For the past two weeks, I've been stuck on listening to a 3 song playlist...."War on Drugs" by BNL with Steven Page singing the lyrics, "Disappear" by Steven Speaks and "Part One" by Band of Horses. They're three tunes that have almost nothing in common with the exception that I put them into one list and listen to them. Over and over and over and over again. On repeat. Ad naseum.
Any other time I do this-the playlist will last two or three days and I'll delete it, replace it or just stop listening to it until I get up the desire to do something with it. I simply get sick of listening to them.
But this group is different...because each song takes me in a different direction...and each one makes me think of something a little different with each listen. I hear different parts of the song, a quiet crash cymbal in the background, a new piece of the message...or a message that I've extracted out of context.
The vocals that Steven Page put together for "War on Drugs", for example, are calm, confident and soothing...there's a message in the song but you don't immediately hear it because you're mindlessly singing along to the song. It's catchy...
Then it hits you.
Wow. Okay.
That's an interesting message...
...and not expected in a 'typical' BNL song. And that's what made them so likable when he was part of the band. The catchy 'pop' tunes by Ed and the deeper, more thoughtful tunes by Steven. The split between Steven and BNL is said to be an amicable one...but I can't listen to BNL now without his vocals-he was half of the song writing and more than half of the vocals. I've owned this CD since it came out (I was a super mega loyal BNL fan) and until a couple of weeks ago, never gave this song a second listen...and now I can't stop listening to it. But then, on the other hand, it makes complete sense that he left the band. His more contemplative and complex arrangements don't get lost in the catchy, throwaway pop tunes like "Stunt", "Another Postcard" and such. They're good songs as well but they serve a completely different purpose.
I hear more "BNL" in "Clifton Springs", a song on Steven Page's solo album, than I do in the new BNL album. It's mediocre at best...and I won't be buying it.
"Disappear" by Steven Speaks gets me thinking about all of the people in my past (and present) that have made a commitment of some sort and then simply walked out the back door when things got a little rough. The choppy piano work in the song highlights the nervous action of having to bail out before truly understanding what's going on. You want to stay but don't want to take on any damage, so to speak. Those circumstances happen a lot in the course of a lifetime-especially the younger years. And I'll admit, there are a lot of people in the detritus of my past. People who've bailed (and people I've bailed on as well) when we just couldn't get it to work anymore. A second (or third or fourth) attempt wasn't worth it at the time. On one hand, I wonder what might have been. On the other, I'm glad it worked out the way it did. I'm in a great place and I had to climb over those broken experiences to reach the place where I now stand.
I guess it's official. I'm old enough to voluntarily reminisce about my past and consider what I've done and how I've experienced it. There's a lot of good stuff in there...and there are some dark corners that I'd like to remain undisturbed.
"Part One" by Band of Horses is a musical reminder that I get a new chance to change the direction I was going yesterday if I don't like it. This song, to me, is profound in so many ways because of the endless number of ways I can interpret the lyrics. For example, it's not lost on me that the last word in the song is "stay" and that puts a small smile on my face every time I hear it.
A lot of people forget that every day is a new beginning. People get into 'lemming mode' and do the same thing, day in and day out...never realizing that if they broke away from the group, they might not have to jump off the cliff and swim for some distant island they'll never reach. Their eyes are so set on reaching the island of unknown that they don't for once consider breaking away. It doesn't mean letting go of everything, just one thing. That's something I didn't understand when I was younger.
The people who break away are the truly fortunate...they don't need more than the faith they have in themselves to make the decision. It doesn't matter what they wind up doing, it's the fact that they have that much faith in themselves that makes the action that much more poetic.
Background Tune: (look up...they're all there...)
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