on repeat this week [9/27]

My mind's been future-focused these past couple of weeks - which is not a bad thing, but it's not great, either. In Louise Gluck's prose poem "Theory of Memory," from her new collection Faithful and Virtuous Night, she writes: "Right now you are a child holding hands with a fortune-teller. All the rest is hypothesis and dream."

That's very much how I feel when I step back from my projections - when I pull myself out of my head and force myself back into my body. I realize that it's okay to dream about the future, to fashion an image of myself when this or when that happens. But it's not okay to lose my current self to my future self. I need to take care of my current self, this hopeful, eager child clutching onto a shadowy and, ultimately, unreliable conception of what may be. Does this make sense? I hope so.

Anyway, it's all good things I'm looking forward to. But when I find the edges of my vision blurring and fading like a movie montage, and I forget the beauty of where I am and what I'm doing and all I have to live for now, I need something to tether me back. This is what music does for me.

On repeat this week is a bevy of oldies but goodies; I've been gravitating to these songs when I want to feel the most like myself.

Elliott Smith - "Angel in the Snow"

If you know me you know that Elliott Smith is everything to me - not to be melodramatic about it or anything - and choosing a favorite Elliott Smith song is like choosing a favorite child. But I've just been revisiting New Moon, and this soft song is speaking to me the loudest at the moment.

Ryan Adams - "My Winding Wheel"

In light of his new album, I've also been revisiting Ryan Adams' first, most brilliant album, Heartbreaker. I may be a purist, but I don't think anything the incredibly prolific Adams has released since his 2000 debut has come close - in heart, in honesty, in alt-folk-country troubadour spirit - to this very first album. Every song breaks my heart. Pun intended.

New Order - "Lonesome Tonight"

This song. Have you ever heard anything so fucking beautiful? This band, and this song, are especially close to my heart because both take my soul back across the pond to London (my rightful place, if I say so myself). This song, though. Have you ever heard anything so agonizing and gorgeous and redemptive? So bittersweet? So British?

Biffy Clyro - "27"

I'm not a massive Biffy Clyro fan, but this song never fails me: it's equal parts brooding and heavy-hitting, the perfect mixture of a '90s alt-pop structure with a sludgy dose of metal. Biffy Clyro are also Scottish, which I very much appreciate.

La Dispute - "Damaged Goods"

This post could not claim to legitimately reflect my inner self without the inclusion of a post-hardcore song. La Dispute cuts me deep. It's poetry, but it's difficult, raw, and unpretty. This is not for the faint of heart. But, if you can take La Dispute - if you let them in - you'll never be the same again. (I tried not to be melodramatic in this post, but that's not working out. No point in fighting your nature.)