Todd Snider – The Ballad of the Kingsmen

For some reason this song fits my mood today, which can really only be described as complete and utter exhaustion. But it’s a beautiful day, sunny and clear, with that odd quality to the light that tells you it isn’t summer anymore. The recent rain and all has filled my yard with tiny wild strawberries (so weird, they’d never come this late in the PNW) and giant mushrooms which are drying up fast. It’s sadly still too warm during the day to wear sweaters, but soon soon soon I’m sure! I feel like cuddling up in a sweater, except that I’d probably die of heat stroke. The air is off and the doors are open. I want to sleep in the sunshine. I need to find an appropriately Indian summer kind of book to read. Something full of words to make me remember the afternoon’s golden light even when it’s gotten fully dark. I’m half tempted to put on the Cocteau Twins or Yo La Tengo or something and and just wander around the house in the afternoon light staring wistfully into the future or something. But no, I am instead listening to the new Hold Steady and pretending I’m going to be productive. Or more productive anyway, I did get a sewing table today and clean a little teeny tiny bit. Favorite lyric off the new Hold Steady:

We drink and we dry up,
and now we crumble into dust.
We get wet and we corrode,
and now we’re covered up in rust.
She was a really cool kisser
and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian.

I’ve only given the album one and half listens so far, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say, oh god, yes, I fucking love Boys and Girls in America. Dear Hold Steady, please to be making more musics like these. I think my favorite songs off it right now are “Hot, Soft Light,” “You Can Make Him Like You,” and “Citrus.” Also I have sort of an insane love/hate thing going on with “Massive Nights.”

How was YOUR weekend? What’s new that that you are listening to?