2017: My Year in Music
I did a lot of writing in 2017 but none of it was for public consumption (except for the stuff for Coracle, my side-hustle).
It is an understatement to say that 2017 was a rough year. And I believe that most of the world would agree with me. So much loss and mayhem, personally and globally, including the sudden and tragic death of my father, I can't make sense of this year fully. I will say that my watchword for 2018 (while 2017's was "faith") will be hope. I am chaining myself to hope for more and better, despite and resulting from the wreckage of 2017. And I hope this not only for myself and my family, but for the world. Despite the colorless debris I continue to sort through, there remains in it a strong sense of invitation that I cannot ignore.
It is an ominous beginning to the 2017 playlist for sure. Some of the selections are actually fun, I promise. Because that also reflects what this year has been. I traveled all over, including Israel, Canada, and all over Spain, experienced feelings I thought I couldn't feel anymore, and learned so, so much about what it means to live this life. And I'm grateful to be able to narrate the year through music, although for parts of this year music and I had to go on a break. I'm thankful for poets, artists, musicians-- the feelers of this world. I am none of these things and I need them to help provide a sort of map to my own soul, reveal things that are inside, simply by presenting what is inside their own.
So, here we go.
Old Churchyard - The Wailin' Jennys
A setting of an old hymn of hard-to-trace origin. I went on a wild goose chase to try and find out when and where it was written. I couldn't quite get it save to say that it's old and rural. The Jennys do it again with their gorgeous harmonies and I couldn't stop listening to this once the album was released. The lyrics were a soothing balm.
Mausoleum - Seryn
It was a couple of years ago at a concert that I went to when Seryn debuted this song and I was immediately taken with it. Appropriate, affirming, and life-giving.
Echoes of Eden - Matthew Perryman Jones
Initially what attracted me to this song was the driving beat behind the music. I put this song on my "2017 possibilities" holding playlist (from which I whittle down to create this final cut playlist) on February 7, 2017, 5 months before Dad died. I loved the idea of being whispered to through a shroud -- that's what my dad's voice feels like now. Sometimes I dream about him and I walking and having a conversation. I take these as little gifts, a could-be glimpse into the next realm.
"If you wanna leave/You just have to say/You’re all caught up inside/But you know the way"
"When I move to stand
My muscle memory is keeping me up
Real memory is also similarly cruel
To see his face in front of me
Out of the blue, for no reason at all"
It is an understatement to say that 2017 was a rough year. And I believe that most of the world would agree with me. So much loss and mayhem, personally and globally, including the sudden and tragic death of my father, I can't make sense of this year fully. I will say that my watchword for 2018 (while 2017's was "faith") will be hope. I am chaining myself to hope for more and better, despite and resulting from the wreckage of 2017. And I hope this not only for myself and my family, but for the world. Despite the colorless debris I continue to sort through, there remains in it a strong sense of invitation that I cannot ignore.
It is an ominous beginning to the 2017 playlist for sure. Some of the selections are actually fun, I promise. Because that also reflects what this year has been. I traveled all over, including Israel, Canada, and all over Spain, experienced feelings I thought I couldn't feel anymore, and learned so, so much about what it means to live this life. And I'm grateful to be able to narrate the year through music, although for parts of this year music and I had to go on a break. I'm thankful for poets, artists, musicians-- the feelers of this world. I am none of these things and I need them to help provide a sort of map to my own soul, reveal things that are inside, simply by presenting what is inside their own.
So, here we go.
Songs about Death
I looked back at lists from previous years and realized that I've been drawn to songs about death for the last couple of years, and the joy that can be associated with it, as well as the sorrow.Old Churchyard - The Wailin' Jennys
A setting of an old hymn of hard-to-trace origin. I went on a wild goose chase to try and find out when and where it was written. I couldn't quite get it save to say that it's old and rural. The Jennys do it again with their gorgeous harmonies and I couldn't stop listening to this once the album was released. The lyrics were a soothing balm.
Mausoleum - Seryn
It was a couple of years ago at a concert that I went to when Seryn debuted this song and I was immediately taken with it. Appropriate, affirming, and life-giving.
Echoes of Eden - Matthew Perryman Jones
Initially what attracted me to this song was the driving beat behind the music. I put this song on my "2017 possibilities" holding playlist (from which I whittle down to create this final cut playlist) on February 7, 2017, 5 months before Dad died. I loved the idea of being whispered to through a shroud -- that's what my dad's voice feels like now. Sometimes I dream about him and I walking and having a conversation. I take these as little gifts, a could-be glimpse into the next realm.
"You love me like death in reverse". Those words have ministered to me time and time again this year. That's an incredible way to describe God's love. And the line about "all the things I do to feel young, they only make me old" convicts. God loves in a way that restores us and affirms who and where we are, and that reverses the curse of sin and death. He is the opposite of those things. It's a beautiful way of stating that.
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| Praia des Catedrales |
Women Who Seem to Know What I'm Feeling
Recite Remorse - Waxahatchee
"For a moment I was not lost. I was waiting for permission to take off..."
"For a moment I was not lost. I was waiting for permission to take off..."
This song seems to me to be about a woman who cannot figure out why she loves things that don't love her back. She always regrets them and yet, she sees very clearly exactly what she is doing every time. This is a feeling I know well. I think this song sounds like a turning point, in that it slowly builds and gets faster and more determined at the end. The regret doesn't feel like it's the end of the story. I think she might actually be learning her lesson now.
It's not the lyrics that I connect with in this song. It's the tone: bleary and indifferent. The the flat, driving, disaffected sound of this song is kinda what my emotions have sounded like: detatched, quieted, observant and unmoved.
I was drawn in to this song by its quizzical structure. She sounds bored ("le tired"?) - the very definition of ennui. I mean, she's french, so I'm not that surprised. And God knows I am bored. I know I'm connecting with the dismissive chorus. "I'm actually good, can't help it if we're tilted" is something I feel all over. There is a boredom and a dissatisfaction with how things are right now, a knowledge that I can't change them, and I just keep going. I'm fine. Things are just tilted, and not as they should be, because of the way the world is.
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| Nat and I in Vancouver |
Apologies for the explicit lyrics in the chorus. It seems like the person that Annie Clark is singing about is probably an old friend/lover. She's singing about a loss. But sometimes the people we love the most we call mother f***ers and it's because we love them so much. When you can call someone that, but you still genuinely love them, it comes from a hard-won understanding and intimacy. She at once calls them that name but says, you fill this special place in my life and I need you. I've lost many wonderful humans in my life this year, not all to death, and I know losing their presence in my life has affected me. But I wouldn't trade any moment of any of knowing them, despite the pain of loss.
I love this version of the song, more stripped down than the original album version.
My muscle memory is keeping me up
Real memory is also similarly cruel
To see his face in front of me
Out of the blue, for no reason at all"
I am waiting for things to even out. Waiting to feel the full force of all that has happened. Waiting for things to reach a different sort of equilibrium on the other side. What even is the other side? Later in the song the lyrics say "And I wonder how this moment could possibly be/ And how much was of my choosing/ And what chose me/ And I couldn't care less/ When it all adds up/ And I feel I am closest to what I really am." This is bizarrely accurate. I know this year is drawing me in to my truest identity. I could never know how that's possible, but I think it is.
Fire - Beth Ditto
Even if this rest of this song was flat and dispassionate, the beat that drops in at the 1:03 mark is enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. Fire indeed.
White Flag - Joseph
"Burn the white flag." Oh yes, there have been times and situations aplenty when I was ready to wave it high and surrender over the last year. This song reminded me of those choices that we make and how sometimes we just have to yell NO SURRENDER.
Thirty - The Weather Station
Tamara Linderman says "I wrote the song about that precise moment – joy balanced on the cusp of despair." I left 30 in my rear view a while ago, and I haven't looked back. But I like how in the song she is struggling to make sense of the internal shifts all hitting her at once. She seems attuned and to be highly sensitive to everything around her but also strangely detached. It's an observant, thoughtful song.
The Stable Song - Gregory Alan Isakov
I'm not totally sure what he's talking about, or the story behind it, but I can feel this song. I would listen to it late at night while driving home on the GW parkway past the city on the other side of the river. This song always makes me think of wandering, searching, and seeking.
Yellow Eyes - Rayland Baxter
What gets me is the entrance of the electric guitar about 5 seconds into the song. It's like a voice coming in and crying before the song even starts. Yes, it's another sad song about someone leaving. LET ME HAVE THIS.
River - Leon Bridges
There are lots of songs that use the image of crossing a river, and a hope for forgiveness and wholeness on the other side, signifying the end of a very long journey. I think Leon Bridges' voice is so beautiful and what he's singing about is a good description of the hope I feel surrounding death.
My Arms Were Always Around You - Peter Bradley Adams
My first day on the camino I hiked the hilly pass over the Pyrenees from France into Spain. The day was cloudy and a little bit rainy, especially at the top of the mountains, and it was especially windy up there. It's a strenuous climb up there and I had my rain jacket hanging off my head and draped over my shoulders and my pack, but it was too hot to have it on all the way. I spent a lot of that day missing my dad and having lots of feelings about being alone and needing to be comforted but unsure about reliable sources for comfort. At the top of the pass, shrouded in fog, a brisk wind picked up at just the right angle to pick up the two loosely dangling sleeves of my coat at either side of me and to wrap them around me. It was a mysterious, unmistakable, and much-needed reminder of a God whose arms were always around me, and still are.
The Dark Before the Dawn - Andrew Peterson
A more direct interpretation of the message of hope I needed to hear over and over and over this year. I do believe that pain has purpose. It is not meaningless or arbitrary in its uses. That is a message I clung to, and continue to cling to in 2018.
If I Should Fall Behind (Live at MSG) - Bruce Springsteen
I introduced my dad to this song putting it on a mix CD I made for him for Christmas one year. I listened to it this year thinking of my dad having gone ahead into another part of living and me sort of falling behind. So much departure and me always feeling like I'm not keeping up, it is sweet to listen to words of promise about someone waiting for me for as long as it takes.
Land of the Living - Matthew Perryman Jones
This is the tone I've wanted to maintain in my life moving in to 2018. It's determined and hopeful but aware of the pain out of which the hope was born. I was living my life with this same awareness before tragedy struck my family, but now it's like I have stepped into this new existence or crossed over into a new land where it's much deeper. I feel the tension between good and evil in me all the time, the tension between mortality and eternity, between real life and little deaths. This song is the song of a man who is well traveled in this land, and who brings songs of encouragement for newcomers to its borders.
Now for some bonus categories. You know how I love these.
Because I went to the Joshua Tree Tour concert at Fed Ex in June with my brothers, my cousins, my boss and his son, and a few other dear friends and it was amazing. I also went to opening night of the tour in Vancouver with Nat. I fell in love with Canada all over again and Mumford and Sons opened.
Arizona - Frances Cone
Spending Memorial Day weekend in the wilds of Arizona at Havasu falls hiking and camping with a group of strangers who all became friends. I had a ridiculously fun time and loved that I had a song that helped me solidify the images of that gorgeous weekend.
Barcelona - George Ezra
In my second visit to the city in early 2017 I started listening to this song a lot. I like how Barcelona feels more and more familiar to me, and when I go there, I'm not trying to kill myself to see things, I'm just going to hang with friends.
Thinking of a Place - The War on Drugs
Listening to this on an evening in the Quantico Haus living room for one of Greg's listening parties and just letting myself flow along with it, and enjoying shared experience with amazing friends. I also saw the band live in 2017, it was my first show at The Anthem, DC's newest live music venue. "I'm moving through the dark/of a long black night/and I'm looking at the moon/and the light it shines."
and everyone's favorite pick...
Thanks for following along friends. Sorry I was so late in posting this. I had almost all of this written in late December of 2017, ready to post but for reasons I cannot put my finger on I couldn't bring myself to post it. I simply couldn't do it. It was great to revisit this with the new perspective the last two years has given me.
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| Mallorca |
Songs for Restlessness
Fire - Beth Ditto
Even if this rest of this song was flat and dispassionate, the beat that drops in at the 1:03 mark is enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. Fire indeed.
White Flag - Joseph
"Burn the white flag." Oh yes, there have been times and situations aplenty when I was ready to wave it high and surrender over the last year. This song reminded me of those choices that we make and how sometimes we just have to yell NO SURRENDER.
Thirty - The Weather Station
Tamara Linderman says "I wrote the song about that precise moment – joy balanced on the cusp of despair." I left 30 in my rear view a while ago, and I haven't looked back. But I like how in the song she is struggling to make sense of the internal shifts all hitting her at once. She seems attuned and to be highly sensitive to everything around her but also strangely detached. It's an observant, thoughtful song.
 |
| Joshua Tree NP day trip |
Songs for Sadness
The Stable Song - Gregory Alan Isakov
I'm not totally sure what he's talking about, or the story behind it, but I can feel this song. I would listen to it late at night while driving home on the GW parkway past the city on the other side of the river. This song always makes me think of wandering, searching, and seeking.
Yellow Eyes - Rayland Baxter
What gets me is the entrance of the electric guitar about 5 seconds into the song. It's like a voice coming in and crying before the song even starts. Yes, it's another sad song about someone leaving. LET ME HAVE THIS.
 |
| Jerusalem |
Songs to Bring Me Back to the Land of the Living
River - Leon Bridges
There are lots of songs that use the image of crossing a river, and a hope for forgiveness and wholeness on the other side, signifying the end of a very long journey. I think Leon Bridges' voice is so beautiful and what he's singing about is a good description of the hope I feel surrounding death.
My Arms Were Always Around You - Peter Bradley Adams
My first day on the camino I hiked the hilly pass over the Pyrenees from France into Spain. The day was cloudy and a little bit rainy, especially at the top of the mountains, and it was especially windy up there. It's a strenuous climb up there and I had my rain jacket hanging off my head and draped over my shoulders and my pack, but it was too hot to have it on all the way. I spent a lot of that day missing my dad and having lots of feelings about being alone and needing to be comforted but unsure about reliable sources for comfort. At the top of the pass, shrouded in fog, a brisk wind picked up at just the right angle to pick up the two loosely dangling sleeves of my coat at either side of me and to wrap them around me. It was a mysterious, unmistakable, and much-needed reminder of a God whose arms were always around me, and still are.
The Dark Before the Dawn - Andrew Peterson
A more direct interpretation of the message of hope I needed to hear over and over and over this year. I do believe that pain has purpose. It is not meaningless or arbitrary in its uses. That is a message I clung to, and continue to cling to in 2018.
If I Should Fall Behind (Live at MSG) - Bruce Springsteen
I introduced my dad to this song putting it on a mix CD I made for him for Christmas one year. I listened to it this year thinking of my dad having gone ahead into another part of living and me sort of falling behind. So much departure and me always feeling like I'm not keeping up, it is sweet to listen to words of promise about someone waiting for me for as long as it takes.
Land of the Living - Matthew Perryman Jones
This is the tone I've wanted to maintain in my life moving in to 2018. It's determined and hopeful but aware of the pain out of which the hope was born. I was living my life with this same awareness before tragedy struck my family, but now it's like I have stepped into this new existence or crossed over into a new land where it's much deeper. I feel the tension between good and evil in me all the time, the tension between mortality and eternity, between real life and little deaths. This song is the song of a man who is well traveled in this land, and who brings songs of encouragement for newcomers to its borders.
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| Mooney Falls Ascent |
Songs Tied to a Place
Exit - U2Because I went to the Joshua Tree Tour concert at Fed Ex in June with my brothers, my cousins, my boss and his son, and a few other dear friends and it was amazing. I also went to opening night of the tour in Vancouver with Nat. I fell in love with Canada all over again and Mumford and Sons opened.
Arizona - Frances Cone
Spending Memorial Day weekend in the wilds of Arizona at Havasu falls hiking and camping with a group of strangers who all became friends. I had a ridiculously fun time and loved that I had a song that helped me solidify the images of that gorgeous weekend.
Barcelona - George Ezra
In my second visit to the city in early 2017 I started listening to this song a lot. I like how Barcelona feels more and more familiar to me, and when I go there, I'm not trying to kill myself to see things, I'm just going to hang with friends.
Thinking of a Place - The War on Drugs
Listening to this on an evening in the Quantico Haus living room for one of Greg's listening parties and just letting myself flow along with it, and enjoying shared experience with amazing friends. I also saw the band live in 2017, it was my first show at The Anthem, DC's newest live music venue. "I'm moving through the dark/of a long black night/and I'm looking at the moon/and the light it shines."
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| Camino Frances - Day 1 |
Sexiest Song of 2017
Afterthought - Close TalkerThanks for following along friends. Sorry I was so late in posting this. I had almost all of this written in late December of 2017, ready to post but for reasons I cannot put my finger on I couldn't bring myself to post it. I simply couldn't do it. It was great to revisit this with the new perspective the last two years has given me.
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| Bocuse D'Or |
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