A quick explanation:
The idea here is to make a compilation album charting the course of a particular month—September, in this case. Part of the idea is having a good arc to it—this is why it’s an album and not a playlist; there’s a Side A and a Side B—and part of it is trying to capture the different emotions of a month in music. The biggest part, though, is that songs are a good jumping off place for writing about things that aren’t songs, at least for me. Consider this the on-site creative writing gym for The Barking Crow.
This month’s tracklist is as follows, and if you use Spotify, you can listen to it in playlist form here.
Side A
1. “Shotgun” – George Ezra
2. “Goodmorning” – Bleachers
3. “Fluorescent Adolescent” – Arctic Monkeys
4. “Sweet Pea” – Amos Lee
5. “Rain King” – Counting Crows
6. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” – Bruce Springsteen
Side B
7. “All the Debts I Owe” – Caamp
8. “Lovers in Japan – Osaka Sun Mix” – Coldplay
9. “I Got You, Honey” – Ocie Elliott
10. “Tyson vs. Douglas” – The Killers
11. “Mt. Joy” – Mt. Joy
12. “Parachute” – Guster
Now. Track 10:
***
It’s Johnny Appleseed’s birthday today. It’s Johnny Appleseed’s birthday today, and it’s Serena Williams’s birthday today, and it’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday today. And it’s my birthday today.
This song’s about getting older, and about some of the learning that happens with growing up. Specifically, it’s about an encounter with the absence of human invincibility, and while that’s not the most present thing on my mind this particular birthday, I do think there’s a side of it which has been presenting itself often in recent years, and that’s the humanity of humans.
In both the good sense and the bad sense, humans are human. We’re multicellular organisms, big blobs of oxygen and carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen and calcium with electricity skittering through us, perched upon a tiny spinning rock whipping around a big hot ball of gas—a tiny spinning rock spinning and whipping past the same spot, today, with regard to that particular ball of gas, past which it spun and whipped at the moment when Johnny Appleseed was born, and at the moment when Serena Williams was born, and at the moment when T.S. Eliot was born. And at the moment when I was born.
There is mysticism and magic on this rock and around it, and so many a grand thing we do not understand, but at the core of it all, at the core of what we know, is the simple, bumbling fact that we’re squishy, lumpy blobs of oxygen and carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen and calcium. And a few more things. With electricity skittering through us. And sure, some of us are heroes and some of us are villains, but rarely more than momentarily. Beyond those moments—and in them too, sure—we’re human. In both the good sense and the bad sense.
Happy birthday, Mister Appleseed. Happy birthday, Mister Tyson. Happy birthday, Mister Flowers.
And sure, some of us are heroes and some of us are villains, but rarely more than momentarily. …. Good piece. 😊