Sunday afternoon. Free. I put my super-cool, high-fidelity headphones, pop a CD into my Walkman, sprawl out on the bed, and let the music flow. It's almost a religious experience. Not just "listening to music," I am wrapping myself in the deep vibrations of a recording, submerging myself into another reality, a total sonic landscape. This is not entertainment. It is nourishment. Enlightenment. Close-listening taken to the extreme.
My choices seem significant to me. There is a story in the choices.
I started with Nick Cave and Bad Seeds' "Murder Ballads" (1996) Dark stuff. Gothic. I think of Edgar Allan Poe. Nick is a dark balladeer, reveling in the gruesome details of murder, betrayal, bad blood, bad acts, the conflicted human heart. Nick and band are having so much fun.
I fell asleep (how is that possible?), after the 3rd track, Nick's duet with PJ Harvey on "Henry Lee." I didn't wake up until the final song on the album, Dylan's "Death is Not the End:"
"Oh, the tree of life is growing
Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation shines
In dark and empty skies"
There is a message there. It comes in loud and clear.
The next CD I put in the walkman was The Flaming Lips' "Embryonic" (2009). Weird. Unique. This records sounds like nothing else. A sprawling double-album, some kind of a stone-cold masterpiece. These Okie Freaks are on a journey of discovery, mining the weirdness for all its worth.
I stayed awake for the whole record. All the lyrics resonate. One of my favorites, "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine:"
"What
What does it mean
To dream what you dream
To believe what you've seen?
Why
Why do we feel
To try to find real
Underneath a machine?
What
What does it mean
To dream what you dream
To believe what you've seen?
Why
Why do we feel
To try to find real
Just to meet the machine
To meet the machine"
