The weather sure has been weird lately. Yesterday morning it poured and then was cloudy and by two it was so sunny. I hope today is the same because it's raining right now. I wanted to tend the garden later on. We'll see. As an aside, I hate blogging about the weather. Can you get any more cliche than that?
Last night around nine I took the cats some cooking scraps. I opened the door and saw a thick, furry tail. Well then, that explains why we have to fill the dishes up to the top every day. We have a fucking raccoon (i almost typed squirrel there, hee hee).
He's a big one, and mean too. I opened the door and flipped on the light, didn't even step foot in there and he growled and hissed at me. But now as I type, I'm not sure if he growled, but I know that he hissed. How weird is it that a raccoon hisses? I don't know why I keep saying "he." I didn't exactly check out the anatomy to make a distinction (more like tossed the pan in, turned off the light and shut/locked the door and ran back to the house).
I'm not quite sure what to do. I don't want to keep feeding the damn thing. I'm thinking of taking the food dishes in a night. I'll either lock them in the container where we keep the food or put them in Sparky's old house where the kittens are. I just need to bring them out each morning.
We had five baby kitties but can only find four now. I think I might know what happened to that poor fifth one.
My latest music interest is the band Hinder. I first heard it's song "Lips of Angel" on the way to Chicago last summer with the Colby girls. Not really listening to the words, I wasn't immediately pulled to the music. When actually heard the words, I was appalled.
The song is a phone conversation with his ex-girlfriend. She calls late one night, crying. Well, the new girl is just over in the next room, and he knows he needs to be quiet. Throughout the conversation he remembers being with her--hearing her voice say his name, wishing his current girl was her, saying that he's been thinking about her and finally, she makes it hard for him to be faithful.
Now the surface of this song makes me want to bitch-slap that guy. Cheating is a deal breaker. And though he may not be doing anything physical with her, he is emotionally cheating on the new chica. He's obviously still hung up on the ex, which is fine. But he shouldn't be in another relationship or sneaking around talking to her. But I digress.
There are two things that make me like this song. The emotion and forlornness in the guy's voice and the devotion to the ex-girlfriend. Everything else aside, it's an honest conversation filled with regret, guilt, longing, jealously and probably some delusion. But her voice takes him back to a happy part of their relationship, through rose-colored glasses they share a perfect moment. And perfect moments--no matter how they hurt others, are wrong and all other consequences forgotten--are something special.
The next song from Hinder, "Better than Me," I liked instantly. The music, the lyrics, yeah. It starts with an acoustic guitar (which I always love) and very simple vocals. There's just something about his voice that draws me in. Is it the scratchy rocker voice? Is it the feeling that he's singing from deep down in his gut and act of expelling the notes and words are the only things that are keeping him breathing?
The message I take from this song also has me conflicted. Better than Me is about a man reflecting on the relationship he ended. "I think you can do much better than me, after all the lies I made you believe." The lyrics are him remembering what they had together and what he'll miss. It also expresses the way she impacted him, and that even when he's older he'll still think about her--how we carry the people we love with us. Good or bad, the way they make us feel can be called back with a memory or a familiar sight. "And I think you should know this, you deserve much better than me ..."
The part that has me conflicted is that he broke up with her because she deserves better. I always hated when that happened in movies or books. It should be her decision not his. That always felt like a cop-out--and way to fake being noble when really it's just an easy way out rather than working for a relationship. On the flip-side, if he really is being shitty to her and she can't see it b/c she's so head over heels in love....
Hinder's best quality, and something not all rock bands can capture, is the music can be strong and powerful one moment and then next beat it's quiet and solemn. That range is what really makes their music interesting.
A week or so ago, I just had to hear their first single, "Get Stoned." Though it is not as lyrical as the other two, the lead singer has same raw quality voice that I enjoy. I love cadence and the beat of the song is fun. This song is more of a screaming-type of song--and I can't sing along and be on key with this one. It's about a dysfunctional relationship: the highest highs ;-) and lowest lows---they're not good for each other, but they're oh so good to each other.
Despite everything (and maybe a primal because of everything), I enjoy this song.
At first, I thought the lead singer reminded me of Marilyn Manson. He's very skinny and does that weird tilting-back arching thing where he throws his hand to the side like Manson. But then, after I saw the video for "Get Stoned" and something on Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, I realized they are really more similar. (though he still reminds me a little of Manson).
All in all, Hinder really isn't my type of band. The three songs I just described are about defunct relationships, and I'm not willing to buy the CD to find out if there's any more depth or intellect to the group. Nonetheless, those three songs were strong in my rotation.
Random music note, I popped in the blink-182 untitled CD (which is, of course, magenta). Good stuff (an evolved blink, one that makes me sad that I won't ever hear the next step). And extra great enjoying some music I'd forgotten (and Mark says on his blog that +44 is playing some blink songs at their concerts. I wonder how royalties might work for something like that...) I have to buy a new copy, mine's getting scratchy. Check it out too, if your so inclined.
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