The Unfinished Line

Here's the cover and title for the compilation formerly known as "wintry mix". I've borrowed the name of the blog, from the eels' track 'Dead of Winter' - it seems a perfect title to capture the mood of the collection.

I will keep posting each track individually with commentary in the days ahead.

Counting Crows: "A Long December". (Wintry mix, track 1)

I've comleted my "wintry mix" compilation - It doesn't have a name or artwork yet, but it will shortly. I will post each track individually with lyrics and commentary, and then when complete will post the entire mix, with a link to listen.

For some reason the mix came out rather sad and poignant, and I think "loss" has been on my mind. Maybe it's the seasonal moodiness but winter always sorta brings me back around to thoughts of where I am in life, where we are all, our future, mortality, and reminders of the years inexorably pushing by us. Thoughts of Christmas as a child, and now myself as a nearly-40 year old man, and those we've lost along the way.

So it's a bit of a sad collection in some ways but it just mirrors my reflections and memories of winter. Many of the songs I associate with particular winter memories, and others just always come into my head this time of year because of their feel, or subject matter, or lyrics.

Starting off, Counting Crows, "A Long December". This was me not long out of college, living in Virginia on my own for the first time, trying to make a living and meeting people while working for almost nothing at a music store. Music of course had always been the constant in my life, and that hadn't changed. This song always touched me - the mournful reflections of hospital rooms in winter, the struggle to "hold on to these moments as they pass" - to live your live and enjoy the present because it may all be gone tomorrow. A beautiful song and seemed an appropriate opening track.



A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaven'
Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven...I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California...I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean... I guess I should

eels - "Dead of Winter"

Working on a new mix CD.. a "winter" theme. It's been a while since I've done a mix so i want to try and put one together. I couldn't think to do a "winter" mix without eels' amazing "The Dead of Winter". It captures something incredibly powerful and human. Standing outside in the freezing cold, trying somehow to come to grips with a loved one's devastating illness. That feeling of helplessness and grief - the silent, lonely moments when we try and contemplate what is happening and the fact that we can't change it. The emotion is frozen by a stark moment of clarity.

Eels' 1998 album "Electro-Shock Blues" is one of the most difficult to listen to out of all my collection, but it's perhaps the most gripping in it's raw portrayal of human emotion. And it also happens to be sublimely beautiful. There are moments, like "Dead of Winter", that are starkly painful. But there are also moments of whimsy and humor, nostalgia and hope. The name of my blog obviously comes from this song. Life is indeed "the unfinished line" whether our storyline is over, or not.

Standing in the dark outside the house
Breathing in the cold and sterile air
Well I was thinking how it must feel
To see that little light
And watch it as it disappears
And fades into the night

So I know you're going pretty soon
Radiation sore throat got your tongue
Magic markers tattoo you
And show it where to aim
And strangers break their promises
You won't feel any
You won't feel any pain

And the streets are jammed with cars
Rockin' their horns
To race to the wire
Of the unfinished line

Thought that I'd forget all about the past
But it doesn't let me run too fast
And I just wanna stand outside
And know that this is right
And this is true
And I will not
Fade into
Fade into the night

Standing here in the dark

Send us a blindfold, send us a blade

Send us a blindfold, send us a blade
Tell the survivors help is on the way
I was a blindfold, never complained
All the survivors singing in the rain
I was the one with the world at my feet
Got us a battle, leave it up to me

Find us a trap door, find us a plane
Tell the survivors help is on the way
I was a blindfold, never complained
All the survivors singing in the rain
I was the one with the world at my feet
Got us a battle, leave it up to me

What it is and where it stops nobody knows
You gave me a life I never chose
I wanna leave but the world won't let me go
Wanna leave but the world won't let me go

I was the one with the world at my feet
Got us a battle, leave it up to me
Leave it up to me

I've come to set a twisted thing straight

Solitude stands by the window
She turns her head as I walk in the room
I can see by her eyes she's been waiting
Standing in the slant of the late afternoon

And she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame

Solitude stands in the doorway
And I'm struck once again by her black silhouette
By her long cool stare and her silence
I suddenly remember each time we've met

And she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame

And she says "I've come to set a twisted thing straight"
And she says "I've come to lighten this dark heart"
And she takes my wrist, I feel her imprint of fear
And I say "I've never thought of finding you here"

I turn to the crowd as they're watching
They're sitting all together in the dark in the warm
I wanted to be in there among them
I see how their eyes are gathered into one

And then she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame

And she says "I've come to set a twisted thing straight"
And she says"l've come to lighten this dark heart"
And she takes my wrist, I feel her imprint of fear
And I say "I've never thought of finding you here"

Solitude stands in the doorway
And I'm struck once again by her black silhouette
By her long cool stare and her silence
I suddenly remember each time we've met

And she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame

"Just a Little Light"

I've been listening to this song quite a bit lately.  It's been a dark month and a little light would be most welcome.





Well, there ain't nobody safer than someone who doesnt care.
And it isn't even lonely when no one's ever there.
I had a lot of dreams once, but some of them came true...
The honey's sometimes bitter when fortune falls on you.

So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night.
And I'll find the fatal error in what's otherwise all right.
But here you're trembling like a sparrow, I will try with all my might
To give you just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light.

I have always heard that virtue ought be its own reward,
But it never comes so easy when you're living by the sword.
It's even harder to be heartless when you look at me that way.
You're as mighty as the flower that will grow the stones away.

Even though I been a stranger, full of irony and spite
Holding little but contempt for all things beautiful and bright,
Something shines around you and it seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light.

This could be just another highway, coiled up in the night.
You could be just another white-tail, baby, stranded on my brights,
There's a tingling recognition
Like the sound of distant thunder
And I begin to wonder
If the love I've driven under
Won't ignite.

So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night.
And I'll find the fatal error in whats otherwise all right.
Something shines around you that seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light.

tuna
rubber
a little blubber in my igloo
and I knew you pigtails and all
girls when they fall

and they said Marianne killed herself
and I said not a chance

don’t you love the girls ladies babes
old bags who say she was so pretty why
why why why did she crawl down in the old
deep ravine

c’mon pigtails girls and all those sailors
get your bags and hold down won’t you just
hold down cause Ed is watching my every sound
I said
they’re watching my every sound

the weasel squeaks faster than a seven day week
I said Timmy and that purple Monkey
are all down
at Bobby’s house
making themselves pesters and lesters and jesters and my
traitors of kind
and I’m just having thoughts of Marianne
she could outrun the fastest slug
she could
Marianne
quickest girl in the frying pan