The Lonely Wild

Rough night. Woke up at 2 a.m. and that was pretty much it. It's a pain thing. On the plus side, however, as I was fucking around doing this and that . . . because getting up at 2 a.m. leaves you a lot of extra Fucking Around Doing This and That time . . . I opened up one of my iTunes files and started listening to The Lonely Wild's Chasing White Light album. And just let it seep into me. Man, this is one of my favorite albums of all time. It just hits it, then turns around and hits it some more. It's got everything. The sad meditations on mortality and death. The sad wisdom which proceedeth from said meditations . . . such as 

"All we can hope for, really, 

Is to be grateful

Is to be necessary

Is to be useful."

from "Chasing White Light."

And the manic energy which oft suffuses our souls and which we can call joy, if that's what we need it to be. 

The music ranges from pretty straight up rock (which is a good thing) to some more experimental stuff, often courtesy of the wild guitar of Andrew Schneider, who once referred to me as "a kid"--ha ha. I was wearing a weird tank top which said something like, "I Am Not Amused," and he told me that he spotted it from the stage and thought, "What's that kid wearing." (Dark club, stage lighting.) But hey, when you're 60-ish (it was a few years ago), you take what you can get. Anyway . . . he is a fantastic guitarist. 

But as much as I love the band's music . . . and as much as I love every member of the band (which is A LOT), I think what makes this band so precious to me is the song lyrics. Sometimes it's just a matter of syntax, like

A broken doll, porcelain.

Which kind of reminds me of Jacqueline-speak. But I like the way the shift of emFAsis makes you focus on the phrase in a different way.

But in general, The Lonely Wild lyrics are upthere amongst my favorite in all of rock and roll. More personal, more touching, more poignant. Yeah.

Oh, yeah: I also really love the way that every one of the band members just kind of throws back their heads and wails on a regular basis. I have never seen a group of people sing which such full bodied emFASis before or since.