Oh James, you broke me. I thought I knew you well.
It's the artists, the musicians, the visionaries, the weirdos, the deep thinkers and feelers who draw down the moon and bring in the light. This song is bringing me back online after a prolonged downward spiral.
Little indie band of whom I know nothing about from Portland Oregon that I randomly heard on this Friday night when I wasn't actively seeking. Or maybe I was and we found each other. Collided more like because this is the literal mood. Breakdown or breakthrough? I don't know, whatever this is, it's not yet done birthing itself but this song is helping and tonight, my friends, that's all I want.
Sure - Be Myself (released February 9th 2025)
Twenty years connected.
Twenty years the push, pull, hello goodbye, yes and no.
Twenty years, the passion.
Twenty years, trying to understand what begets cruelty.
Twenty years, found when hidden.
Twenty years, a haunted halfway house.
Twenty years of these stupid little crumbs.
Twenty years of dangled apologies.
Twenty years of warnings.
Twenty years of maybes.
Twenty years of possible regrets.
Twenty years of trying to be everything.
Twenty years trying to prove.
Twenty years, an oath.
One year of actual truth.
One year processing an untruth. A narrative buried so deep, it is cemented in ore.
One year, the fall out.
One year stubborn, willful. I am here. I am real. I am genuine.
One year holding breath, tensing, still giving.
No more years.
Realization: playacting with ignis fatuus.
Glass is too benign to describe those shards, the unraveling, the vacuum, the blank space.
No more blood or bone sacrifices. No more balmy water for tears or devotion.
I am not the villain and never was.
You were my twin moon. You were my songs.
This is a death I can't even mourn openly.
How do I tell the world I became half, severed?
I sat a version of shiva alone because there is no recognition or bereavement when you mourn a wraith, a trickster who hides behind many masks.
Instead, blame and sharpness. "You should have known better. You're stuck."
My fault again.
But oh how I delighted in that game!
There is no burial. No Body. No final resting place to leave behind.
For what you have stolen from me, I do not forgive.
For believing in you, I will find a way to forgive myself.
And one day revel in the wicked delight that you and I are different. And it is those differences that offer me life.
Embedded: Bat For Lashes, All Your Gold
The irony of the desert's tragedy is that it supposes it needs to be made whole with rain. Yes, the monsoon brings life to the otherwise seemingly desolate landscape. Flowers flourish, lakes pool and the wildlife embraces it all. But in that watery union the desert loses its quiet windy beauty and whispering dune mysteries. The desert experiences oasis for a time but it doesn't need it. It has learned to thrive without the rain. Maybe the desert thrives on romantic desolate arid beauty but has evolved in strange wondrous ways to desire flippant and willful rain.
This is such a twisted albeit simplistic metaphor for our human obsession with contrarian love. Maybe the desert and the rain are better as they are. Maybe they enjoy being their own separate worlds, even "happily" in their own prisons, quietly desperately desiring union. You tell me. I think you're a liar, the saddest most tragic kind. The one that doesn't realize they've lied to themselves until it's beyond midnight.
Embedded: Everything But The Girl - Missing /// Gigi Perez - Glue
The Todd Terry Remix is my beyond favorite and no one can tell me differently.
