I’ve spent the last week or so considering which album I wanted to write about for my very last day of this project. I knew I wanted it to be something familiar, something that would fill me and connect me to myself and to the world. I knew that it had to be more than just the last record. It had to be a record for the new year, the ending of an old chapter, the beginning of an entirely new one. It had to be a record that would allow me to step into myself somehow. To return to the pieces I’ve lost that I want to get back, and to move forward into the pieces that I’ve been reaching for for so long.
I discovered this record in 2016, three years after it had been released, and I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it. I love the tone and the texture of Bruce’s voice, how it warms me in an instant. I love all the words, the peace and the chaos, how they fill me with a desire to plow forward, to release the past, to hold onto every hope I can carry. It’s unconventional. It’s set apart. But it’s still human, it’s still in love, it’s still been hurt, it’s still nostalgic, it’s still searching. And I love how easily all of that is expressed over the course of forty-nine minutes.
I’ve never loved anything like this, partly because I’m unsure if it even exists. This is a record that’s difficult to describe and to categorize, a record that deserves so much more than that. I love it because it makes no attempts to be anything other than what it is. It ebbs and flows through grand ballads and catchy love songs and sombre reflections and drawn out internal monologues. None of it should go together but it all does. Every second is threaded into the next with purpose and humanness and self-knowledge.
The tracks that have always been my favourites are still my favourites. I love “Cars Not Leaving” the most. It’s such an obvious love song. It lays everything out. It puts devotion into magic, simple sentences. This car’s not leaving if you’re not in it. I love “Greedy Little Heart,” the imagery of drawing all your strength from someone else even though you’re fully aware that you shouldn’t. I love “Perfect Weather,” that tension between having so much more than enough and still wanting more. Feeling satisfied in the present and still stretching forward for the rest of your dreams.
There is so much authenticity in this record. So much lightness and darkness in the same breath. So much artistry. And that’s why I wanted it for today. Because it reminds me that art should never be for the masses. It should be for me first, and its effects should spread over the earth only when it finds the right people to be connected it. Because it reminds me of the duality of every single day, of taking the good with the bad, of finding the balance of bursting joy and enveloping sadness. Life moves forward all at once. A lot of the time I feel like I’m holding everything in the palms of my hands, everything pouring forward and out of my heart. Sometimes I feel like it could kill me. I’m trying to remind myself that it’s actually what keeps me alive.
Babbleogue. 