With all the confusion and sadness that I have felt lately, music has been a comfort. Music can be like a back-rub when our minds are knotted up with the detritus of emotional distress. And as therapeutic as it can be when we are sad, music works even better when we are experiencing emotional states that are complicated - specifically, ones that are beyond our ability to deconstruct.
I have been stockpiling music for all the unforeseen future moments when I will need it. I believe that The Clientele alone will be able to carry me through every nighttime snowfall for the next fifty or sixty years. And one can only hope that The Field will eventually have enough music to soundtrack every plane flight for the rest of my life without growing stale. If I am worried about anyone, it is that Joanna Newsom will only put out a few pages worth of lyrics a year. It is tricky because there are no close substitutes. At least in the case of Noah Lennox you have everyone from Memory Tapes to Luomo to Ducktails to [imperfectly] fill the void.
But what to make of the Flaming Lips? They should have tattooed onto me already, at this age, and having listened to them for so long, but I have no specific memories to cling to, besides learning to play "Fight Test" on the guitar - which doesn't count. I think I missed the train if I didn't have at least one night, laying in the grass on a hill, drunk as hell, listening to The Soft Bulletin.
Come to think of it, I have the same complaint about Boards of Canada.
Why is it that so much music creates a stronger impression at nighttime? Easy, it's visceral, and it's related to what Borges said about nighttime:
"... night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does."
Clarity is tremendously therapeutic, I think. Or is that backwards?
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