Thursday, 03 April 2008

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  Musical Musings

  I don’t really know what my friends think of me.  I don’t know if they think I’m cool.  I don’t know if they think I’m funny.  For all I know they might think of me as a big dumb douchenozzle.  The only thing I know is that they think of me as someone who knows a lot about music.  (I know this because they told me so.)  This opinion of me isn’t necessarily true, though.  I don’t know a lot about music.  I can’t tell you what the first modern rock band was (the Beatles?), nor can I tell you what Bjork’s last name is (Guðmundsdóttir?), but I suppose I do listen to a lot of music.  If the music you listen to is the soundtrack to your life, then my biopic would prominently feature songs by KT Tunstall and Liz Phair.  However, neither of those two are who I consider my favorite singer of all time.  That would be Michelle Branch, and that’s because her song All You Wanted is intimately connected to the one time in my life when I seriously considered killing myself.  She has a lot to do with why I am still alive today, and that’s why I owe it to her to be her No. 1 fan.  I’ve been following her career closely for the past six years and something peculiar happened last week.  Let me explain…

  In 2003, Michelle Branch released her sophomore album Hotel Paper.  There were thirteen tracks on the album, but there was originally supposed to be fourteen.  The song that was omitted was Lay Me Down, which Michelle co-wrote with her friend Jessica Harp.  In 2005 Michelle and Jessica formed the country duo The Wreckers.  Lay Me Down was rearranged and re-recorded, and it was included in their 2006 debut album Stand Still, Look Pretty.   Three years after the release of Hotel Paper, Michelle Branch fans finally got to hear the missing song.  While most fans liked the song, people still wanted to hear the original version (without Jessica).  Fans even debated if the “original version” even existed, until last week.  On March 24, 2008, five years after the release of Hotel Paper, Michelle uploaded the original version of Lay Me Down on her website and made it available for streaming.  (She referred to it as the “OG” version, which is LA slang for “original gangsta”, which means that Michelle either “hangs with the red or bangs with the blue.”  (I didn’t know she was a gangsta, either.))  Michelle Branch fans finally rejoiced.  Upon hearing this song, I immediately thought to myself, “Best Michelle Branch song ever.”

  One week after first hearing it, I’ll admit that it’s probably not the “best Michelle Branch song ever.”  It’s still a fantastic song.  The music is voluminous and vibrant, and her vocals are her most powerful since Goodbye to You (the radio version).  But I’m not sure if the anticipation of the song has anything to do with my initial reaction to it.  It’s possible that I was just convincing myself that the song was worth the wait.  By this reasoning, Detox, Dr. Dre’s supposed follow-up to 1999’s 2001 (it’s always transcendent to name an album after a calendar year and release it two years before), should be a great rap album.  Furthermore, if Guns ‘N Roses’ Chinese Democracy ever sees the light of day (which Axl Rose has been working on for over 13 years), it will probably be the greatest album  in the history of mankind.  (On the other hand, this reasoning doesn’t bode well for albums that took less than one hour to produce, such as Consolers of the Lonely by The Raconteurs and every Jay-Z album.)

  It makes more sense that I reacted the way I did to the song because it reminded me of a time when my life wasn’t as shitty as it is now.  The song is five years old, and it brought me back to 2003.  The thing about music is that it’s a direct link to our past; it reminds us of our past without making us think about it.  It’s the laziest way to make you feel good about yourself.   Any lazy dumbass can listen to music and get an emotive upliftment from it, which is probably why it is my favorite pastime.  Listening to music is thinking for dumbasses, which is probably why so many songs are about love.

  I probably listen to music much more seriously than I should.  I should have just wrote about why Chris Daughtry is the new Jon Bon Jovi.  Or speculate on why Avril Lavigne tends to write songs as if she’s the third person in a love triangle.  Or debate whether Zac Farro’s (from Paramore) drum skills are highly advanced or disturbingly elementary.  Or argue why Foo Fighters are the last great rock-n-roll band.  But all of that would require too much thinking.  I’m lazy.  Lay me down.  I’m going to sleep.

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