don't be so amazing or i'll miss you too much

i suppose tonight is just another reminder why cassadaga is my favorite album of 2007. i remember the first time i listened to the album; it was this song that hit me the hardest, even though another would end up being mine later on. there are still parts of this song that get caught in my throat when i try to sing along, and get caught in my heart when i just sit and listen.

it is a bit of amazing when you spin an album again, and find it even more relevant then when you first fell hard for it's songs.

"everything gets smaller now the further that i go
towards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknown
consider yourself lucky if you think of it as home
you can move mountains with your misery if you don't
if you don't."

lime tree ~ bright eyes

but leave that blanket round you

death may come invisible
or in a holy wall of fire
in the breath between the markers
on some black I-80 mile

from the madness of the governments
to the vengeance of the sea
well everything is eclipsed
by the shape of destiny

so love me now, hell is coming
yeah kiss my mouth, hell is here

no one would riot for less ~ bright eyes

i was a hopeless romantic now i'm just turning tricks

"his room is on fire since he painted it red
there are a stranger's silk sequins at the foot of the bed
he has been to weddings and funerals but he still never wept
now sorrow is pleasure when you want it instead."

soul singer in a session band ~ bright eyes

everybody feels this way sometimes

"i will be ignored.
i will be denied.
i could be erased.
i could be brushed aside.
i will get scared, and i will get shoved down,
but i feel like i do beause you push me around.

i'm starting to ignore you, i've doubted you so long.
i'm tired of over-thinking, i know you don't belong.
now i'm asking questions - no one pushes me around.
everybody feels this way sometimes, everybody feels this way -

and i do.
you can't hear it, but i do.
you don't seem angry, but i do.
i do."

i do ~ lisa loeb

making up for all this mess

"i'll sing it one last time for you
then we really have to go
you've been the only thing that's right
in all i've done."

run ~ snow patrol

you don't deserve to be lonely

i have a soft spot for the broken souls in this world, which is probably a reflection of my own somewhat tattered self. when i was nineteen a good friend of mine said that if she put me in a room with hundreds of people i would immediately be drawn to the one with the most pain; perhaps she was right. but, in all honesty, we all have scars, we all have stories, we all have scattered and shattered pieces inside. i suppose i like to believe in hope, in redemption, in the part of all of us that rise above what hurts within us. and, that hope, i think it is so beautiful. i wish that elliott smith had stuck around long enough to find his moment of begin again.

angeles

going nowhere

needle in the hay

say yes

twilight

he is so wee

"well, you're not that lazy
and you know how to act when
you're with the upper class
my dreams of you are hazy
as we lie on the grass and we talk about daydreams
you're so unconceited
yeah you couldn't be slack if i paid
you the shirt off my back
you're my pop queen."

pop queen ~ ben lee

five minutes in the closet with you

"i'm ready for it now,
already on the ground."

spin the bottle ~ juliana hatfield

my first five (more to come)

what i found keen in 2007: my take on the top albums (the first five)

1* cassadaga ~ bright eyes

without a doubt, my favorite album of 2007. i slid it into the cd player, in my car, and started listening to it and had to pull over to the side of the road to take it all in. i have cried many tears to this album, quoted lyrics from the songs countless times, even named this blog from a line in when the brakeman turns my way. this is conor's cleaning up, growing up, struggling but finding a bit more of himself album, and oh my stars do i feel it.

if the brakeman turns my way

2* under the blacklight ~ rilo kiley

my favorite gig of the year, and an album i have loved with almost as much passion and fervor as cassadaga. continuing with their take on los angeles, in all it's grit and glory, is a collection of songs that veer into country, rock, indie pop, and something that is so uniquely theirs that it defies genre categorization. sex and love, sin and redemption, and all the dangers that fall in the in-between. i love it, so much. and i sort of adore that so many friends who never bothered with them before seem to have fallen in love, too.

close call

3* neon bible ~ arcade fire

this is a sure thing on just about any list i am sure to find. i think it out-indies even radiohead, and somehow i still find it in my top five. the album is so visual-inducing, each song feeling like a tiny film just waiting to flicker across a screen. there are stories in every line, and i find myself getting lost in each and every track, not quite sure that i want the end to come.

no cars go

4* once soundtrack

as much as i adore soundtracks, i do not think i have ever put one on a top album list. but, this is definitely an exception worthy of any top list. i still have not seen the film, though i am quite sure that once i do it will also find it's way into a top list of films, too. the songs, they slay me. they bring me to tears and overflow me with a level of emotion that i sometimes lack words to describe. i think that if you listen closely enough there will be a song among the album that hits you so deep beneath your exterior self that you will swear it is about you. it is that personal, that intimate, and that full of raw truth; love with the fairytale peeled away to reveal what lies within.

when your minds made up

5* boxer ~ the national

this album reminds me of something i would have fallen hard for in the late eighties; the album leaning right next to the cure, psychedelic furs, sisters of mercy, and my (at the time) newly discovered velvet underground. there is something slightly dark here, laden with emotion and self-deprecation. this is the music of uncertainty, confusion, and longing that is stained with the ugly marks of jealousy and lust. it feels like the soundtrack of losing yourself as you find yourself, falling apart to fall in love, breaking down before your time has come to collapse.

mistaken for strangers

a cemetery song we'd never sing

this song, it feels like i've taken a drive through the garden state, in the sixties, while wearing a borrowed prom dress that once belonged to a great-aunt who spent her youth in paris trading stories with miller and nin. and, there's something elfman here, too, lurking just underneath it all. i half expect to see edward scissorhands pop up in the background, turning everything into a topiary wonderland.

neptune city ~ nicole atkins