I almost went to the country Coachella, i.e. Stagecoach.<\/p>\n
How did country music become rock and roll?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they’re bitching about real country being squeezed off the airwaves by this pop sound, but this pop sound is close to what we listened to in the seventies, when acoustic guitars weren’t only for unplugged shows.<\/p>\n
How do you determine your favorite album of the year?<\/p>\n
If you’re a rock critic, you pick one that will make you look good, properly obscure, anointed by other geeks far from the mainstream like yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 You haven’t spun the supposed best that much, but you keep your street cred.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, there’s not much cred when you’re home alone, heartbroken.<\/p>\n
I’ve decided the best album of the year is the one I played the most.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a personal best.\u00c2\u00a0 I may not have heard so much of what you’re into.\u00c2\u00a0 But of the stuff I played, what I played most was Little Big Town’s "The Road To Here".<\/p>\n
I didn’t know I’d love it.\u00c2\u00a0 But one song infatuated me to such a degree that I downloaded the rest.\u00c2\u00a0 I was experimenting.\u00c2\u00a0 If this experimentation wasn’t free I wouldn’t have taken the leap.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god it is and I did.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, an album is a collection of great songs.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s when this ceased to be that we gave up and only wanted the single.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter if there’s thirty minutes of music or ninety, it’s all got to be consistently great.\u00c2\u00a0 And "The Road To Here" is.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a panoply of emotions.\u00c2\u00a0 Different tracks register on different days.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite constantly changes.\u00c2\u00a0 And I was convinced that the final winner was "A Little More You" until just now, when it was eclipsed by "Live With Lonesome".<\/p>\n
What could be worse?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the single say they’re happy, that they’ve got options.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’ve got no one to bounce off of, no one to share your story with, the silence is deafening.\u00c2\u00a0 You try to fill it.\u00c2\u00a0 With television, newspapers and books.\u00c2\u00a0 But none are adequate substitutes for human companionship.<\/p>\n
You want to express your anxieties, your fears, as well as share your victories.\u00c2\u00a0 But only to someone you trust.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t trust a one night stand.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a conquest, not a relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a notch on your belt, but that notch won’t do much for you when you’re home alone, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.\u00c2\u00a0 You look for the light in their eyes, the understanding.\u00c2\u00a0 And then displaying your warts, you attempt to merge.\u00c2\u00a0 Pick well and your plug fits their socket.\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes the wire frays, there’s a short, and the connection burns out.\u00c2\u00a0 And just that fast you’re thrown back into the pool, treading water, just waiting for another attempt at the high dive, for that exhilaration, that thrill.<\/p>\n
Hear the train in the distance The reason these lines resonate is because of the accompaniment, the sound, the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The acoustic picking, the fiddle.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like the prairie, a wide open space, where your thoughts don’t bounce off the walls, but radiate into the distance, maybe never encountering another surface, never mind a human being.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what lonesome is like.\u00c2\u00a0 When even if you cry out, there’s no one close enough to hear.<\/p>\n Trains are lonely.\u00c2\u00a0 But at least they’re moving.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re thrilling when they pass by, but when they’re gone…there’s that silence, and you’re still in the same place.\u00c2\u00a0 With your thoughts, eating you up.\u00c2\u00a0 And what’s fascinating is the singer is singing this song not to bring back her old paramour, but to keep herself occupied.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s just speaking out loud.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s resigned.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s over.<\/p>\n See these arms, now they’re empty It’s a matter of fact.\u00c2\u00a0 She had something, but now it’s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 She can’t blame herself for not paying attention, for not trying to make it work.\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes, that’s not enough.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re not who they wanted you to be.\u00c2\u00a0 If they get too close, they’ve got to pull away.\u00c2\u00a0 What was working for you didn’t work for them.\u00c2\u00a0 They end it.\u00c2\u00a0 All you’re left with is your dedication.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s such a fine line.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like a light bulb.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s either off or on.\u00c2\u00a0 When it’s lit you can see, you’re emboldened, you feel powerful, you feel in control, you’re upbeat.\u00c2\u00a0 But when it goes out, and you’re in the dark…\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s the switch?\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t see it!\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve gone from richness to emptiness just that fast.\u00c2\u00a0 They were in your bed, but now it’s too big without them.<\/p>\n I’m gonna cry some The left believe they’ll never find anyone better.\u00c2\u00a0 Some never do.\u00c2\u00a0 They give up the dating wars.\u00c2\u00a0 Some even take their lives.\u00c2\u00a0 Most eventually find someone new.\u00c2\u00a0 But that takes a long time.\u00c2\u00a0 To find compatibility, to bond.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not resigned to time alone, you can never connect properly again.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who immediately forge new relationships, they can’t stand the loneliness.\u00c2\u00a0 They look like they’re lucky, that they’re winners, they just lack your character.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t plumb the depths, it’s just too painful.\u00c2\u00a0 Better to be with ANYBODY than nobody.<\/p>\n There’s a prayer that I’m prayin’ I’m old enough to know that they never come back.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they might reappear.\u00c2\u00a0 You might have a few laughs.\u00c2\u00a0 You might touch skin, even have intercourse, but they’ll leave.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever you didn’t provide for them then, you still can’t provide.\u00c2\u00a0 If it wasn’t strong enough the first time, it won’t be the second, or the third.\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes the other person’s loneliness draws them back.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you be strong enough to keep your distance, to refuse to deliver what they’re looking for?\u00c2\u00a0 You think you want it so badly, but it’s not what you really want, it’s a fantasy.<\/p>\n They all look better in the rearview mirror.\u00c2\u00a0 But is it really about them, or the lack of loneliness.<\/p>\n Funny how records take on places, where you once listened to them.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a moment when the music matched the landscape perfectly, they’ll be forever entwined.\u00c2\u00a0 In December I went to Vancouver for a conference.\u00c2\u00a0 And at the end of each day, I bundled up in my winter coat, and with my iPod in my pocket, I walked the streets of the town.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember slippin’ and a’ slidin’ like some rolling stone on the iced over sidewalks.\u00c2\u00a0 I could see my breath, I was alone, but not really.\u00c2\u00a0 I had my music, I had Little Big Town.\u00c2\u00a0 I was with my friends.<\/p>\n That’s what music is, a friend.\u00c2\u00a0 It gets you through the loneliness.<\/p>\n We’re all just looking for something to get us through the loneliness.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I almost went to the country Coachella, i.e. Stagecoach. How did country music become rock and roll?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they’re bitching about real country being squeezed off the airwaves by this pop sound, but this pop sound is close to what we listened to in the seventies, when acoustic guitars weren’t only for unplugged shows. How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-cD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Such a lonely sound it makes
When it’s gone there is silence
You can hear the sound of my heart break<\/em><\/p>\n
‘Cause they used to hold on to you
I said I’d never let go
But somehow you slipped on through
Now I know that’s how love goes
When love goes away<\/em><\/p>\n
Then I’m gonna lay here and die some
All because I know there ain’t no one else
Baby, if I can’t live with you
Guess I’ll have to
Live with the lonesome<\/em><\/p>\n
There’s a dream that I always will dream
And the hope keeps me waiting
For the day when you come back to me
It’s a curse and a blessing
To find love above all the rest
Now I’d rather have nothing
Than to settle for less
Now I know that’s how love goes
When love goes away<\/em><\/p>\n