SOUNDTRACK: GAELYNN LEA-“Someday We’ll Linger In The Sun” (TINY DESK CONTEST WINNER 2016).
You never know what is going to win the Tiny Desk Contest–there are so many genres represented. Will it big a big rocking band, a scrappy bluesy band, will it be a sweet lullaby, or, unexpectedly, will it be a haunting song by a woman with a fiddle.
Gaelynn Lea plays a violin which she loops.
As the song opens, the first violin notes are slow and haunting, almost hesitating. Then she plays harmony notes over those (the spareness here reminds me of Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” Then she plays some pizzicato notes over the top of these. It’s a beautiful, haunting melody.
After a minute her voice comes in. It is unexpected. It sounds slightly off, and yet somehow even more hauntingly beautiful for it. Especially when she gets to the simple “chorus” of “and I love you.” The melody doesn’t change through the song, that constant repeating riff, those slow pulls on the bow, the intermittent pizzicato notes and Lea’s voice continue as lyrics flow over you.
And what lyrics:
Our love’s a complex vintage wine
All rotted leaves and lemon rind
I’d spit you out but now you’re mine
Don’t tell me we’ve got time
The subtle thief of life
It slips away when we pay no mind
We pulled the weeds out til the dawn
Nearly too tired to carry on
Someday we’ll linger in the sun
Man.
After a few verses, she plays a solo over the top of it all. It is as aching as the rest of the song. Try not to cry while listening to it.
You can watch the video here.
[READ: January 8, 2015] “From the Palo Alto Sessions”
This is an excerpt from Cohen’s Book of Numbers. I vaguely know Cohen (his first book Witz, was 800 pages and BoN is almost 600), but I don’t really know his writing.
This excerpt (I don’t know where it comes from the book) is a bit hard to get into: “Toward the end D-Unit had been working on the touchscreen. Do not interrupt, we do not digress.” Turns out that D-Unit is a person and the narrator is plural (or the royal we). The story follows as “we” investigate D-Unit’s house and computer supplies.
There’ s a ton of tech speak, as well as what appears to be slang (I never figured out what “cur” meant in this book).
The language just piles up with sentences that build and stop and resume in another way. I enjoyed this: “This career vegan who after his wife left him for a woman stuffed his freezer with enough cuts of venison to make 1.33 deer.” (more…)
I Just Read About That... 