i held on tight and closed my eyes

"The Moon," by the Microphones

I haven't been keeping with my usual format of late. You remember, you show up here, I spill whatever's in my head all over your shoes and on your way out the door you get a song for your (and my) trouble. Messy, but effective.

Not sure why, that hasn't been hitting me the same way since my work-imposed hiatus. Maybe I'm finally over this whole 'writing' thing after all, and such a relief will that be. Finally, a life of bricklaying! Plus, I can turn off the little guilt-o-meter that clangs around in my head when I piddle away 45 minutes watching the latest episode of "Project Runway" (and quietly asking myself why i'm doing such a thing when the expression on my face doesn't change the entire time).

Not to say I'm scowling or even staring with this glassy, post-lobotomy look of glee. It's more of a blank, hypnotic trance. Television's always had that power with me, ever since I used to wad myself up on the floor four feet from our big Magnavox until Bugs Bunny burrowed a hole clean through my cortex.

[There is no song cue here, by the way. You're waiting, you're tapping your foot looking for me to tie it all together in a neat bow, but I'm sorry, I'm just throwing this one up because the thing popped in my head this morning and it just wouldn't let go. Sometimes it's like that.]

The whole thing starts with a quiet, seasick acoustic guitar weaving through an an off-kilter, probably out of tune figure for just over a minute before the drums come in, all overdriven and knocking over the furniture. Somewhere deep in the background is Phil Elvrum, lo-fi orch-pop savant (or something like that). He's mumbling, sighing, whispering something and you just want to figure out what. The acoustic guitar--now insistent--along with the groaning horn section dopplering across the song buries almost everything, like he's explaining something to you from the edge of a freeway overpass.

Whatever he's going on about, it sounds important, possibly because some of the most important sounds and thoughts don't always come from the guy holding a megaphone. Sometimes it's the guy who almost sounds like he's talking to himself, shuffling his feet as you walk by and wonder what you just heard.

And then he's done.

Buy "The Glow, Pt. 2" by the Microphones