"Helena Beat" -Foster the People

I wake up, and I don't know wherewhowhy I am.
I'm lying on the dirt, on the drydry dirt, and I'm bound. By my ankles and my wrists, I'm tied. To the ground.
How can I be tied to the ground?
I think this thought, and the ropes disappear.
The next second, I'm standing.
Desert. I'm in a desert, and there's only grass here and there.
A moment later, something appears in the distance, and it's racing towards me, faster than I can imagine.
It's a ship: a great vessel of pirates. Racingracing.
How is there a ship in the desert?
I think this thought, and I'm sinking into the ocean.
That's not what I had in mind.

Listen Here.

"Dirty/My Third Dream" -Ben Lee

I'm standing in the river, facing the current.
The water weaves around my knees. My hands are dirty with caked on mud, and so I bend down and let them be washed by the rippling rapids.
I look up to the sky, and the sunlight glints in my eyes. I shield my face from the gleam with my hand, and I can clearly see all the clouds in the sky.
They're dancing, they're playing. Alive; animals. People, magic. I've seen clouds rolling through the blue before, but never animated like what was above me.
A boy and a girl leap from cumulus to cumulus, swaying to the rhythm as they land.

"Hammer to Fall" -Queen

It's 1967 and I'm feeling alright.
We're flooding the streets now. Colors, flowing hair, and little cares for anything but the things we care about.
Peace! We want peace! They're saying, and I join in. A man is playing the guitar and singing one of Bob Dylan's anthems.
"For you who grew up tall and proud, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud,
convinced our voices can't be heard, we just wanna scream it louder and louder and LOUDER
WHAT THE HELL ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?!"
I'll protest with you darlin', because this isn't the world that I wanna see. This isn't the person I wanna be.

Listen Here.

"Floorplan" -Tegan and Sara

Walking along the Milkyway, shuffling across the stars. I step to the jazzy beat. Who would walk like this on Earth? No one. Because perhaps we're a bit too judgmental on Earth.
"All eyes are on me now."
It's just a skip-hop away to the next galaxy, and so I dance on over. Here I am; who am I? I play with the comets and kick the meteors like soccer balls. I see the lifeforms of other planets, planets teeming with lifeforms. I remember Earth. I think that's where I came from. And they were always so fascinated with these far away places that maybe had people like us, and spent their lives wondering about something that's dancing around my ankles.
It's cold.

Listen Here.

Also, I should clarify: with each of these posts, I listen to the song once and only once. However long the song is, is how long I have to write my post. I do not pick the songs myself, I put iTunes on shuffle and whatever comes up is what I take.

"Crooked Legs" -The Acorn

She dashes down the jungle path, hardly a path at all. Her flowing dress magically swishes around her knees as she runs, and her blonde hair waves down her back.
She looks back at me, and smiles.
We're running faster, sprinting.
Our legs are crooked because of the ways our knees bend and our feet flex.
I jump over fallen trunks and around standing ones.
We come to the river, and she doesn't hesitate. The moonlight is scattered on the water as we wade across. We make it to the other side and I jump out on the bank first, extending my hand to her. I pull her up close to me.
And we're running again.
We'll forever be running in the sun, when the sun cannot slow us down.
"I'm running as far as these crooked legs take me."
Who knows when we'll slow or show a sign of stopping?
I do not know,
and I do not care.

Listen Here.

A Shift

I've decided to slightly change the format in which I make these blog posts. In creative writing class, we did an activity where we listened to music and then wrote about whatever came to our minds. It was incredibly easy to find inspiration with this activity, at least for me. As soon as a song would start, my mind would be filled with an image, or an emotion, and it would flow forth from my fingertips. I felt like I could do that all day.
And that's exactly what I've been trying to do with this blog: show the meanings and feelings that can be found within a song. Show my interpretations. I've been focusing nearly solely on lyrics, and while lyrics are important, they are only one element of what music truly is. I'll use songs I know, and try to use ones I don't know as well.
So here's to the Backlit Canopy Renaissance.

"So I'm hiring a DJ for the eve of our destruction."

"My Racing Thoughts" -Jack's Mannequin

She's a black cat
hanging 'round my doorstep
I'll need all day tomorrow
to recover from today
I was boxing with my shadow
At a stoplight when the clocks changed
It was midnight I was mixed up
When she called to drag the lake

Can you see why Jack's Mannequin is one of my favorite artists? I'm finally seeing him in concert tonight for the first time. It's poetry set to music, really. Inventive lyrics are hard to come by today, even among alternative artists. Andrew McMahon is one talented soul.

I think I'm running short on inspiration
She's running long on borrowed time
We break with speed
That girl can read my racing thoughts
She asks the questions
I take the floor
She takes her shots
Taught her a lesson
About a forced confession
We break with speed
That girls can read my racing thoughts
My racing thoughts
My racing thoughts

An unlucky person that's been hanging on too long. Too many thoughts, too much at once.

So I'll try to keep her steady now
But steady's not her strong suit
I was raised going to church
But couldn't practice what they preached

This song isn't extremely straightforward, like most poetry coincidentally. But perhaps that's the beauty of it: racing thoughts, train of thought, stream of consciousness. Whatever went through his mind, he put upon the page, he played upon the piano.

You can always hear him singing his heart out.