My Songbook - Part 1

There’ve been a bit of back and forth in the comments section to my book post, and I just love it. Probably because it’s my own habit, I think it's fantastic when people suggest books or music. Their wisdom is like a secret handbook to the product. Commentary just makes things better.

Your thoughts made me remember that I love Nick Hornby. He’s the first male writer that helped me understand a male's perspective, all while still retaining the character's “manness.” Usually authors that achieve that sort of understanding tend to neuter a character’s qualities, making them androgynous and relatable.

It’s been too long since I picked up anything Hornby has written, so I started digging on Amazon to see what needed to make it to the top of my “to read” list. And there it was, practically glowing - 31 Songs (or Songbook in the US). It's the type of book I'd love to write.

The concept is simple – he wrote essays on 31 songs that he loves to pieces and begs you to adore them as well. As Hornby says:

"And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do."

So, I’m stealing his idea. I’ll knock these out one, two, however many at a time, whenever I feel like it, in no particular order.

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1. Translanticism – Death Cab for Cutie
Album: Translanticism
*You can snag an MP3 of it here under "T"*

What moves me:

The vocals at the beginning drip softly like slow, light rain - the kind dry, scorched skin begs for. As he sings, “I need you so much closer…” my skin begins to tingle. My heart aches with each repeated pleading.

Just when he’s worked this lonely desperation up into a frenzy (because it’s impossible to hear those words and not ache for someone), I realize that the drums are propelling me forward. It’s the sort of feeling like cartwheeling through a flat parking lot – pace building subtly, dizziness setting in after a few turns.

At the end, a soft chorus rises above the din, “so come on…come on…” and I find myself echoing it from the deepest recesses of my heart, diaphragm flexed, pushing it out as hard as I can, “come on…”

A perfect listen:

At the end of one very long day, I turned off all my lights, lit a candle and laid width-wise across my bed, sighing heavily, ready to pray for peace. I’d cranked up this album and was feeling mighty sorry for myself. Pushing all my tense breath out, I pressed my head up hard against my window and arched my neck back, eyes looking up the panes of glass, just past the lip of my gutter and up, up, up forever. The world was literally flipped upside down. It was just as close to peace as I could find.

In a perfect convergence, this song crescendoed, swirling in harmony with the stars that perched above, twinkling in the midnight sky, cold, shivering and lonely, just as I was. For 30 minutes I kept hitting the replay button – willing the song to become endless, beckoning the stars and heaven closer to my bed.