Obsessions:
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Music for
the Brokenhearted
(some favorites):
Sinaed
O’Connor -
I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got
 I
remember being depressed out of my mind in the summer of 1993. It was
hot, I was alone in a strange place, sleeping all day, locked in a small
room with nothing but a boombox and a copy of this album. I absorbed
and reflected every atom of pain and anger and hurt in Sinaed’s voice
and lyric. Her grisled heart reached out and grabbed mine. And it still
does. Whenever I listen to these songs, I am transported back in time,
and I remember everything. This is a simply haunting collection of songs,
filled with spiritual vision, freedom, ache, longing. “Feels So Different”
is a sort of evolving life anthem for me. It’s true everyday.
Nick Cave
& the Bad Seeds - Boatman’s Call
 This
cd stayed in my cd player for more than 4 years, almost nonstop. It’s
that good. The genius of Nick Cave is his marriage of physical and spiritual.
His music and poetry bring the divine and carnal together, make them look
into each other’s eyes, seethe with misunderstanding, and hold on to the
fact that each contains within it the shadow of the other. Cave takes
our hand and leads us down, beyond and around the need, longing, sinew,
and catastrophe strewn in every direction: “I do not believe in an interventionist
god, but if I did I ask him not to intervene when it comes to you.” This
is the story of god and man, longing and loss, desire and disgust, bound
together with the glue of impossibility. Our humanity can taste the chaos
dripping in every word and space, creeping in and around the poetry, quaking
in fear, while the surface remains unspoiled, a jarringly placid calm,
an ode to absolute abandonment. That’s the magic of this album. It’s in
the surrender, the juxtaposition of god and man, the divine intervention
that keeps us from oneness with our beloved. Frustration, god, sex, joy,
sin, death, love...
Mark Eitzel - 60
Watt Silver Lining
 Alongside
Nick Cave, Mark Eitzel is my favorite songwriter in the world. This
cd is one of those perfect creations. You listen, and think “yes…” Yes,
because his songs are glimpses of the world exactly as it is. There
is no sentimentality, no remorse, no brokenhearted melodrama - just
a mouthful of bitter cold. It’s an oddly simple and affecting mix. Eitzel
writes songs about life from a specific, unapologetic, perspective.
I love what he does. Listen to “No Easy Way Down” or “Sacred Heart”
or “When My Plane Finally Goes Down.” If you’re alone, feeling rejected,
lost, doomed, with that little butterfly of hope flapping its wings,
choking in smoke, you’ll believe too.
Pixies
- Doolittle
 The
Pixies are everything a band should be: more than just 4 people banging
around on similar notes. Much more. I love Frank Black, the Breeders,
et. al., but there’s invariably something missing whenever I hear the
ex-Pixies arise in new form. It’s something about the shriek and wail,
that absurd emotional truth that was transformed whenever Santiago,
Black, Deal, and Lovering decided to be Pixies. I don’t know what it
is. It comes from somewhere in that ancient, feeling, part of the brain
- sheer visceral emotionalism that defies words and logic and explanation.
“Doolittle” is this. Beyond quantification. The time and place will
never come again, but these strange musical ghosts remain.
more to
come...
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