A Fifty One Minute and Twenty Second Moment in Song

Something a little different this time. I talk a lot about my job and other experiences in my life usually pertaining to my job here but another big part of my life is music. Some of you know this and others of you don’t. And although I don’t play any of those instruments very much anymore, the music is still very much apart of me. I never played music for the pleasure of others as much as I played for my own enjoyment. And so here is one of the soundtracks that has touched me and says a lot about me for a brief blip of my life. The blip happened to be the flight home from New Zealand and the months following the trip. Now I know I’ve talked quite extensively about the trip and such so just indulge me one last time…. or two or three.

Jack Johnson’s, Sleep Through the Static



I started listening to the album while flipping through all the music the flight offered. I needed something to distract me from myself and since we were experiencing turbulence, I couldn't watch anything (would have made me sick). And I wanted to sleep but couldn't due to the aforementioned turbulence and the fact that we were packed in like sardines. So I selected Jack Johnson. He was also fresh in my head because his other album, "In Between Dreams" was played a few times by our guides on the bus with their little ishuffle and tiny speaker.

The first song: All At Once

All at once,
The world can overwhelm me
There's almost nothin' that you could tell me
That could ease my mind

Which way will you run
When it's always all around you
And the feelin' lost and found you again
A feelin' that we have no control
Around the sun
Some say
There's gonna be the new hell
Some say
It's still too early to tell
Some say
It really ain't no myth at all

Keep askin' ourselves are we really
Strong enough
There's so many things that we got
Too proud of
We're too proud of
We're too proud of

I wanna take the preconceived
Out from underneath your feet
We could shake it off
Instead we'll plant some seeds
We'll watch em' as they grow
And with each new beat
From your heart the roots grow deeper
The branches will they reach for what
Nobody really knows
But underneath it all
Theres this heart all alone

What about is gone
And it really won't be so long
Sometimes it feels like a heart is no place to be singin' from at all

Theres a world we've never seen
Theres still hope between the dreams
The weight of it all
Could blow away with a breeze
If your waiting on the wind
Don't forget to breathe
Cause as the darkness gets deeper
We'll be sinkin as we reach for love
At least somethin we could hold
But I'll reach to you from where time just cant go

What about is gone
And it really wont be so long
Sometimes it feels like a heart is no place to be singin' from at all


What hit me right off was the first few verses. It was exactly how I felt at that moment in time. I was overwhelmed emotionally. I couldn't escape my own mind running over and over my life and that I seemed to be stuck and didn't know how to get out. And it just hit me like a sack full of quarters upside the head. And it brought me to the brink of tears. I didn't want to be going home. But I knew I had to. But then, did I really?

What You Thought You Need

I can't give you everything you want
But I could give you what you thought you need.
A map to keep beneath your seat, you've been to me in time I'll get you there.
I fold it up so we don't find our way back soon, nobody knows we're here.

We can park the van and walk to town
Find the cheapest bottle of wine that we could find
And talk about the road behind how getting lost is not a waste of time.

The water moor will take us home in the moment we will sing as the forest sleeps.

Well it's all for the sake of arriving with you
Well it's all .. for the sake of arriving with you

Well, I will make the table into a bed
The candle is burning down its time to rest.
I can't take back things already gone, but I could give you promises for keeps.

And I would only take them back if they become your own and you give them to me .

And it's all for the sake of arriving with you.
Well it's all for the sake of arriving with you.

We could make this into anything
We could make this into more than words we speak.
This could make us into anything
It could make us grow and become what we'll be.

Mmmmmm...
How and we really know
It's just like it feels.

This one hit home the loneliness I feel at times and my want of companionship. I went to New Zealand alone, spent a week on my own there, and was now flying home alone. And I kept thinking how much I would enjoy trips like the one I just did more if I had someone to experience it right along with me. Now I know I don't need anyone. But want and need are two very different things.

Go On

What is the purpose of my life
If it doesn't ever do
With learning to let it go
Live vicariously through you
You can do the same
It's the least you can do
Cause it's a lonely little chain
If you don't add to it

That is just a portion of the song, but it has a point. We all must play our part. There is a purpose, at least we all tend to search for a purpose. Or we live vicariously through others with "more exciting" lives than our own. But we should live for ourselves, and not live lives that other people think we should.

I listened to the album a few times on the flight and then I found myself listening to it at home and in the car, to and from work. I can't decide if it helps or hinders my depressive moods. I haven't been listening to it exclusively lately, although while writing this I have listened to it twice now in a row. When I listen to it, I am right back in the plane bouncing around in the turbulence thinking about what I experienced in NZ, what I did, what I should have done, things I said, should have said, and the uncertainty of my future. Sorrow and mourning what I left, and having to face reality back home. I just find it fascinating that a piece of music will come along at a certain point in my life and just fit.

If you are interested you can listen to the album here and it is available through itunes. http://www.jango.com/music/Jack+Johnson?l=0