We want records to touch us.\u00c2\u00a0 We not only want them to change our lives, but to make our lives work.\u00c2\u00a0 With a great record, our lives are complete.\u00c2\u00a0 Too bad there aren’t many great ones left.<\/p>\n
I find it tough listening to the oldies.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no sense of surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like living in "Groundhog Day".\u00c2\u00a0 I was flipping through the tracks on my iPod last night and I landed on David Gray’s "White Ladder".\u00c2\u00a0 I remembered discovering the record at the turn of the century.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t discovered many records since.<\/p>\n
I debated skipping by, but I let the song play through.\u00c2\u00a0 Fast-forward enough, and nothing sounds good.\u00c2\u00a0 And while I wasn’t paying attention, the song switched, and what came through my headphones was so stupendous, so good, that it completely changed my mood, put a smile on my face, made me a believer once again.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a eureka moment.<\/p>\n
From an empty room on the first floor "Deconstruct"?\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term in a song.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d expect it to be in the work of an oldster, but this was coming out of the mouth of a twentysomething.<\/p>\n Andrew McMahon was on the road so much, pursuing his dream of stardom with his band Something Corporate, that when he got back to L.A. he found his life in disarray.\u00c2\u00a0 That woman, she was gone.<\/p>\n What do you do when they leave?\u00c2\u00a0 In rap tracks it never happens. Ho’s are kicked to the curb.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about hanging with your homies.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe there’s a population that lives that life, but not me.\u00c2\u00a0 My life has got a little magic, but more loss.<\/p>\n And from the burning building where I lay Wow, maybe too emo for some, but I like the imagery of the burning building, because what you once had, there’s not a shred left.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you haven’t been up all night, to the point where the sun suddenly arises, you’ve never experienced heartbreak.\u00c2\u00a0 God, I remember playing all six sides of "Sandinista!" just to get me through.<\/p>\n And that’s L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the body is king.\u00c2\u00a0 It is how you look, it is about your image.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody is looking, everybody’s outside.\u00c2\u00a0 They might not be walking, but they’re driving their convertibles, their brown skin shining in the sun, with their sunglasses on.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easy to get caught up in it, until something happens that touches your insides.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a zit, or a dent in your car, but something that impacts your feelings.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you have feelings?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you have a relationship?\u00c2\u00a0 Or are you just too scared to put yourself out there.\u00c2\u00a0 Or are you involved, but holding back, to avoid feeling like the singer in this song…<\/p>\n I’ll send this message through the speakers What’s a song for, if not to reveal your emotions, your truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if futile, it’s cathartic to get your message out.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel in touch with YOURSELF!<\/p>\n On Third Street, the freak show thrives I never go to the Third Street Promenade.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless I need something at the Apple Store.\u00c2\u00a0 It freaks me out.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all those fish bowl people Andrew sings about.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe it’s just people in general, where do I fit in?<\/p>\n Savage Garden sang about the Third Street Promenade, but lovingly, as visitors from Australia might.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Andrew McMahon was living here.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s not living in this song.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel like there’s no future, like A.J. Soprano, when you’re dumped.<\/p>\n I am slipping through, I am slipping through And the emotion being expressed.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got nothing to do with melisma, it doesn’t say LOOK AT ME, rather it’s an open wound.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t see wounds in the pop music sung by people who didn’t write it.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a performance, but no truth.\u00c2\u00a0 But "Into The Airwaves" is only truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Did he ever really have her?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve been wondering whether I need a relationship like that, where I’m not sure I possess the other person.\u00c2\u00a0 Do I need their desire to leave to keep me paying attention?\u00c2\u00a0 And what kind of relationship can you have sleeping with one eye open, always the underdog?<\/p>\n Jack’s Mannequin (the name under which Mr. McMahon released this album, entitled "Everything In Transit") is unknown by the baby boomer arbiters of truth.\u00c2\u00a0 And the hipsters pooh-pooh the whining boys.\u00c2\u00a0 But is he whining, or speaking to his audience?\u00c2\u00a0 People who have emotions, who’ve been hurt?<\/p>\n The amazing thing about "Into The Airwaves" is that even if the words were from a nursery rhyme, it would work.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy’s got a sense of melody and changes.\u00c2\u00a0 He knows the building blocks.\u00c2\u00a0 And the production fits the message.\u00c2\u00a0 You know the record didn’t cost a fortune to make, but it didn’t need to be slick.\u00c2\u00a0 Life isn’t slick.<\/p>\n I really thought this album would be bigger.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that it tanked.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that it got zero push, hell it came out almost two years ago on Maverick.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you do some research, "Everything In Transit" is a hit amongst its target audience.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got FIVE STARS on Amazon!\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, averaging all 321 reviews, it ended up with the full complement.<\/p>\n This guy is really good.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got talent.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that his voice is not "American Idol" perfect is irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you can hear him in the grooves, like you could hear Dylan and the poets of yore.<\/p>\n The great music of today is played on a smaller stage, it’s more personal.\u00c2\u00a0 The big statement is for hacks.<\/p>\n I liked "Everything In Transit" when it came out, I could hear its quality back then.\u00c2\u00a0 But revisiting it by accident last night, I saw its significance.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a whole cadre of young people who feel what I felt.\u00c2\u00a0 Who believe that this record is their statement, that they’ve got something to hold on to.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to go to the show, they’re excited about music.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening, I’m excited about music too.<\/p>\n
As the cars pass by the liquor store
I deconstruct my thoughts at this piano
And it’s all that I can do to stay with
All the things I didn’t say to you
Before you moved across the country<\/em><\/p>\n
As I watch the stars become the day
The L.A. girls were lacing up their sneakers
They run the boardwalks and the beach
This fish bowl life is all they need
It’s everything I needed, too
Until I heard the news<\/em><\/p>\n
They told me that you moved
I’ll cross this country on a frequency<\/em><\/p>\n
Santa Monica’s alive, but
Something’s not so right inside
Living with the news<\/em><\/p>\n
I am slipping into the airwaves
(The static’s where you’ll find me)
And this is nothing new, you are slipping through
My fingers and into the airwaves
Into the airwaves<\/em><\/p>\n\n