Mixtapemotions

  • "(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home" by Anberlin, Monday, December 5, 2022 (repost)














    In 2010, Rolling Stone named Darlene Love‘s 1963 song “(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home” the number 1 Christmas rock song ever recorded. Born Darlene Wright in 1941, and renamed Darlene Love by producer Phil Spector, Darlene began her musical career as the lead vocalist for the girl group, The Blossoms. Besides her career with the Blossoms and her solo career, Love sang lead on two Crystals songs and backup for many notable artists including Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Sonny & Cher, and Tom Jones. Love has also acted on Broadway and appeared in the Lethal Weapon films.  Love performed “(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home” every episode before Christmas on David Letterman from 1986-2014, except for 2007 during the writers’ strike. 

    PRETTY LIGHTS ON THE TREE. “Baby, Please Come Home” has been covered by many artists including Mariah Carey, Michael Bublè, Death Cab for Cutie, and Jars of Clay, among others. One of the most famous covers is the 1987 U2 version. Released on the album A Very Special Christmas among covers of Christmas classics by other popular artists, the album was created to raise money for the Special Olympics. The album was released during the album cycle for one of U2’s biggest albums, The Joshua Tree, which made U2 one of the biggest bands in the world at that time. The bluesy rendition of the Christmas classic actually features Darlene Love on background vocals to accompany Bono’s crooning. Perhaps the U2 version is synonymous with today’s song, but it was the Anberlin version that always makes it to my annual Christmas lists. Recorded for the 2005 Tooth & Nail project Happy Christmas, Vol. 4, Anberlin’s version of this song has landed on several Christian Rock holiday albums and ended up on 2007’s B-side project, Lost Songs. Since the winter of 2005, this has become my adult Christmas favorite. I listened to it on Christmas mixes in the car until Lost Songs 
    arrived in November of 2007. It was the song that I’d drive my sisters around Christmas shopping to. The synthy intro to the forlorn guitar solo before the guitar “crashes” at the end made me think about how Christmas plans always kind of fall apart and we’re just left with the chaos of the season–the shopping, the parties, the getting together. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have some moments of silence as we stare at the Christmas lights on the tree or witness the soft sound of snow.

    THE CHURCH BELLS IN TOWN, THEY’RE RINGING A SONG. It’s three weeks until Christmas, and I’m forcing myself to feel something. In Korea, Christmas is a day off of work for schools and most offices; however, because it’s a Saturday this year, it’s like it doesn’t exist. Christmas was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. We sang Christmas songs at church. When we lived in New York, we cut down a tree and decorated it maybe two weeks before Christmas. In New York, it always snowed before Christmas in my childhood. One year was a little warmer, and it rained on Christmas Eve, but by Christmas morning the rain had turned to snow. The season always started with choosing and cutting a tree a week or two before Christmas. We’d decorate it and little by little presents would appear. We weren’t told about Santa except that some kids believed in him.  Next, we celebrated at my great-grandmother’s house the Saturday night before Christmas with my first and second cousins. The presents were always a letdown for a kid–gloves, socks, hats. Every year I hoped that there would be something fun, but I never minded because there was always great food and so many family members to see. Christmas Eve was always spent at my grandparents’ house with cousins, and the gifts were always more fun. I got Matchbox or Hot Wheels. My family started the tradition of opening presents on Christmas night. My parents didn’t want to deal with the 5 am wake-up, but they always let us open one present on Christmas morning. It was usually a board game or something we could play with until the night. We’d always leave the Christmas tree plugged in all day on Christmas day. We usually unplugged in the later morning the other days and turn it on at night, but Christmas was special. We usually played board games, watched Christmas movies, or played with Legos on Christmas day, waiting for the sun to set. Some years since I moved to Korea, my family said that they’d “Save Christmas for me” until I could get home in early January. In 2020, I said that I would try to come home every year, but it’s looking like maybe I can start that in 2023.

    Mariah Carey:

    Michael Buble:

    Death Cab for Cutie:

    Jars of Clay: 

    U2:

  • “The Love that Carries Me” by Jonezetta, Sunday, December 4, 2022

    The season 2 Labeled podcasts finale concluded the story arc of Tooth & Nail Records’ start from collecting likeminded, DIY-spirited bands to a marketably lucrative record business backed by major- label distribution, a slowing in the market and uncertain times, then back to a purely indie label. As the story goes, the label had signed two bands for general rock radio, The Classic Crime and Jonezetta. These bands were not intended for Christian radio, like how The Juliana Theory had been half a decade before. In 2006, at the time of this marketing strategy, the label was losing some of its most successful acts to major labels. Could the new signees save the label?

    WHEN THE CHORUS DIES, DOES IT KILL YOU TO BE ALONE? Neither bands reached the level Tooth & Nail had planned for them. The Classic Crime has had a successful career, but mostly because the label accidentally marketed them to Christian radio. Jonezetta, however, wasn’t played on RadioU, but I think I bought their first album Popularity in the Family Christian Bookstore after listening to the sample CD that sample CD player in their stores is the reason why I listened to more Christian Rock when I was a teenager because CDs were expensive and it was always disappointing to buy a record and only like one track). Jonezetta was marketed as the Tooth & Nail version of The Killers, Jonezetta got on tours with Anberlin, MuteMath, Shiny Toy Guns, and Family Force 5. The record Popularity was filled with fun hooks and ‘80s styled dance rock tracks, but “The Love that Carries Me” is in the center of the record, setting a calmer tone on the record. The keyboard and groove of the song seems to be a transition to the sound the band achieved on their next record, Cruel to Be Young. 

    SORRY, SORRY BUT MY WORDS MEAN NOTHING. “The Love that Carries Me” is a song about a misinterpreted song. In the vein of the title track, “Popularity,” many songs on the album deal with the superficiality of popularity. It’s a hipster irony of being “too cool for radio,” but secretly chasing it. The speaker states that “words mean nothing” and that the song is nothing more than an addictive ear worm for kids until they move on to the next thing. But “The Love that Carries” is much more than a trend; it is not a commodity; it is not fast fashion. The album examines popularity from a mid-2000s emo band perspective in ways that groups like The All-American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday arguably did better in their lyrics. “The Love that Carries Me” criticizes the popular kids who keep friendships and relationships to the surface and cast friends aside when things get difficult, and there’s a subtle comparison in the lyrics to people who do that to those who buy records and only scan for the catchy tracks. We cannot regard friends in the way that they are fleeting, otherwise we won’t be loved in the hard times and we will miss out on the deep connections that make us human. I certainly could try to be better friend, to pay back those who have pushed me along. So let’s all think of ways to be a better friend.

    Read the lyrics on Genius. 

  • “Wi ing Wi ing” (위잉위잉) by Hyukoh, Saturday, December 3, 2022

     

    “Wi ing Wi ing” was Hyukoh‘s first single. The band had just formed earlier in 2014 around guitarist and singer Oh Hyuk. Adding an additional guitarist, bassist, and drummer to the band, the band found success in Korea when their music was featured in one of the most popular shows in Korea, Infinite Challenge. The band released their first EP, 20, beginning an Adele-like feature of the band–naming projects after Oh Hyuk’s age. 


    BING BING THE WORLD SPINS. Hard-handed music listeners may not like sentimental Korean ballads, but who has time for them? “Wi ing Wi ing” uses Korean onomatopoeia. Recall from English class that onomatopoeia are words that are associated with the sound an object or creature makes. In English we say that bees buzz, that cows moo, that horns honk. In any language, onomatopoeia can sound cute, especially with repeated syllables. In English, frogs ribbit ribbit, hens cluck cluck and a train on the track could either clack clack clack creating a peaceful lull of an afternoon nap on a train through the countryside with the three times repeated syllable, or the train could clicketty-clack, clicketty-clack showing a rougher ride through the mountains. Both sounds are pleasant to read and hear read aloud. Korean uses repeated syllables for certain specific feeling words. Chool chool hada  (출출하다) means to feel a little hungry, as in the feeling that you could eat if someone suggests it but wouldn’t have suggested it yourself other. Ssal ssal hada (쌀쌀하다) is the word for feeling chilly, the kind of chill when the seasons change from summer to fall. There are plenty more examples that are non-onomatopoeia, but Korean onomatopoeia often uses cute double syllables to express a sound. Jjip jjip (찝찝) is the sound of chewing. Gaegool gaegool (개굴개굴) is the language Korean frogs  speak, which sounds like a kind of croak. Korean dogs say meong meong (멍멍), which to me seems like a stretch but so does bark.

    EVEN THE WIND CAN’T DO ANYTHING ‘BOUT MY SCARRED HEART. Korean takes onomatopoeia a step further. Not only do heard sounds have words, but also inaudible sounds have onomatopoeia. Ever wonder what the sun shining sounds like? Jjaeng jjaeng (쨍쨍). How about the sound of feeling warm? Ttaeggeun ttaeggeun (때근때근). Today’s song takes the buzz of a bee, wing wing (윙윙), and makes it the  barely audible sound of a fruit fly,  wi ing wi wing (위이 위이). And also the world spins to the sound of bing bing (빙빙). Today’s song is a lovesick indie rock track that rhythmically entwines onomatopoeia and imagery. It’s a song that’s better suited for the summer but also for a chill Saturday at a coffee shop. Enjoy!

  • “Chariots” by Paper Route, Friday, December 2, 2022 (partial repost)

     

    J.T. Daly, lead singer of Paper Route, has stayed busy in the music business during Paper Route and after the band ended. In addition to releasing solo records and several side projects, he has composed for an ESPN film, produced several alternative musicians including K.Flay and Pvris, remixed Anberlin, Judah the Lion, MuteMath, and Switchfoot, and worked in visual arts, making band merchandise, phone cases, and even directing music videos for other bands. Of course, Daly isn’t the only creative force in Paper Route. Along with Chad Howat and for their third and on their final record, Real Emotion, with Nick Aranda, Paper Route is a seriously creative band.

    YOU PROMISED ME THAT EVERYTHING IS FAIR IF IT’S LOVE AND WAR.  Like yesterday’s song, the imagery in “Chariots” brings my mind to old movies like Spartacus or Ben-Hur. On other songs on Real Emotion there seems to be a classic film theme, notably in the song “Zhivago” and its intro “Lara.” “Chariots” imagines the speaker in a long-distance relationship and from his perspective, he is the only one fighting for the relationship. As a gesture to show his love, the speaker offers to send his chariots to his lover, creating the image of a big gesture likened to wealthy landowners or rulers in the Roman Empire or Lords in medieval times. Thematically “Chariots” deals with Paper Route’s most common subject–break ups. While lead singer J.T. Daly maintains his privacy in his personal life, cryptic statements from the stage, such as “This has been the hardest year ever” on two separate years, the lyrics alluding to break ups, divorce, and using “chemicals” to forget, have fans speculating about the prurient details of the singer’s love life and mental state. The song “Chariots” depicts the speaker and his love, who is “giving up the fight” which is causing the crash of the “chariots” and ending the relationship. 

    IS IT NOT WORTH FIGHTING FOR?  While Paper Route was a tinderbox of production, instrumentation, and thoughtful lyrics, the flame of success was fanned out before they caught on.  The second single from Paper Route’s third and final album, “Chariots” Clark McCaskill of Ear Milk calls an “exhilarating 4:36-minute ride,” describing the song’s “invigorating orchestration of frenetic rhythm, soaring vocals, and captivating chord progressions.” The song premiered in the trailer for FIFA 17 and was featured in the game. (Side note: Go Korea tonight!) The band released Real Emotion through Kemosabe Records, a label started by Dr. Luke and a division of Sony Records. A late-night appearance with an almost radio single for “Balconies” played into the narrative of the indie band that could never catch a break. There might be a fourth Paper Route album someday. If it does well beyond fans it will be because of viral success rather than a consorted effort on the band to be bigger than an indie band. Fame was perhaps a “Blue Collar Daydream.” The fickle music industry requires either singular devotion to breaking into it or luck or both. Bands like Paper Route have tried and failed that level of success. And making it comes at the cost of external songwriters and marketing. Is it worth fighting for?

    Read the lyrics on Genius.


    Live album release performance:


  • “Carlo Rossi” (Love in the Face of Great Danger) by Tyson Motsenbocker, Thursday, December 1, 2022

     

    With the turning of the calendar to the last month of the year comes goodies from Spotify and Apple Music.  This morning I checked my Spotify Wrapped and my Apple Music Replay ’22 and how different they were! First of all, I noticed that there was no Anberlin in my Apple Music statistics. I wonder if tracks that I imported from before I subscribed to Apple Music count? This year I listened to Apple Music for my personal listening and Spotify for my blog. I listened to Spotify considerably less than Apple Music, though last year I jealously watched as my friends displayed their Wraps on Facebook and Instagram. But my top song only had eight plays so I don’t know if that counts. What was that top song? “Carlo Rossi” by Tyson Motsenbocker. 

    TAKE ME ON A NEW VACATION. “Carlo Rossi” (Love in the Face of Great Danger) is my pick for song of the year. Tyson Motsenbocker condenses a novel’s worth of theme into a single song while offering vivid imagery that feels like a classic film, yet it is uncanny how contemporary that classic film seems. On the Labeled Podcast, Motsenbocker unpacked the themes of “Carlo Rossi” and helped listeners understand some of the esoteric language of the song. Motsenbocker sets the song in Central or South America during a riot. The speaker of song and his love climb into an abandoned hotel with a bottle of cheap wine, Carlo Rossi, and drink it from the bottle watching the riot unfold. As I listen to “Carlo Rossi,” I always picture a cinematic version of a Tennessee Williams play, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman or Gregory Peck, portraying an expatriate experience millennials read about in literature class when we read about the Roaring ’20s  or experienced in old movies when the advent of the jetliner made tropical destinations all the rage. But we never really enjoyed this experience because of a slowing economy. 

    THEY BURNED A CAR IN THE PARKING LOT.  Both on the Labeled Podcast and The Black Sheep Podcast, Motsenbocker talks about the themes of his latest record, Milk Teeth. The title of the record refers to growing up; baby teeth are the soft teeth that we lose in early childhood and sometimes referred to as milk teeth because they are the teeth that grow while a baby is still nursing. He describes the record as the one where he is putting the past to bed, dealing with becoming an adult. He also discusses how the moving goalposts for his generation has created a generation of nostalgia. He says, “As millennials, not only were we not sold that our future was going to be this Blade Runner dystopian hellscape that it’s turning out to be, but we were sold that it was going to be so much better than anything that had ever come before us, that you could be anything you wanted to be; you could be the president; you can be an astronaut . . . and everything you do is amazing.” Motsenbocker talks about living moment by moment in the present, which becomes a collection of moments that feel right that lead to another moment that feels right. On Labeled, Motsenbocker explains that the song deals with his success at a time when the world seems to be on fire. For Motsenbocker those moments that feel right led him into a relationship and into a marriage. It’s a song about coming of age at what seems like the end of the world, and living the best you can with those circumstances. I’ll drink to that!

    Live performance: 

  • “Gold Teeth” by HIGHS, Wednesday, November 30, 2022

     

    HIGHS is an indie rock quartet from Toronto, Canada. The band released a self-titled EP in 2014 and a full-length record in 2016 titled Dazzle Camouflage. The band released a single in 2021, but has been quiet since then. The band’s only LP so far has received critical praise from the few critics that have reviewed the record. The record was produced by Depeche Mode and Foals producer Luke Smith, causing some reviewers to draw a comparison between HIGHS and the latter British indie rock group. HIGHS’ Spotify page features a picture of a drum set, which seems to be apropos due to the band’s interesting irregular drum beats in otherwise chill songs. 


    YOU’RE NEVER GONNA GET IT RIGHT. Taking its name from an artistic technique in nature and implemented by the British Admiralty during World War I, Dazzle Camouflage is an engaging album, but its not one that hits all at once. I don’t remember where I first heard it, but I’d imagine that the album found its way into my library after I Shazamed one of the tracks playing in a coffee shop. It’s an album that I forgot about, though. As I listened back to the album today, many of the songs sounded familiar, though I don’t think I spent a lot of time with it before. “Gold Teeth” is the final track on the record. It’s not the lyrics that make the track stand out. In fact the lyrics seem to be camouflaged under the guitars, drums, bass, and even the vocal layering as kind of dazzle to make whatever the message of the song hidden in plain sight. Camouflage naturally occurs in nature to distract predators by making prey nearly invisible. When we think of camouflage, we usually picture dark colors or earth tones; however, sometimes camouflage mesmerizing predators. The predator is so distracted by the aesthetics of the camouflage that it naturally moves on.
    YOU CAN’T BREAK ME UP. I don’t know if “Gold Teeth” necessarily has an esoteric meaning to the band listeners who have taken the time to break it apart. But the title of the album got me thinking about the “Dazzle Camouflage” music uses to enter our lives. If you read my blog, you probably spend at least some time most days listening to music. In other words, you seek it out, whether on a commute, in the office, walking down the street, while cleaning or reading a book, or even taking some time at home to sit and listen. But music penetrates our lives through other forms of entertainment–tv shows, advertisements, the old man in the park who doesn’t use headphones, at the grocery store, in a video game, or in a cafe. Often this music means nothing to us. It’s music not tailored to your personal tastes and reached a threshold for mass consumption, a cliché in a film depicting something –stereotypical ’70s high school, Vietnam War scene, etc. But sometimes a song in those situations dazzles you. It’s that one track in a cafe that pulls you away from your book or a conversation and you wonder who sings this song. Still, you’re probably not going to figure out the meaning of the lyrics at first. No, that will take some time at home with headphones and even then you may be hearing fragments, proscribing your own meaning to the lyrics. Sometimes it takes years to know the message that was there all along in front of you.

  • "Amy, I" by Jack's Mannequin, Tuesday, November 29, 2022 (repost)
























    Following the traumatic experience of surviving cancer between Jack’s Mannequin‘s first album (Everything in Transit) and second album (The Glass Passenger), lead singer Andrew McMahon decided to write about the people and things that he appreciated the most. The singer talks about deciding on the name for the project quite early in the album’s production process in the podcast Meet the Musician. People and Things topped the Alternative Albums chart, but the lead single, “My Thoughts Racing,” only peaked at #43 on the Rock Digital Sales chart. The album was released in October 2011, but by February 2012, McMahon publicly discussed dropping the band’s name. “I foresee an end to the usage of that name. I don’t know that it’s doing what it used to for me,” he told Lehigh Valley Music. To McMahon, he wanted to start fresh. Healthy, married, and becoming a father, the concept of Jack that McMahon had created in his early 20s was less relevant to the singer-songwriter. Thus, he started releasing music under Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.

    ANOTHER LONG WINTER, TRYING TO FIGHT THIS FREEZE. I listened to People and Things during my last semester of college, during my hellish student teaching experience. It was my album for the car, mainly driving home to North Carolina through the Tennessee mountains during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Jack’s Mannequin’s first record was basically piano-pop-punk. Their second album was a more refined piano-pop sound. But People and Things felt like it was influenced by ‘70s piano rock. Songs like “Amelia Jean” and “Amy, I” are a beautiful marriage between piano and guitar. Three songs on People were from songwriting sessions with Relient K’s Matt Thiessen. The Californian McMahon was spending time in Nashville in the wintertime. Staying at Thiessen’s house after a night of drinking, he got out of bed, his bare feet touching the cold, creaky wooden floor. He looked outside and the opening line came to him: “Snow on the ground in Tennessee.” The line stuck with him all day as he and Thiessen began writing about a relationship that had grown cold. 


    I CAN HEAR YOUR BARE FEET ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR. A Tennessee winter is cold, especially for a Southern Californian. While I’ve never spent any time in Nashville, Chattanooga got pretty damn cold. And I’m from New York. There’s not always much snow, but the wind from the open spaces leaves a bitter feeling in the bones.  I don’t remember feeling that cold in New York even when there were five feet of snow on the ground. Just keep the fire burning. Just keep the path to the woodshed plowed. Just dress in snow pants, boots, and several layers. In the South, we don’t do that. A leather jacket and a scarf will do, maybe a beanie. The lyrics of “Amy, I” made me think about something tragic happening when I first listened to the lyrics. Did Amy die by falling into the lake? McMahon, however, writes this song as a metaphor for coldness between two people. The title “Amy, I” is a trailing-off expression. Is the speaker sorry? What is he trying to say? What is preventing him from saying it? On December 1, the winter is just around the corner. There’s a lot of uncertainty I’m facing with the coming year, and we all need something or someone to hold onto. We need someone to hold onto us. Otherwise, we plunge into a lake that’s cracking under our feet.




     

  • “Blame It on Me” by George Ezra, Monday, November 28, 2022 (warning: more explicit language than usual)

     

    Wanted on Voyage was a huge debut record for George Ezra internationally. One of the biggest reasons for Ezra’s success in 2014 was that the album’s lyrics resonate with Europeans as the English singer-songwriter includes many details of specific places from his first solo journey across Europe. The first song on the record, though, “Blame It on Me,” starts at home, in Ezra’s case Bristol, England, after just moving there. He told In Style, “I was saddled with student loans, and I realized there were so many opportunities to play music, so unless I got busy, I could only blame myself.”
    WE FOUND OURSELVES SOME TREASURE AND THREW IT ALL AWAY. The music video for “Blame It on Me” shows George Ezra having a very bad day. The singer is a magnet for accidents and the ill-will of others. Hit, tackled, run over, and shot at by the end of the video as well as being the victim of a pesky raincloud that follows only Ezra as he “follows the yellow brick road,” Ezra’s performance in the video certainly seems like hyperbole. Viewers begin to wonder what will happen next? A butcher running with a machete? A pram with a baby wielding a bazooka? But who hasn’t felt that they’ve been through a day like that, even if nothing that traumatic happened? Some days you feel like you can’t catch a break– a near car accident on the way to work, a project that seems to be all-consuming, and a misunderstanding with a colleague make the day seem like its doomed. Some days, no mater how you try to redeem them only become more and more cursed. You don’t necessarily need to be negative about the fact the day is cursed; just go back to bed and try again in the morning. 


    WHEN I DANCE ALONE AND THE SUN’S BLEEDING DOWN. Yesterday was one of those days. First a notification from work, then a canceled plan, then a train delayed for an hour and a half, some heavy bags, a closed restaurant, a crappy egg salad sandwich at Starbucks—nothing was going my way. I’m usually a pretty go-with-the-flow person, but some situations seem to test my patience, like an invisible hand is tickling at my sanity. I sat in Starbucks fuming. I thought this is what privilege feels like. All the things that I was annoyed about seemed trivial in the greater scheme of the world. Me getting home an hour and a half earlier didn’t matter in the greater scheme of my life or in the universe. The dishes and laundry could wait until the next day. There were so many things that could be worse. I could be without a job, tossed from a company without a golden parachute. The end of the student loan moratorium could be this month. I could have a rare disease like viral hemorrhagic fever. Thinking about all the hard times that have befallen on my friends and family this year and how things have not necessarily been bad but just annoying for made me feel quite selfish. But this morning, having to go in early and working hard while a coworker took on none of the workload made me feel resentful. It’s not great, but before going into work, I decided to have a “Fucksgiving.” I certainly have a lot to be grateful for, but I realized that my gratitude list had shrunk, so I decided to say my “Fuck yous” out loud. I started with the most delicious ones: the people who gave me the most grief, but I moved on to friends and family. I said “Fuck you” to everyone who had been giving me stress and a sorry to them if I still liked that person and I didn’t think that their situation was their fault. Of course there were no messages sent. But saying it out loud relieved stress that had been building up. And after saying my “fucks,” I stopped thinking about myself and about how those friends, family members, and even my partner were all just victims of other people or situations fucking them up. It’s not always possible, nor is it their job to stop the fucked up situations from hitting me. So I went to work calmer than I was and waded through fuck ups with my head just a little less fucked up by the inconveniences and realized that they weren’t targeting me. I apologize for the gratuitous language. But it was so cathartic. 


    lyric video:

  • "The Shade" by Metric (Partial Repost), Sunday, November 27, 2022

    Metric isn’t a household name for alternative rock music, even though they have been around forever. They had some success with their fourth album, Fantasies, and they saw Top 20 singles in the U.S. Alternative Rock charts, but mostly the band has been confined to the Canadian charts. Lead singer Emily Haines, though, is an American-Canadian duel citizen, born to American parents in New Delhi, where her mother started a school. Haines collaborated with fellow indie rock band Broken Social Scene, singing on several albums, though Metric was her main gig. Metric’s music varies from album to album both thematically and musically. Haines often writes about feminism, war, and dreams. On their sixth album Pagans in Vegas, the music is synth-heavy, taking influence on British New Wavers. 


    I’M FOLLOWING THE SUN THAT’S SETTING IN THE WEST. Speaking about the first single from Pagans in Vegas, “The Shade,” Emily Haines wrote: “When you feel yourself becoming a coward, the best thing to do is force yourself to get out of bed and be willing to feel everything, including rejection and confusion, all over again.” The song and video seem to have a dual message. The first is what Haines writes about courage to succeed. The other theme is a little more implicit. The video has many images including beautiful scenes of nature, but there are some off-putting images as well. There are the melting ice caps, a scene of civil unrest, an overflowing landfill, massive flooding, and finally a skeleton. There are subtle reminders of climate change and the impact of humans who “want it all.” As a rock mid-tier rock band, Metric may feel frustrated that they aren’t as successful as the American rock bands. The band mostly opens for the big names like Paramore, Imagine Dragons, Arcade Fire, and the 1975, to name a few. At some point, it seems like there should be some payoff for being faithful in the scene. Maybe when the guitarist burns the “Hot 100 Bored” songs magazine, this is showing frustration at the band’s limited success on the American charts. Although there are more and more problems (flooding) there are new technological advancements (the robot arm), constantly shifting our attention away from the crisis at hand. When the music video shows Hollywood and Haines bathing on the roof with a glass of champagne, we get an idea about the decadence that this rock band is due. Yet, this decadence plays a role in destroying the planet.

    WE GOT REWARDED, WE GOT REFUSED. One of the themes of “The Shade” is manifest destiny, a popular idea in the nineteenth century as the United States set its eyes upon new territories in which to expand. But what was just once a political philosophy expanded into a personal one. Today, manifestation is a popular practice. Manifestation is a practice of meditating upon something a person truly desires, and if followed correctly, is said to lead to obtaining whatever that thing is. But what many of us products of manifest destiny rarely think about is that expansion for me means taking from you. The first time I thought about this was in my World Geography class when reading the book The Paradox of Plenty. One of the questions asked in class was how many earths would we need if everyone—then 6.8 billion, not today’s 8 billion—lived like me? Years later I wondered what if everyone lived like Donald Trump or a Kardashian or even like a celebrity I like such as Taylor Swift? What if everyone lived as I want to live?



  • “Lift Me Up” (Far Away) by The Benjamin Gate, Saturday, November 26, 2022

    The Benjamin Gate was a band signed to ForeFront Records between 2001 and 2003. The band formed in 1998 in Port Elizabeth and took their name from one of the original entrances to the Biblical city of ancient Jerusalem and also named the band as a tribute to their friend who had died in a traffic accident, Ben Herbert. The band had some success in the burgeoning field of alternative Christian rock. They released two records, 2001’s [“untitled”] and 2002’s Contact, but by 2003 the band broke up after lead singer Adrienne Liesching’s engagement to fellow Christian Rocker Jeremy Camp. 

    SEEING THROUGH A HOLE IN TIME. The Benjamin Gate was a female-fronted Christian Rock band that showed much potential for the future of the genre. Influenced by bands like Garbage and Linkin Park, the band arrived at an interesting time when music was getting heavier, more electronic, and blending pop and hard rock together. The band’s first record was distinctly Christian Rock, with the lead single declaring “Jesus’ love is All Over Me.” The Christian Rock band’s lyrics on Contact, though, aren’t necessarily always spiritual. Today’s song  “Lift Me Up,” is a song about missing family back in the band’s home country of South Africa while forging a new life in America. For Liesching, however, it wasn’t just about band life and touring, but romance that split her heart between family in South Africa and an muscular American Christian singer with a heartbreaking backstory of losing his first wife a year after their marriage to ovarian cancer. Despite Liesching’s change of passion from band life to home life raising three children with Camp, many fans of The Benjamin Gate resentfully joke about how Jeremy Camp broke up the band. 

    EVERY DAY AWAY IS EASY TO IGNORE. While most of the band members of The Benjamin Gate returned to South Africa, Adrienne Liesching married Jeremy Camp and  released two solo records on BEC Recordings under the moniker Adie. Neither record is on Spotify. She performs with her husband and has appeared on a John Rueben song but she and her former band have mostly faded into Christian Rock obscurity.  I chose “Lift Me Up” for several reasons. I think it warrants a discussion—though not today—about female Christian artists giving up careers to focus on their families. It’s the nostalgia for forgotten musical gems in my teens that makes me think about how life has turned out. It’s the “where are they now” conversation with my sister about teachers and students from our high school that makes me wonder about some of the bands we listened to. But mostly it has to do with the feeling of being torn between two continents. It’s about being unable to celebrate with family because my vacation schedule is completely different. It’s about the extended family I’m not sure when I can see again. It was  Thanksgiving this week and it hurt less if I forgot about it. So that’s my whining about the holiday.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.