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I know it’s late, but I’m in a jit­tery mood. I know I won’t be able to sleep until I get some­thing down, because there’s so much going through my mind. But first, take this. A gift. One that I was plan­ning on keep­ing to myself, but to do so would be an injus­tice to music and the artists.

Listen.

Just, lis­ten.

Mogwai is an extreme­ly influ­en­tial post-rock band, and like most bands in this genre they usu­al­ly pro­duce instru­men­tal music, so when Stuart sings, it demands atten­tion. And yet his voice evap­o­rates and becomes an instru­ment with which we hear our own sto­ries pulled apart with del­i­cate ten­der­ness, like boys pulling wings off flies.

There's so much happiness and sadness to be felt down the spine in seven brief minutes. The latter from the tone, the former from the beauty.

If only we could see life so sim­ply. If only we could sep­a­rate the good from the bad, the love from the heart­break. But we can’t. That’s why songs like this are com­posed, and that’s why words like bit­ter­sweet exist to help us define what can’t be explained.

It may feel like you’re con­stant­ly wait­ing for the next dawn to wash away the dust with sun­light, but at some point life ends, and life begins again.

All it takes is one day.

7 comments

  1. OMG thank you thank you thank you.… This is just exact­ly what I need­ed today.… DLing it now. It’s a flash­back to The Cure’s Disintegration mixed with Red Housepainters’s del­i­ca­cy. I gen­er­al­ly have liked Mogwai, but this one I love.

    Says every­thing you want to say.

    • Yeah, this one does stand out in Mogwai’s col­lec­tion, and on one of their most acces­si­ble releas­es, that’s not easy to do.

  2. Damn I can’t lis­ten to the song right now at work

    I hope you enjoyed the movie… I mean, I hope it makes you feel bet­ter about your cur­rent cicum­stances…

    holy shit” haha­ha.. that scene is one of my fav parts…

    Imagine you lis­ten­ing to Thrice in the ele­va­tor and the new girl walks in and starts sign­ing to it… haha.. heart explo­sions

    • Be sure to make sure your room is dark before lis­ten­ing.

      I’m not sure what to make of the movie yet. It’s been a day, and I’m still not com­ing down from watch­ing it. Everything is so jum­ble in my heart, like some­one read my let­ters aloud.

      And yeah, I was think­ing Mars Volta, Blonde Redhead, Dreamtheater, or even Leonard Cohen, but Thrice would be the ulti­mate. The explo­sion would destroy the uni­verse.

  3. Take a lis­ten to Corinne Bailey Rae’s “I’d Do It All Again.” Oh my god, the words, and her voice soar­ing above the soft­ly filtered…lo-fi crys­talline gui­tar arpeg­gios and organ. It rips me up.

  4. So weary… Someone to love is big­ger than your pride’s worth–Is big­ger than the pain you got, for it hurts, and out runs all of the sad­ness. Its ter­ri­fy­ing, life… Through the dark­ness.”

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