Friday, September 23, 2016

Dazed and overloaded



Eric Bachmann makes some of the best background music for writing academic articles.  I mean, I know that's not his goal, but it's true nonetheless.  It's not that his music blends into the background - just the opposite.  It's music that keeps me alert.  It doesn't allow me to become mindless.  It's catchy and thoughtful, but it also tends to be low-key enough that it's overpowering my senses.

The song above got stuck in my head for a long time.  The whole album, actually.  It coincidentally came out right about the time North Carolina decided to give a middle finger to compassion and civil rights by passing HB2.  It was accidental timing, but North Carolina was injured and needed to know that people still loved it.  I've been away for a long time and I only have a smattering of friends left there, but it's the place where my childhood was.  It's where I keep my memories.  I guess that makes it home?  Either way, I still have a love for it, and this song was the warm hug and band-aid the state needed.

Also, can we (I) talk about how fucking amazing this song is?  Holy shit.  The lyrical content could have taken this song anywhere - it could be one of those slow, non-crazy Tom Waits almost-torch-songs ("Alice.")  It could have been sung at a bar, drunken and dark, by a slow, piercing piano.  Instead, it's lively.  It's powerful.  It's still unimaginably dark.  It's an emotional state all to itself.  Like many of his songs, I'll be puzzling over the music for years.  See my earlier post about 'New Drink for the Old Drunk.'





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