And it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
But I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
But don’t think twice, it’s all right….

I don’t know which came first.  My love for Bob Dylan or the cynicism.  Rob Gordon asks the question but the answer is never provided.  Still, I find such beautiful, cynical music to be so compelling.  I’ve been in a Dylan mood for the past few weeks and I don’t foresee it going away.

I’m writing a book.  It’s a love story of sorts and it’s a bit of a departure from my previous writings.  Stylistically, it will probably be the same because that’s just the way I write.  But from a plot perspective, I am starting to carve out a distinct plot where my previous writings were mostly just ramblings that I would edit down.

Songs and love are something that I talk about a lot – often together.  Looking back on my eclectic music collection, I see many of the similar songs that I once used as inspiration in my more naive and blissful days.  I can’t replicate all those mix tapes from back in the day – made with Skeff, in college, and many times after – but I can write about a few of my songs that might be a bit off the radar from the conventional mix-tape.

Lover Lay Down – Dave Matthews Band

It’s hard to say that this song was under the radar, but it definitely wasn’t one of Dave’s top hits, coming on his breakout release “Under the Table and Dreaming.” For anyone growing up in the 1990′s, Dave Matthews represents the sweet saccharine songs that wowed girls and either inspired boys and made them run for the hills. I was inspired – the hopeless romantic long before I really knew what that was all about. Listening to this song for the first time in a long time (a decade, perhaps?), I can’t help but enjoy it’s simple beauty. My tastes in music may have evolved past Dave Matthews by the turn of the century, but he still knows how to write a good love song….

Forever – Ben Harper

Maybe the cynical streak is something I was born with – or at least, embedded with due to parental divorce and a uncomfortable adolescence. Either way, this song made it’s way onto so many mix tapes that I almost think it was a single – even though it definitely wasn’t. Ben would actually make many appearances on these sort of mix tapes – with songs like “Steal my Kisses” off of “Burn to Shine” being the most memorable.

Can’t Hardly Wait – The Replacement

This was always a classic staple on a mix tape – even though I’m a much bigger ‘Mats fan today than I ever was back then. It’s a classic. Not much to really write about it….

Luna – The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins were the hot band in High School. One of my favorite albums growing up was Siamese Dream. While most girls got into them during the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness string of hits, I loved them earlier. This song was my way of being “cool” – putting a sweet song from a band that they already loved. It’s a classic mix tape move – one that I probably would still do, even if the song selection has improved.

Lullaby (Goodnight my Angel) – Billy Joel

Sure – the song is written about his daughter. My younger self even knew that. Still, I figured most girls wouldn’t and I kept this song to be one of the key closers on any good romantic mix tape. I’m not a big Billy Joel fan, but he still writes beautiful music that appeals to the masses. In other words, the perfect closer to a mix tape…

Of course, making a mix tape is a lot more than picking a few songs and putting them together. It’s about flow and balance and all those stuff that I’ve written about a million times. I just wanted to relive some of the thoughts I used to have around making tapes. Now, with my love life a lot more complicated and unpredictable, sometimes being able to just make a tape is exactly where I need to be…..

I couldn’t help but suddenly feel the intense desire to search the song that is describing my current feelings.  There have been a lot of songs that I have been listening to lately that are close.  For example, the line,  “If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy /They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes / On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend / If she wants me” hit close to home, but the song overall doesn’t capture things completely.

When Bob Dylan was writing Blonde on Blonde in the Chelsea Hotel, I wonder if it was raining out.  The cliche cinematic version in my head has him at his typewriter, smoking cigarettes and pushing them into an all too full ashtray.  He is maniacal at the keyboard, the pounding keystrokes balancing the lightning speed of thought and the machines physical constrictions. This is the scene I have in my head when I imagine Dylan sitting there writing these songs from my favorite album.  This is the album I listen to when I’m feeling blue.  So why is it shocking that it’s two Dylan songs that capture what I am feeling:

Sitting in my apartment, looking down on Loisaida Avenue, the window slightly ajar, and the cool air filling my all-too warm room, the only light in the room is this monitor and the flicker of a candle that I lit a few hours ago – and that will go out by the time I finish writing this post.  In a bit of reverse engineering, I’m trying to capture the muse using the setting Dylan had while listening to the finished product.  I’m trying to echo that moment from almost a half century ago so that I, too, can create something from feeling the way that I feel he felt.

It’s not working, but at the very least – I have the music.

Once upon a time, almost ten years ago, I rang in the new millenium from Times Square. It’s funny to think that, by flashing forward 10 years, I’ll basically will have only moved cross town. Of course, the journey to get here – that cross town traffic, if you will – has combined for an amazing series of events that I can’t help but want to be introspective about. With me, introspection always is accompanied by music. After all, I wrote in a lonely, long lost blog on December 25th, 1999 – “They say the sense of smell is the most nostalgic. “They” never had my music collection.”

I know, I know – that’s a bit cheesy but it’s apropos to what I have always attempted to convey with my personal blog writing. Whether it was old journal entries with song quotes as a forward, my Wurtzelian style was predicated on the fact that, while I may have a certain strength as a wordsmith, I am only offering a glacial tip to the emotive mass that lay behind those keystrokes. For those of you who have been reading me for the past ten years, for those of you who have conversed with me about personal things, for those of you who have actually helped me through it all – you know what I’m talking about.

Carlos Santana once said that Music is all around us, and the musicians were just translators. What about those of us who fail to create music? I feel immersed in the language and, while I am not conversational, perhaps I find a deeper meaning being lost in translation?

My taste for music has definitely changed over the past decade. In 2000, I was enjoying the musical meanderings of Phish, the rebellious positivity of Blackstar, the organic hip hop of The Roots. My love for Hip Hop would swell and grow while I cast aside the Jam Band love that I had. I soon discovered real roots in the americana sound of Alt-Country – with the Tweedy lilt leading the way via Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and the various bands he’s worked in. Indie Rock shortly morphed from there to where I basically stand today. I carry all of these timbres within me – I still listen to many of the albums that I loved during each year of my life. I think that’s a good metaphor for life. You carry with you the things from you past. You may change your perspective on how you view them, but ultimately they morph into a part of you. Here is my “off-the-top-of-my-head” list of albums for each year of the past decade:

2000: D’angelo – Voodoo
2001: The Strokes – Is this it?
2002: Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003: The Postal Service – Give Up
2004: Arcade Fire – Funeral
2005: Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
2006: Girl Talk – Night Ripper
2007: Radiohead – In Rainbows
2008: She & Him – Volume One
2009: Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

Are these the best albums of the decade? No – many of them don’t even represent the best albums of the year for their respective years. But they are a glimpse into my head, into my heart, to a place where music has a personal connection to certain parts of my life. Each of these albums I still listen to very frequently. They are part of my collective subconscious because I have listened to them so many times. Other albums from the past decade have joined their ranks. The catalog runs deep and, one day, when I have a lot more time to write and contemplate, perhaps I will share my breakdown of music by the year. If you want to get to know me a bit more, get to know these albums. You won’t be disappointed.

In May, I received a few pairs of headphones from Skullcandy as a gift. I’ve used them every day since and they look just as new as they do in the picture above – which was taken right after I opened the package. I absolutely love these things so much so, that I was visibly saddened when I realized I left these at work over my long weekend trip to Izeafest. As someone who has a deep and profound love of music and currently a pedestrian, a good pair of headphones are mana from the gods. I can’t imagine living without my Skullcandy earbuds.

Giveaway: Of the things I did receive from Skullcandy, I do not use the Double Agent pair. I opened the package and tried them out and, while they had great sound quality, the fact that the music was run off an SD card and couldn’t be hooked up to your iPhone wasn’t for me. So here’s the deal – if you comment on my blog, I’ll pick a winner at random and send the Double Agents (My pair is lime green) to you. Consider it a gift to my loyal readers.

1) How to Fight Lonliness – Wilco

2) Ballad of a Thin Man – Bob Dylan

3) Me and Mister Jones – Amy Winehouse

4) Fell in Love with a Boy – Joss Stone

5) The Money Maker – Rilo Kiley

6) Kick it Out – Heart

7) Rip Her to Shreds – Blondie

8) This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) – The Talking Heads

9) Do The Whirlwind – Architecture in Helsinki

10) Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire

11) The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth – Clap Your Hands, say Yeah

12) Last Night – The Strokes

13) American Girl – Tom Petty

14) Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

15) Talk of the Town – The Pretenders

16) Hazard – Richard Marx

17) Golden – My Morning Jacket

18) Whiskey Bottle – Uncle Tupelo

19) Old Soul Song – Bright Eyes

20) Oh My Sweet Carolina – Ryan Adams

21) More Adventurous – Rilo Kiley

22) I Wish I Never Saw The Sun – Beth Orton

23) The Strangers – St. Vincent

24) Everything’s Just Wonderful – Lily Allen

25) That’s Not My Name – Ting Tings

26) My Name is Jonas – Weezer

27) Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel

28) O Valencia – The Decemberists

29) Dreams – Cranberries

30) Today – Smashing Pumpkins

31) When I Come Around – Green Day

32) The Freshman – The Verve Pipe

33) Fresh Feeling – Eels

34) Paper Tiger – Beck

35) Dry the Rain – Beta Band

36) Lo Boob Oscillator – Stereolap

37) I’ll Keep it with Mine – Neko

38) I Know – Fiona Apple

39) If You Were Mine – Billie Holliday

40) Strange Fruit – Jeff Buckley

41) Cry Baby – Janis Joplin

42) Jaz-Z (unplugged) – Heart of the City

43) Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani

44) Candy Man – Christina Aguilera

45) Candy Everybody Wants – 10,000 Maniacs

46) Beach the Night – Bruce Springsteen (Live   ’75)

47) You Better, You Bet – The Who

48) The Jessica Numbers – The New Pornographers

49) My Only Offer – Mates of State

50) Good Night – The Beatles

I can’t help it, it’s funny.

I don’t remember the first time I heard the song.  It may not have stood out in any considerable way.  Even today, with my love for the song well known, I may skip over it.  It’s a song for a moment.  For a feeling.  For me, that feeling is often exhaustion.  As someone who is always on the go, someone who is always trying to do their best, something always trying to get things done – Misunderstood represents the final straw.  The time when I want to scream, “I want to thank you all for nothing at all” and feel good about it.  Those times are  rare and they don’t last very long – but they happen.  They happen to everyone that’s human.  Maybe Misunderstood won’t be that song for you but I’m sure you have one.

Because of that, my relationships often become vast romantic tragedies whose plot lines don’t reveal themselves until after the relationship’s first act.  There’s something in my mind that feels that love is not something one can feel until it is stripped away from them – whatever that means.  I’m probably not alone in the way I process this, after all, Hollywood has crafted mines full of cinematic gold based on that simple concept.  Yet, it still pangs me as I romanticize the past and current flames of my life all because of some narrative draw that, while I’m aware of, I can’t quite control.

That brings me to the Bob Dylan song “One of us must Know (sooner or later).”  Off of one of my favorite records (whose songs will probably all eventually make it into my personal Music of my Mind meme), this song captures a moment in my romantic tragedies – the juxtaposition of apology and longing – that I have now closely (and incorrectly) associated with love.

The beginning of “One of us Must Know (Sooner or later)” captures a sort of structured personal history pretty well:

“I didn’t mean to treat you so bad
You shouldn’t take it so personal
I didn’t mean to make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that’s all
When I saw you say “goodbye” to your friends and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you’d be comin’ back in a little while
I didn’t know that you were sayin’ “goodbye” for good”

The Paul Griffin piano dances between Dylan’s apologetic lyrics.  “I didn’t mean..” Dylan begins, with a clarity to the normal raspy timbre of his voice.  That final sentence, “I didn’t know that you were sayin’ ‘goodbye’ for good” hits me every time.  As someone who has decent success in predicting the behavior of those around him, those realizations when a moment that seemed so benign, yet ultimately were monumental, seem that much more powerful.  As the chorus builds, Griffin’s piano overpowers Dylan’s voice – even as he is coming to his a bit too late conclusions of this failed romance.

The hindsight infused chorus tugs on these romantic narratives I’ve constructed for myself.  Dylan is both apologetic and confident – taking the unemotional stance that he understands that she was simply doing what she was “supposed to do,” while coming back with a simple, yet powerful, fact that he “really did try to get close to you.”  This is the chorus of my romantic past.  My inability to illustrate just how much I open up plagues me, and is often cited, as the reason the relationships don’t work out.

As I sit here listening to the song on repeat, trying to capture the floating thoughts of emotion that the song brings out in me – I wonder if my attraction to the song is because of these parallels or are these parallels in my life because of this romantic structure infused in me because of the song?

As the character Rob Gordon states in the movie High Fidelity:

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Over the course of my adult life, I have undergone so many changes.  Some were subtle, some were more obvious, but all the while I’ve continued to grow in so many ways.  I enjoy that.   Yet, a song like this illustrates all the growing that I still have left to do.  I’m punch-drunk on these fabricated emotional narratives that generally bring discomfort to my life and the lives of others.  I hope some day, this personal reflection on this song marks the beginning of a period of growth – rather than a continuing theme.  I guess only hindsight will tell.