A Distorted Reality.

I associate music with situations, with people, with memories. It’s probably nothing more than an unfortunate side-effect of listening to music whatever I do, but it is something that I’ve been doing inadvertently for the last four or so years. It started with Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Read My Lips. How cool is that? Very.

1. Lydia - Smile, You’ve Won - I first heard it on an Atticus Dragging the Lake compilation. God, I’ve changed since 2004. This came to be associated with late-night conversations about nothing which would last hours. Simple times, really. Just contentment in what was with no aspirations for ‘more’ than that.
2. Red Sparowes - Alone and Unaware, the Landscape was Transformed in Front of Our Eyes - It’s so calm, so relaxing. It’s something that I’ve worked and thought to, and always with the greatest clarity and retention of thoughts.
3. Envy - A Warm Room - another for thinking and working, but always at a greater intensity. The emotional work, if you will: my creative process is fuelled by this song. The sheer decadence of the constantly shifting dynamics of the song is like ambrosia for my mind. Everything is clear amidst the chaos. It’s wonderful.
4. Rilo Kiley - Paint’s Peeling - the title is a quote from this song. It’s my association with a self-pitying mood, pretty much. It’s a wonderful combination of arrogance and personal progression which allows to concentrate on myself (however much of an effort that is) whilst looking forward to a better future of being ‘ready’.
5. Elliott Smith - Everything Reminds me of Her - Obsession mixed with devotion: the song is just me all over.
6. Circle Takes the Square - Kill the Switch - ‘I know it’s all been done before, but I want to do it again’ epitomises the spirit of my friendships, and how I know that I live: emulation before creation.
7. Lightspeed Champion - Stay the Fuck Away from Me - Reminds me of any time that I’ve felt unsure of myself.
8. I Would Set Myself on Fire for You - Three - The memories of ruined friendships (’remember when we were beautiful? It was so beautiful.‘): something that I can’t stop doing. Things never stay the same: they will always change. Things can’t be left to be, some external influence will always affect them.
9. Lion of the North - Ghost Stories - Any time that I feel the need to be ruthlessly hedonistic, this is the song to spark it: ‘hey, let’s burn out like cassette tapes’ acts as a rather effective summary of the self-destructive, self-serving spirit which needs to be let loose every so often. It’s also about youth and transience of interpersonal relationships. It’s fucking amazing.
   

   Our dreams are harder to remember, and our hopes were hung from all the highest trees and I’m confessing missing “friends” that will never miss me.

10. Orchid - Le Descordre C’est Moi - It’s so immediate and intense that it’s just brutal (not in the br00tal sense, that would be horrid). Again, it’s all about self-destructive tendencies.
11. Lydia - Stay Awake - ‘you’re still keeping me sane’. Few contribute to this.
12. Fear Before the March of Flames - High as a Horse - I associate this with my politics: anti-consumerist to the extreme. Plus, saying ‘fucked up’ is, like, really edgy.
13. Frank Turner - Sea Legs - It represents everything that hate about adaptation and acclimatisation to people/things/ideas: it’s always hard to go back to being without them. It’s not just love of his growl, honestly.
14. The Pax Cecilia - The Tomb Song - It clears my mind: I love piano music. The song is about embracing sorrow and passion. What’s not to love?
15. Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes - A song about the contrast of what is desired and what should be desired. Oh, hi: it’s my thought process as a whole.

I don’t understand the pull that music has for me: I really don’t, and that’s why I was unable to explain it in General Studies Unit One (hah) and I chose literature instead. There’s some viscerality about the use of instrumentation and voice to make a cohesive structure that calls out to me as literature never could, and never will in the future. Honestly, I did not enjoy the wonderful novel that was The Virgin Suicides without Air’s score for the insufferable film adaptation in the background.

Either that’s in some way profound, or I’m going insane. I’m pretty fucking sure that it’s the latter.

I clearly need to listen to more mallcore/pop-punk/whatever shit that I can’t stand, just to regain some perspective. Or kill my brain. One of the two.