#fearless is the other album of hers that’s absolutely flawless all the way through

[winterwonderland3]

Favorite Folklore lyrics because the whole reason I became a TSwift fan way back when was because she writes some killer lyrics and I missed that about her older music:

But we were something, don’t you think so/Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool/And if my wishes came true/It would’ve been you

We never painted by the numbers, baby/But we were making it count/You know the greatest loves of all time are over now

We were something, don’t you think so?/Rosé flowing with your chosen family/And it would’ve been sweet/If it could’ve been me....But it would’ve been fun/If you would’ve been the one

When you are young they assume you know nothing

I knew you/Dancing in you Levi’s/Drunk under a streetlight....I knew you/Tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy

There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen/She had a marvelous time ruining everything

Holiday House sat quietly on that beach/Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits/And then it was bought by me

You’re not my homeland any more/So what am I defending?

Those eyes add insult to injury

So step right out/There is no amount/Of crying I can do for you

If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?

You turned into your worst fears/And you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain/Crossing out the good years/And you’re cursing my name, wishing I stayed

And when I break it’s in a million pieces

Hush, when no one is around my dear/You’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes/Spinning in my highest heels, love/Shining just for you

Sweet tea in the summer/Cross my heart, won’t tell no other/And though I can’t recall your face/I still got love for you

And I think you should come live with me/And we can be pirates/Then you won’t have to cry

Please picture me in the weeds/Before I learned civility/I used to scream ferociously/Any time I wanted

August slipped away/Like a bottle of wine/Cause you were never mine

They told me my cages were mental/So I got wasted like all my potential....I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere/Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

And that’s the thing about illicit affairs/And clandestine meetings and longing stares/It’s born from just one single glance

Don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby/Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me/You showed me colors I can’t see with anyone else

And isn’t it just so pretty to think/All along there was some/Invisible string/Tying you to me

Time, mystical time/Cutting me open and healing me fine

One single thread of gold/Tied me to you

Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven/Time, wondrous time

Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/What about that?....No one likes a mad woman/You made her like that

The master of spin has a couple side flings/Good wives always know/She should be mad, should be scathing like me/But no one likes a mad woman

And some things you just can’t speak about/With you, I serve/With you I fall down

Something med school/Did not cover/Someone’s daughter/Someone’s mother....Only twenty minutes to sleep/But you dream of some epiphany/Just one glimpse of relief/To make sense of what you’ve seen

The worst thing I ever did/Was what I did to you

If you kiss me will it be just like I dreamed it?/Will it patch your broken wings?/I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything/But I know I miss you

Standing in your cardigan/Kissing in my car again/Stopped at a streetlight/You know I miss you

A coming of age has come and gone

You know that I’d swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches

Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other/Family that I chose, now that I see your brother as my brother/Is that enough?

Don’t want no other shade of blue/But you

[hermionegranger56]

ok lads its time for my breakdown of folklore, something absolutely no one is asking for but here we are!! this album. thIs ALBUMMMM. dear GOD. the intersection of my two favorite things, taylor swift and indie folk???? i feel like i’m dreaming. when she announced the surprise drop i literally burst into tears and evidently for good reason lol.

anywho here’s the thing. Red has been my all time favorite album for 8 years now. it holds such an important place in my life and i never thought anything she did could come close (though Lover almost did). but this. THIS IS BETTER THAN RED

the lyrical genius is unmatched here. taylor isn’t just writing songs here, this is POETRY. every song is nuanced, intricate, devastatingly beautiful, with words that’ll haunt me for a long time. and the fact that it’s stories, literal folklore, no longer just about her own life is incredibly creative and is executed so well for someone who has interwoven her life into her entire body of music thus far. folklore blends facts with fiction so seamlessly and is a true exhibition of taylor’s power as a songwriter.

and the vibessss!! from haunting heartbreak songs, to ethereal lost-in-the-woods vibes, to a comforting return to her old self, this album has everything. taylor is without a doubt one of the most versatile artists of our generation, having success and skill in multiple genres and folklore only solidifies this fact.

ALL RIGHT KIDS LETS JUMP IN

the 1: hell yeah explicit tswift give it to me lol you ARE on some new shit!! ok when i first listened to this i hadn’t read her statement about the other perspectives and i was about to RIOT about her and joe breaking up (like they could ever lol). this is such a catchy beat, such a casual?? look at such a painful feeling? a really good start to this album. the part where she goes another day waking up aLONE killlllllls me wow

fave lines: “in my defense i have none/for never leaving well enough alone”

cardigan: (don’t get me started on the mv it’s gorgeous) YES THE TEENAGE LOVE TRIANGLE suchhh a good concept!! the melody of this song is unreal, the chorus makes me want to scream it’s so beautiful, the i-i-i is SOMETHING ELSE. it’s crazy how just the melody makes betty’s pain so palpable, but so enchanting at the same time. it’s bittersweet and cinematic and i’m in love. PETER LOSING WENDY GOD. easily top 5 song here

fave lines: “when you are young they assume you know nothing”, “cause i knew you/ heartbeat on the high line/ once in 20 lifetimes i” “you drew stars around my scars/but now i’m bleeding”

the last great american dynasty: watch hill!!! her watch hill house!! i live near there!! oh i think this song is so clever and i love how it ties into mad woman as well as harkens back to starlight. i LOVE the way she ties her self in, “and then it was bought by me” like ughhh her mind? and its catchy AF

fave lines: “i had a marvelous time ruining everything”

exile: YOU KNOW HOW TO DO AN INDIE ALBUM??? BRING BON IVER INTO THIS SHIT!! wowww this song is haunting and is definitely the “i’m you but stronger” version of The Last Time. the overlap of both of them singing and their parallel lines are flawless. i could play this on repeat for hours and contemplate my whole existence

fave lines: “you never gave a warning sign/i gave so many signs”

my tears ricochet: ok somehow a track 5 with tears in the title is not the saddest song here but DAMN is it good. I love the visual of someone watching over their funeral and reacting. the music is stunningggg here. ALSO i am pretty convinced this is about the whole scott/scooter drama, like the lyrics fit so well? and she said it was the first song she wrote so the timeline kinda fits?? geniusss

fave lines: “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace”, “and if i’m dead to you/why are you at the wake?”

mirrorball: ohhhh this one is so pretty!! it just makes me want to dance around the kitchen with the person i love??? its comforting, ethereal, happyyy ugh i love it. I also think it could be about her relationship with her fans? like her music shows us different sides of ourselves idk? or just absorbing into a relationship?

fave lines: “on my tallest tiptoes/shining just for you”

seven: i’m gonna call this now: this is going to be the most underrated song on this album. it is STUNNING. POETIC. HEARTBREAKING. the music is so hauntingly nostalgic. and the lyrics, holy absolute shit. they’re a delicate testament to childhood, memory, and innocent love. it’s gut wrenching and i love it so so much

fave lines: “i’ve been meaning to tell you/i think your house is haunted/your dad is always mad/and that must be why”, “and just like folk song/our love will be passed on”, “before i learned civility/ i used to scream ferociously” ALL OF IT

august: and now we get the girl james cheated with’s perspective, which i think is great. its sunny, wistful and sad underneath all that beautiful production. when she slides from the chorus to the “back when we we’re changing for the better” and hits that “mineeee to lose” GOD, it just fills your chest. i feel like even if you never have, this makes anyone feel like they know exactly what a summer fling feels like. one of my faves

fave lines: “august slipped away/like a bottle of wine”, “cancel my plans just in case you call/ and say meet me behind the mall”

this is me trying: the slow pacing of this melody serves to show these EXQUISITE lyrics here. this is so intimate and personal and i feel like everyone can relate to this feeling of just trying to hold on and put on a brave face?

fave lines: “they told me all of my cages were mental/ so i got wasted like all my potential”

illicit affairs: ok all you need to know about this one is a) I’m obsessed b) this is the closest she has come to creating a bridge that makes me feel like the All Too Well bridge has, like scream sobbing in the car type vibe??? its unreal. and this song makes me feel that shitty feeling of: “this was supposed to be casual but oops its very much not” hmmm maybe that’s where the scream sobbing comes from hahah

fave lines: “don’t call me kid/don’t call me baby/look at this godforsaken mess that you made me/you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else”

invisible string: this. THIS is probably her most stunning love song. like. i thought it was Lover. i was wrong. this one is confidently from Taylor’s perspective, about Joe and dear lord i want a love like theirs. and shit does this song put the folk in folklore, the music is so simple and gorgeous and harkens back to her country roots without losing this new sound she has. and the first few notes remind me of Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens so instantly im sold. this and betty are tied for my number 1, it’s just too beautiful

fave lines: “time curious time/give me no compasses/give me no signs” “isn’t it just so pretty to think/all along there was some invisible string/tying you to me”, “cold was steel of the axe that i had to grind/for the boys who broke my heart/now i buy their babies presents”, “hell was the journey/but it brought me heaven”

mad woman: FUCK YOU FOREVERRRRRR!!! yes taylor said fuckkkk ugh i LOVE this vibe, the revenge of the mad woman that the town cast out is so eerie and powerful, i’m obsessed. it ties back into the maddest woman of TLGAD and it feels like a spiritual sequel to The Man, the same feminist thread weaving through it. the lyrics are razor sharp and biting, i love it

fave lines: “and you poke that bear/till the claws come out/ and you find something/ to wrap your noose around”, “it’s obvious wanting me dead has really brought you two together”

epiphany: so uhhh THIS is the saddest song on folklore. fight me. the seamless comparison between wartime and the pandemic and waiting for some epiphany that could make sense of all the horrors surrounding the both. idk man, as someone who’s been a covid nurse since March, i just….this one HURTS. similar to Soon You’ll Get Better tbh

fave lines: “hold your hand through plastic now/doc i think she’s crashing out/and somethings you just can’t speak about”

betty: OH I LOVE IT WITH MY WHOLE HEART! this is such a TRIUMPHANT return to old taylor, it is so joyful but sad at the same time?? the harmonica?? the last part of the love triangle?? it sounds like Taylor Swift and Fearless all grown up and it makes me ache for back then, but love where we are right now. tbh the first time i heard this i sobbed through the whole thing just out of pure nostalgia. she’s back but at the same time she never left. this feels like a love song to original fans and it. is. incredible. my favoriteeee goddd

fave lines: THE WHOLE CHORUS BABYYYYY

peace: it’s gorgeous, especially the guitarrr ugh. this feels like delicate’s quiet older sister. i think it’s definitely about joe and how taylor, despite loving him, still has these insecurities and fears about what a relationship with someone in her position could be like? like there will be struggles, but he’s her family and she “would die for you in secret”. stunning

fave lines: “i’m a fire and i’ll keep your brittle heart warm”, “the devils in the detail/but you’ve got a friend in me”, “give you my wild/give you a child”

hoax: i’m surprised she ended it on a sad one (but we still have the lakes!!) but this song is hauntingly beautiful WOW. every line of this absolutely floors me. i think this one will also be largely underrated, but it is pure poetry and deserves so so much hype

fave lines: “stood on the cliffside/screaming give me a reason/your faithless love’s the only hoax i believe in”, “it still hurts underneath my scars/from when they pulled me apart/but what you did was just as dark” “my kingdom come undone/ my broken drum/ you have beaten my heart”

ANYWHO TAYLOR HAS PRODUCED HER BEST WORK TO DATE AND IM READY FOR SAD GIRL AUTUMN

[emmaheartswift]

here are the top ten things i love about taylor!! obviously there are way more than just ten reasons why i love taylor, (there are actually probably more than 13,000), but here are ten that stand out to me!!

1. her generosity. she gives endless amounts of love and support to so many different people and organizations. whether it is handwritten letters, donations, or heartfelt advice, you can tell that taylor is being so incredibly sincere and genuine. she helps so many without needing anything in return, and that is so beautiful to me.

2. how relatable she is. whether i’m feeling heartbreak, love, loss, excited, alone, insecure, hopeful, or strong, i always know that she is something i can go to. her lyrics speak to me in a way no other artist can. the way she so clearly paints picture scenes is so remarkable and detailed. she has helped me get through everything i have ever felt, and made me feel heard and valid. i really don’t know where i would be without her music.

3. her trust & vulnerability. in this world, and being so in the public eye, it would be easy not to do as many meet & greets as she does. but concerns aside, taylor puts all her faith into us, her fans. she invites fans from all over the globe to her home to play her new albums for them before anyone else. she trusts them not to leak any information, and is so openly inviting to them. trust is a hard thing to develop, and taylor having that much in us warms my heart. on the vulnerable side of things, her albums are her personal diaries. she puts her stories and feelings out in the world, and that’s a terrifying thing to do. she shares her life with the world through music, and hopes that we will cherish it into our lives. we do that every time, and can feel her emotions through her words. taylor even shared with us her real life diaries, which is beautiful.

4. how inspiring she is. without taylor, i would not do the thing i love the most. i have been writing songs, singing, and playing instruments for more than ten years, and that is because of her. five year old me was so wonderstruck by her personal and detailed music that i wanted to try it too. now, i am able to turn any situation or feeling in my own life into music. she is the reason i know what i want to do with my life at just age fifteen, and i would give absolutely anything to thank taylor for introducing me to my passion.

5. her brilliant mind & theatrical ideas. every single performance, tour, and music video has such incredible visuals and thought involved. whether it’s castles, rain soaked streets, or a high school, i am constantly blow away by taylor’s ability to create such beautiful sets and scenes. her tours are not just a concert, they are a colorful experience of real life storybooks or glow in the dark rainstorms. she takes on the roles of different characters, stars in black and white movies, and even goes back in time to portray her past eras. taylor’s remarkable mind is one of the most admirable parts about her.

6. how down to earth she is. taylor bakes, writes in diaries, tells jokes, and takes pictures of her cats just like the rest of us. through her social media’s, she posts all sorts of home pictures of her selfies and friends. all that i’ve ever heard from those who have been lucky enough to meet her is that she has this understanding ability to feel like your best friend. she has her own insecurities, favorite movies, and fears that she shares with us, and makes us want to share ours too. i know that i would be able to look into her eyes and tell her absolutely anything. i’ve never even met her, and she already is and feels like my best friend.

7. how much she has grown over time. taylor has gone through more in her life so far than many will ever experience. but throughout every dark patch and violent storm she has experienced, taylor always comes out of it even stronger. i truly wish i could take away all of the pain and nightmares she has had to deal with, but i am so in awe of how she hasn’t let any of that stop her. she learns from every mistake, heartbreak, unfair event, and personal battle, reminding us all that we will get through our rough patches too. every single day i am so proud of all that she has done, and i know that because of taylor, i will end up stronger after my battles.

8. how unafraid of change she is. taylor reinvented country music, made a flawless transition into pop, created one of the greatest comebacks of all time, and emerged from a dark storm as a colorful buttery all before she was 30. it would be very easy for an artist to stay in the same genre or style for their whole career, but taylor has continued to experiment with her work and create new types of music. i think that it is such a brave and fearless thing to do, and taylor has done it perfectly every time. not only does she change up her music, but she also tries out new hairstyles and clothing, which has left me feeling safe enough to do new things with my hair and style too. i hope taylor always continues to surprise us and try new things, because i absolutely adore the outcomes.

9. how she uses her platforms to speak out & express her opinions. one of the things i am the most proud of taylor for is how far she has come in expressing her beliefs and mind. taylor has voiced her political views, supported other artists, advocated for the equality act, spoke out on gender inequality, and has even been fearless in her fight to own her own work. it isn’t an easy thing to voice where you stand on certain events, or to raise awareness, especially while being directly in the public eye, but taylor has come so far in doing so in exactly the right ways, and i am so immensely proud of her for it.

10. how she is such a determined, ambitious, & big-dreaming person. taylor reminds me every single day that absolutely anything is possible. she has shown me that it is okay to have a wild imagination, incredible dreams, and high hopes. she inspires me to work hard for what i want, and to never think something i want to work for is unrealistic or impossible. taylor had very ambitious and big dreams, and with years of hard work and dedication, she succeeded. taylor’s remarkable life and story should be a constant reminder that anything is possible if you want it enough and are willing to put in the work for it.

taylor is so kind, creative, brilliant, entertaining, and unapologetically herself. through taylor’s music, heart, and passion, she has shown me how to love myself, and get through even the darkest of times. she taught me how to be fearless. to not wait, but instead speak now in the moment. to live exciting experiences in burning red. that i am not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know me, and that i should just shake it off. that my reputation does not define who i really am. and that you are what you love. i hope more than anything that someday i will get to tell all of this to taylor in person, and thank her for absolutely everything. i love her more than words can say. i hope this list is even a small start in explaining how much she has meant to me for the past 10 years.

love, emma <3

@taylorswift @taylornation 💗💗💗💗

[agirlnamedally]

Come on girl, share your Taylor thought breakdown with us please and thank you

haha okay this is what i sent:

He already knows rep and lover really well (better than me) but not so much the older albums, so those are the ones i went through. He was planning on listening to each album and I said I’d give him my recommendations, going backwards in chronological order so as not to overwhelm him immediately with young Tay country world haha.

Red

Red (this song makes me feel like driving somewhere and once you know the chorus it’s the most fun to sing along. Great bridge)

Treacherous (I only re-realised yesterday what an incredible song this is. Favourite lyrics: “all we are is skin and bone, trained to get along”. AMAZING bridge at 2:55. Also feels like a car belt out song. Another great lyric: “nothing safe is worth the drive”)

All Too Well (widely known as one of he lyrically best songs ever, it was originally 15 minutes and had to be cut down. This bridge hits the soul: “YOU CALL ME UP AGAIN JUST TO BREAK ME LIKE A PROMISE, SO CASUALLY CRUEL IN THE NAME OF BEING HONEST”. Damn. Truly one of the best bridges of all time and so satisfying to sing. So honest and vulnerable. Also love the imagery of “here we are again in the middle of the night, dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light”)

Holy Ground (this song is underrated in my opinion, it feels like meeting someone for the first time and having an immediate connection, “spinning like a girl in a brand new dress, we had this big wide city all to ourselves” it’s those moments when you feel like your life is a movie)

Starlight (my friends don’t care for this song at ALL but it means so much to me. Written when she was dating Connor Kennedy - JFK’s grandson - and heard stories from his grandma Ethel about their love, so wrote this song from her perspective. It’s so sweet and sparkly about love in 1945. Favourite lyric: “he’s talking crazy, dancing with me, we could get married and teach them how to dream”

Speak Now (my current fave TS album)

Mine (one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE Taylor songs. Brings back the happiest memories. Not sure if this would be counted as Too country but it’s just so pure and love-filled. “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter”

Sparks Fly (mostly for the bridge, “keep on keeping your eyes on me… just wrong enough to make it feel right // I’m captivated by you baby like a firework show)

Dear John (this one is on par with All Too Well as one of her best written, most vulnerable. Hard to listen to as a Mayer fan but it’s just the perspective of a 19 year old who got in too deep. Incredible bridge [shocking]: “you are an expert at sorry, and keeping lines blurry, never impressed by me acing your tests. All the girls that you run dry, have dried lifeless eyes cause you burned them out. But I took your matches before fire could catch me, so don’t.. look… now…. I’m SHINING LIKE FIREWORKS OVER YOUR SAD! EMPTY! TOWN!!!!!!”

The Story Of Us (fun, upbeat, cute, very early Taylor Swift which is somewhat similar to Lover the album. Fairytale kinda love)

Enchanted (SUCH A GOOD SONG OMG. The imagery in these lyrics is amazing. This song builds so much it’s practically the definition of a granger. “Please don’t be in love with someone else, please don’t have somebody waiting on you”. Feels like meeting someone in a fleeting moment, locking eyes and needing to see them again.

Better Than Revenge (A petty, fun song. Written after Joe Jonas broke her heart and dumped her in a 30 second phone call and then wrote an awful song called Much Better about his new girlfriend. Super tongue in cheek and a little immature but when you’re a teenager and you feel like someone stole your boyfriend you gotta write it out. We stan.)

Last Kiss (a song for if you’re still in love with someone. I don’t listen to this as much but it’s beautiful. I have a playlist called “that July ninth” because of it)

Long Live (one of her best songs ever. So much amazing imagery again. Typical American high school nostalgia for a time I never lived through. An incredibly unifying, empowering song. Dedicated to her band and team, so it holds a lot of love. Amazing song to hear live. “Long Live all the magic we made” is a lyric I wrote on my arm for one of her shows. Gorgeous bridge in this too - shocking, I know.

Fearless.

The Other Side Of The Door (super country song, feels like a fight in the first relationship in small town Pennsylvania or wherever she’s from, sO fun and the most iconic bridge of all time: “with your face and the beautiful eyes, the conversation with the LITTLE! WHITE! LIES! And the faded picture of a beautiful night, you CARRY ME FROM YOUR CAR TO THE STAIRS. I broke down crying, was she worth this mess?? After everything and that LITTLE! BLACK! DRESS! After everything I must confess, I neeeeed you”

Fearless (my favourite song ever, from 2008 til about 2015. So cute. “We’re driving down the road, I wonder if you know, I’m trying so hard not to get caught up now. But you’re just so cool, run your hands through your hair - absentmindedly MAKING ME WANT YOU.” Also the bridge “well you stood there with me in the doorway, my hands shake, I’m not usually this way, but you pull me in and I’m a little more brave. It’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, really something - it’s fearless.”

Hey Stephen (one of my other favourites of all time)

You Belong With Me (I’m sure you know this one. Absolute bop. Best music video with a steamy feature from love of my life Lucas Till).

Tell Me Why (never fully appreciated violins until I heard this song. Great song if you’ve been wronged by someone or been in a toxic relationship and can’t understand it. “I take a step back, let you go. I told you I’m not bulletproof, now you know”.)

Forever & Always. (People love to critique Taylor or blaming relationship breakdowns on the other person, but almost all of her breakup songs are her questioning what she did wrong. This is an example of that. “Was I out of line? Did I say something way too honest?” She wrote this about Joe Jonas too.

Change. (SUCH A POWERHOUSE SONG. A song to unify, unite and empower. “Tonight we’ll stand, get off our knees, fight for what we worked for all these years. The battle was long, it’s the fight of our lives, but we’ll stand up - champions tonight.”)

Omg I forgot The Story Of Us which has some of the best lyrics ever including “you held your pride like you should have held me”

Taylor Swift

The only song you need to listen to from her first album right now is I’m Only Me When I’m With You. It’s so great and beautiful. “Friday night beneath the stars, in a field behind your yard, you and I are painting pictures in the sky. Sometimes we don’t say a thing, just listen to the crickets sing, everything I need is right here by my side.”

and that concludes the Taylor Swift discography review you never asked for.”

he said “Man, I love your insight. You think and appreciate things on a whole other level to anyone else I’ve met” 

if he plays his cards right i’ll give him an education on the jonas brothers too

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – May 24, 2018

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alycia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

Archive

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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