever You’re Listening, MDSHall, Keith R. Higgons, S.W. Lauden, David Acaster, Alex Markham, Alexander Briseño, Noah Levy, Paul Combs, Vince Coliam, and Aimée Gramblin.