I don’t know what brought on this movement in the 70s, but I’m glad for it: glad, because there’s gloomy music I can turn to for inspiration. Glad, because I know there’s others with dark thoughts who stick to the… Read More ›
music
Among the Leaves | Weekly Writing Challenge
Maybe it’s just because it’s that time of year, but this song made me cry last November when I read the lyrics. Red House Painters, Desertshore, Sun Kil Moon, it’s all Mark Kozelek, and I love to get sad with… Read More ›
Dream about a boy who turned to stone: online loneliness
We go to our corners, the family. There’s the TV and the kitchen for the genders to split, devices for the teenagers to keep them docile, interested, present. Life spins in a prism of thoughts and distractions, frames. Most you… Read More ›
Far From Home (Positively 5th Street)
The last time I went, they tore it down so it made me wonder if it was ever even there: that brick building by the art museum where I paid my first rent, on 5th and Hamilton street, Allentown, PA…. Read More ›
Punk rock play in the suburbs
I don’t fit in here and I don’t want to. But I catch myself wearing my work badge on my belt and strolling out of the grocery store with my six-pack, and I bet the kids who bag and collect… Read More ›
Hearts out for R.E.M.
It’s a sad moment on Wikipedia when they move you to past tense: R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry. Oh,… Read More ›
Rethinking Pink Floyd
I was too young to connect with Pink Floyd in the late 60s or 70s the way others did. When they released the film of The Wall, I was frightened by it (the scene with kids falling into a meat… Read More ›
The earnestness of the 70s
Time Passages, Al Stewart. I grew up in the 70s, the 80s…the photos are embarrassing. Equally so for the 60s, I’m guessing. Songs like Time Passages, well: it’s good, it’s earnest, and yet it has a bit of cheese to… Read More ›
I hear sadness
You can hear what you want to hear – or if you’re not lucky, you can’t control it. I like the sound of sadness, when it’s based in love and celebration, a last goodbye, until next time. So I hear… Read More ›
The Meaning of Existence
It shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to figure this out, but it has, and I haven’t still. I walk this same road every day, the same road, but always different. I keep thinking I’ll catch the tail of an… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 