To and Fro

We'll open with something light.  I've been way too heavy lately.  In general.  Need to lighten up.  

At my cousin's engagement party a few weeks ago my brother and I somehow ended up volleying songs and lines of our favorite "Winnie the Pooh" episodes back and forth.  Most people in our circle laughed, though I'm sure on some level they wondered if we were half-wits or stoners (or perhaps both).   I'm not sure whether it helped or hurt our intra-extended-familial stature when my sister candidly admitted she brought the Pooh tapes we were weened on with her to college.  Perhaps even more telling, the tao of Pooh apparently won over many of her friends.   

(At some point in the not too distant future, I hope to obtain footage of my brother's Pooh impression.  While I remember lines and can do a serviceable impression, he may as well replace the fraud who does the voices in all of the more contemporary rehashings.)  

I just got my car back from the body shop this afternoon.  Without my iPod for the commute, I was relegated to a choice between the radio and one of the 8 to 10 CD's that have been in my car collecting dust for just under a year now.  Actually not a very difficult decision.  I reached for the stack and pulled out CD that had been put into its case upside down.  Arcade Fire's Funeral.  As the album's been in my car, and subsequently has not been put on my iPod, I couldn't tell you the last time I spun it.  At one point this was as regular in my rotation as anything else.  While I can't say I've ever taken a close look at the lyrical content of Neon Bible -mostly because I don't really like it- Funeral is a fantastic album front to back. 

In a strange mood at least in part because of the gridlock traffic I was inching along in -weighty anger, determination, frustration, optimism, and apathy swinging to and fro like a pendulum- I was brought back to the present ironically by "Wake Up".  

Somethin' - filled up - my heart - with nothin' - someone - told me 

not to cry. - but now that - I'm older - my heart's - colder - and I 

can - see that it's a lie. 

children - wake up - hold your - mistake up - before they - turn the 

summer into dust. - children - don't grow up - our bodies get 

bigger. but - our hearts get torn up - we're just - a million little 

gods causing rain storms - turning every good thing to rust. - I guess 

we'll just have to adjust. 

with my lighning bolts a-glowin' I can see where I am going to be when 

the reaper he reaches and touches my hand. 

with my lighning bolts a-glowin' I can see where I am goin'. 

better look out below! 

The line: "children- wake up - hold your- mistakes up - before they turn the summer into dust" has always resonated most.  The idea that this is likely a reference to children and not twenty-somethings thankfully never took hold: technically, my summers turned to dust in 2003.  But I digress.  The notion that youthful mistakes - both careless and precocious - should be proudly displayed rather than hidden away, I find curiously optimistic in spite of the increasingly pessimistic light the song subsequently sheds on adulthood.  Perhaps it's the unapologetic tongue in cheek irony of the last line that keeps it from obscuring the emboldened taste in my mouth.      

  The only mistake of the album, as far as I can tell, was not placing Rebellion (Lies) and Wake Up back to back.  

Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. sleeping is giving 

in, so lift those heavy eyelids. 

people say that you'll die faster than without water. but we know it's 

just a lie, scare your son and scare your daughter. 

people say that your dreams are the only things that save ya. 

come on baby in our dreams, we can live our misbehaviour. 

everytime you close your eyes lies, lies! 

people try and hide the night underneath the covers. 

people try and hide the light underneath the covers. 

come on hide your lovers underneath the covers. 

come on hide your lovers underneath the covers. 

hidin' from your brothers underneath the covers, come on hide your 

lovers underneath the covers. 

people say that you'll die faster than without water, but we know it's 

just a lie, scare your son, scare your daughter 

now here's the sun, it's alright! now here's the moon, it's alright! 

now here's the sun, it's alright! now here's the moon, it's alright! 

but everytime you close your eyes, lies!