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The time of year I prefer is the end of summer: the days continue to be brightened and warmed by the sun, but they are no longer suffocating, and the evenings start to become cooler.
What makes me prefer this particular moment even more is the light: that soft and slightly tilted light that gets caught in your hair and won't let go, that blurs and softens the corners. A vivid light, but with discretion, as if wanting to apologize for the beautiful season it's about to take away, mesmerizing us while foreshadowing a glimpse of the opulence of the upcoming autumn colors.
On one of these blue late summer evenings, walk barefoot along the grassy paths.
By stepping on the sharp blades, which will break under the weight of your passage, you will feel alive and free and lucky to be there, in the space-time of the "here" and "now".
Bring a blanket, a bottle of good wine, all your lost loves, regrets, remorse, your quirks, bitterness, unmotivated laughter, and those that rise from the depths of your heart, and above all, do not forget "Sunny Border Blue" by Kristin Hersh.
Start the first track, relax, and lie down to count the stars one by one: infinite love will rise in your soul, and you will go far, very far, like a gypsy.
The album by my favorite Throwing Muse (the other, Tanya Donelly, never convinced me much as a solo artist) should be listened to this way to be fully appreciated. If you have heartaches, and one moment you're depressed and the next you want to commit murder, even better, you'll adhere like glue to Kristin's mood at the time when she composed this work.
American singer-songwriter music, indie-folk that reminds me of the atmospheres cherished by Elliott Smith, Portland, Oregon, and something of Polly Jean Harvey. A record released by 4AD, a label from which I have always drawn freely, dated 2001, yet still worth listening to and/or discovering, because it contains little treasures, composed, arranged, played, and interpreted by this small, great woman. She effortlessly switches from acoustic to electric guitar, from wind instruments to the piano. But she enchants particularly with her childlike voice, which crackles like sandpaper on skin and soul.
One of the most successful tracks is surely the opening "Your Dirty Answer", where sudden tempo changes and mood swings are already anticipated, a characteristic of the entire album. A song that starts quietly and then gets angry, continuously. "Not my fault, it's not my fault if you don't love me when I'm drunk. I'm clean, I'm so tired... bear with me a little longer." sings Kristin.
"Spain", following it, is in my opinion the best song on the album, capturing its essence in a piercing final phrase: "I wanted you to sleep with her and hate yourself, instead of me." And to think it started as a dream of a dusty vacation in Spain, to put together pieces that no longer fit together, as it seems.
"Silica" and "Summer Salt" are light and sunny episodes, which at one time were described as "dreamy pop," if we must label everything – by the way, I have always wondered what necessity there is for that, when the only thing that matters is: "Does it convey something to me or leave me cold?" – and particularly the latter song has a text I have always found very amusing. It talks about going back, to when we were as clean as newborns, to try and act soberly, but then a "toxic thing" surely emerges to gladly keep everything lively... Mrs. Hersh knows well what she's referring to, and no, it's not the salt mentioned in the title.
And the subsequent statement, that "for an ugly boy you sure look pretty" is an undeniable truth, immediate and eternal.
Just as true, it's easy, very easy, to find oneself sleeping with "idiots and prophets," as she states decisively in "Ruby," another great track.
The other songs are more intimate and follow the general line of this work, which concludes with a lysergic and disillusioned, intense, and tense "Listerine," passing through a pearl set in the whole with extreme nonchalance, a cover of "Trouble" by Cat Stevens.
"Things break all the time. Glasses, dishes, nails. Promises. Hearts." says writer Jodi Picoult. If it's true (oh my god, how true it is!), "Sunny Border Blue" seems to have been composed precisely to remind us, with a decent dose of the irony needed in these circumstances.
If you're in the mood, put it on your listening agenda for the end of September.
P.S. A heartfelt and special thanks to the great M’sieur Arthur for providing me with inspiration and illuminating words to write this review.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Your Dirty Answer (05:24)
You know how it feels when the real world encroaches
Rubbing elbows with the unemployed and you
You're so beautiful
You're so rude
Peeling mangos on a fold out couch
I'm scooped out
You're inscrutable
You're all mine
Swimming is a 'lude
Wine opens your mind
Your guitar's a race car
Sex is your best friend
What's your dirty answer?
My fantasies are unloved histories
You know what it's like when mistakes go unmade
It was beautiful
It was you
I'm giving up the ugly
I thought you'd make pretty
I'll be goddamned
This is beautiful
Hold my hand
Swimming is a 'lude
Wine opens your mind
Your guitar's a race car
Sex is your best friend
What's your dirty answer ?
I don't judge people
I just watch them 'til it's time to look away
I want to look away now
Somebody's coming
I don't want to look backwards,
I don't want to even look backwards
It's not my fault
It's not my fault you don't love me
It's not my fault you don't love me
When I'm drunk
I'm wiped
I'm so tired
Carry me for a little while
02 White Suckers (04:25)
We were awake together all night long
Sharing paraphernalia 'till dawn
You didn't dissapoint me Not at all
You never disappoint me
You lubricate the morning
Shining and yawning
You were nice but twisted the same old story
We were a match made in purgatory
You didn't disappoint me
Totally
You never disappoint me
You animate the morning
Shining and yawning
You come off like a distant moth
Aimless and driven
Yet you seem to be living it up
Walking around in your busted shoes
Like you've got nothing better to do
I don't like I was I don't know what I've become
But shaken out of my pallour I'm filled up
You didn't disappoint me
Not once
You never disappoint me
you mutilate the morning
Shining and yawning
You run by like a spazzing fly
Shameless and smiling
Yeah, you seem to be living it up
Driving around in your souped-up jeep
Like you've got somewhere better to be
03 Ruby (04:06)
Everybody was so pretty there
And up and jumping around
And easy it's easy to sleep
With idiots and prophets
Leaves me wondering
Ruby or iridescent cough drop?
This baby's like a winter bird, raunchy and sweet
With snowflakes melting in his hair
The boys are supermen
Wondering
Ruby or iridescent cough drop?
You're the great convincer, should I do this, am I good?
You can smell a fever, shold I do this, am I good?
Let's dive
All the way down
The two of us are old paint,
My grandmother's horse
Still alive, still kicking, not allowed to work
'Til we become beauty
A fluid medium
04 Flipside (03:58)
There's always drooling zombies
Or at least on dick
I'm having trouble focusing
'Cause all I see in front of me is
You when we're finally alone
He was the bone king
Dead to all the world
Maybe dead's like being
Really high without th low
But I enjoy hangovers here
I could see them on the flipside of a molecule
But I have all the energy I can take for now
Holy floating
We're holy floating
Holy shit I think I'd rather be on the ground than flying
We're still fucking up in a healthy way for now
How dare you save my life
Then try to break my heart
You make alone so goddamn lonely
Makes me want to fall in love with
Everything and float above the ground
These days I do the same thing
Commit the same damn crime
If I'm not feeling out the flipside
Maybe I'm supposed to be here,
Maybe you're supposed to be here too
I could see them on the flipside of a molecule
But I have all the energy I can take for now
Holy floating
We're holy floating
Holy shit I think I'd rather be on the ground than flying
We're still fucking up in a healthy way for now
And my feet dont touch the ground
07 37 Hours (03:27)
By now, I should know where you're going
By now I should but I don't
You're better off wherever you are off to
Agile or stoned
By now, I should wake you when I'm hungry
Right now I should but I'm not
We could be a silkworm tightrope
We could but we're not
I don't want this to be over
You're what I do
Every day the only thing
That makes any sense
Your liver twisting logic's
Far and away the smartest thing
I don't know where I am
Plus I don't know when I am
'cause you insist on using f**ked up military time
'cause you are better off alone
I've been right here for 37 hours
I dropped a cigarette in my shoe
And dove in the water
Then I swam until my hair dreaded
Like flying on fire
That day I quit smoking and swimming
I heard some advice from above
Ducking under cramming it in
Isn't falling in love
I don't want this to be over
You're what I do
Everyday the only thing
That makes any sense
Your lover twister logic
Far and away the smartest thing
I don't know where I am
Plus I don't know when I am
'cause you insist on using f**ked up military time
'cause you are better off alone
I've been right here for 37 hours
08 Silica (04:23)
Let the ache out
Spread it around
You want to fly him in
You want him
Play a grownup
'Til you grow up
If you could you would
I swallowed some bad voodoo
Caught it in the gut
Wish you were here
Wish I was not
You hear someone wanting you
How can I fume
Then be bursting with kindness?
A gracious cocoon in the shadows
We're in good company
Us lefty Lucy's
Play a grownup
'Til you grow up
If you could you would
This is a touch prayer
Praying for you
Wish you were here
Wish I was too
Come see how okay we are
Come see how okay we can be
Picture her Silica
Lifting her shirt to the sun
Cherry neck sea
Easy now
10 Summer Salt (04:07)
Let's back up and act like we're sober
Newborn clean
Head over heals for a cold blooded creature
Limbic somersaults
For a toxic thing you sure smell pretty
Summer, salt and wine
For an ugly boy you sure look pretty
A cowboy frankenstein
I dreamt you were playing along
I dreamt you were playing along
I dreamt you were playing along
In your dreams
When it's touch and go you blow your wad
Like no one ever fails
For a quiet boy you sure talk dirty
A velvet bed of nails
I dreamt you were playing along
I dreamt you were playing along
I dreamt you were playing along
In your dreams
While I did nifty somersaults
You were thinking after all
After it all
I don't have to talk
I don't have to talk
But when I do and this is true
There's nothing I won't say
11 Trouble (03:25)
( Cat Stevens )
Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me
Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me
I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair
I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there
Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
And it's too much for me today
Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery
I've seen your eyes
And I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me
I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see
Trouble
Oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt
Now won't you leave me in my misery
Trouble
Oh trouble please be kind
I don't want no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time
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