Music to Be Human

27/04/2021

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand

You see somebody naked and you say, "Who is that man?"

You try so hard but you don't understand

Just what you will say when you get home

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. Jones?

Dylan waxes poetic into the core of the off-kilter, steaming, spinning top sometimes present in all of us behind our eyes. “The Ballad of a Thin Man” keels into a psychoanalytic statute of anemic nearness and dysphoric what-a-boutism. The song digs further and further into its charmingly cogent attack on a familiar unachievable satiety through each epistrophe. Dylan wrote this song in response to being asked too many questions all the time and about a man with his hands in his pockets staring at the ground. Written in 1965, fifty-six years ago, listen to this song to have some dust blown off your soul and an escape rope lowered into your heart.

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you and then he kneels

He crosses himself and then he clicks his high heels

And without further notice, he asks you how it feels

And he says, "Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan"

And you know something is happening but you don't know what it is

19/03/2021

"American Pie" - Don McLean

Growing up, I would have a fireworks show run by a local park literally fifty feet right outside my backyard every Fourth of July. It became really quite a spectacular experience and milestone and each year I would be able to watch a little more of the show. At first, many of the lights would be too extraordinarily bright and I had to view the brightest fireworks and grand finale behind my closed eyes. Soon, I could watch more and more of the fireworks until one year I was able to keep my eyes open throughout the entire show. By this point, I had become self aware of this process, and the reflection of each prior year added to my experience of the show, even as a child. This was one of many motifs in my coming of age.

The park above my house would always play “American Pie” immediately before the beginning of the fireworks. When I heard the song I knew that it was time to get quiet, sit down, and begin not only a wondrous journey of my senses, but what became almost a rite of passage through each year. Looking back, these moments listening to “American Pie” before the fireworks show may have been some of my first memories of actually noticing and liking music. Don McLean wove a backdrop to some of my oldest memories, and unironically I am sure some of his went into this song. A few years ago, the fireworks shows right in front of my backyard had to stop, and even before then they had somehow become much shorter and less emphatic, however, for me, those wondrous emotions have been preserved undecayed in this song that would always mark and serenade my attention each year.

Though slightly cryptic, “American Pie” tells a coming-of-age story dressed in tragedy and slight religiosity. The song is widely attributed as a memorial of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richards, three major music figures of the 1950’s. Don McLean could have created a sad tribute of paretic mourning, however instead of raising this tragedy, he enveloped it in a message of time and humanity. “American Pie” does not sound like a sad song. Though its chorus includes mentions of goodbyes and death, somehow it still only feels warm and bonding. Don McLean created a campfire song, that does not tire over its above average runtime, about a plane crash. The melodies wrap and wane around imagery of marching bands, dirges, devils, and dances. “American Pie” is more a song to an era than to a moment, and feels like an ongoing nostalgic passing of one. The song’s instruments are a voice, a guitar, a piano and an infectious charm and energy telling a symphony of a very human summary of mortality.

"American Pie"

03/02/2021

Softly crawling out of the 60s, “I Won’t hurt you” surprises, whispers, and lowers the listener into a disarming gestalt. A love song of timid declaration, each repetition of theme penetrates deeper and deeper into the heart of the singer and audience. The poetry of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band sounds transcendent yet separate, like the comedown from a graduation or a trip around the world. The song sounds like a touch of breath frothing off of a glass between two lovers departing, but only for now, into the snow. Cold yet stabilizing, the song pulses a deep, sullen vitality. Listen to be serenaded by and serenade to hopeful longing.

"I Wont Hurt You" - The West Coast Art Pop Experimental Band
https://buff.ly/3tndBUP

17/12/2020

"'Girl singing in the Wreckage' is a song with a beautifully sung melody, overcast chords, and seethingly poetic lyricism. Black Box Recorder sings of broken expectations, confused memories, and torn dresses. The aforementioned “wreckage” could represent anything from a car crash, of which there are prominent themes, to anything shattered in the listener’s own life. The song is not about apathy, but numb, shocked, indignation teetering on acceptance. It is a natural feeling for one to ask “Why me?”, or to generally live in denial. This song represents the acknowledgement that there won’t be an answer to that question, and that acceptance must come, in fact, it cannot be avoided. Black Box Recorder sings that after calamity, the sun still rises and sets, even if you’re just watching it through a window. The listener is brought into watching post-calamitic sunrises and season changes through a window, soothingly, still sour."
"Girl Singing in the Wreckage" - Black Box Recorder
https://buff.ly/3aksAYP

08/12/2020

Open, glazed, free, geometric, “I Saw the Bright Shinies” reverberates through a picturesque, touchingly emotional synth. Its four minute run time somehow feels much longer, and through its textures it seems to project an entire mood-shifting world onto the listener. Spectral yet warm and grandiose, the song conveys, dances around, and hypnotizes with a sense of directional stasis. The song has no lyrics, but the melody, played on theremin, speaks.

As humans we go through countless, sometimes contradictory moods, emotions, and thoughts. This song seems to acknowledge, soothe, and recharge them. Listen to have your ears opened and existential remorse quelled.

Click through for the whole playlist!
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"I Saw the Bright Shinies" - The Octopus Project
Music to "Be Human"

As humans we go through countless, sometimes contradictory moods, emotions, and thoughts. This song seems to acknowledge, sooth, and recharge them. Listen to have your ears opened and existential remorse quelled.

23/11/2020

"Ben Platt released the song 'Ahavat Olam' performed with his two brothers under a new alias of “The Platt Brothers”. Although Platt possesses a world class voice, amazingly, in this song his voice does not stand out. The triad sing not as two amateurs backing up Ben Platt, but as three equals in harmony and chorus, as three brothers. Together they sing an inspiring message of companionship, inspiration, belief in the peace that can be found somewhere in any moment, and the hope for that peace, however small, to one day expand universally."

"Ahavat Olam" - Ben Platt
Music to "Be Human"
https://buff.ly/3flz8qA

"Ahavat Olam" is a traditional Jewish prayer of peace, self worth and gratitude. Within its lyrics, it thematically sanctifies G-ds choice to give the Torah to the Jewish people.

30/10/2020

“Towards the Sunlight/Haenim” emanates a relaxing, sheltering glow. Sounding of feelings and spaces lost to time, the song trances into an earthy, repetitive, peace. Kim Jung Mi’s lyrics resonate with or without an understanding of Korean. The orchestration floats into its own world. The “la la”s of song’s B section seem to carry the listener off on a cloud into a bed of flowers.
From the song’s beautiful album cover to its transient chorus it is a breathtaking experience of humanity.

"Haenim/Towards the Sunlight" - Kim Jung Mi
Music to "Be Human"
https://buff.ly/320xC7T