As you can gather from my title, I'm going to put together a list of songs that remind me of Pullman, two years ago, as the seasons changed. From the tail-end of winter to spring, and from spring into the beautiful budding of summer, dragging my emotions and lightheartedness along into the nurturing warmth of the end of my junior year of college.
Why, might you ask, is this particular time in this particular place so important and exciting and blog-post-worthy for me? Because it is when I started dating Tony.
I know. Seriously, I know. I promise in the future I will write more things that don't have anything to do with Tony, but this prompt is just too easy to give up! I have so many songs that remind me of that spring in Pullman, and they all carry very unique feelings of mine in their lyrics, and it'll be fun to write. I hope it's half as fun to read. I hope you don't choke on my girliness.
Tony introduced me to the vast majority of the artists on my list. We have very similar tastes in music, but his collection was much more extensive. In fact, our relationship began with trading music. I've always said that if we ever break up, I won't be able to listen to 90% of my (huge) music collection. Fingers crossed.
I apologize in advance for the disgustingly saccharin text I am about to spew forth through the screen and into your eyeballs.
The Track List:
- Stars - Elevator Love Letter
- Doves - Almost Forgot Myself
- Emiliana Torrini - Sunny Road
- Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families
- Maria Taylor - Two of Those Too
- Feist - Mushaboom
- Her Space Holiday - Tech Romance
- Okkervil River - For Real
- Azure Ray - Sleep
- The Good Life - Always a Bridesmaid
- Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
- Nada Surf - Blankest Year
- The American Analog Set - Aaron & Maria
- The Wrens - She Sends Kisses
- Stars - What I'm Trying to Say
And now, for my (hopefully not too long-winded) explanation for each track.
Sigh. Amy Millan disappointed me so much with her solo album because it is totally different from the way she sings for Stars ... which is pure beauty. Her voice is like the oral equivalent to red lipstick, or pink stilettos, or fields of butter-yellow daffodils, or smoking with a cigarette holder, or white silk sheets topped with a mountain of down pillows. I LOVE HER VOICE.
During one of our musical exchange programs, Tony sent me this song and said, "I'm not sure you'll like it." He was wrong. I instantly fell in love. At record speed, Stars became one of my very favorite bands ever. And Elevator Love Letter remains one of the sweetest, most powerful songs I've ever heard.
This was a particularly warm day in Pullman. Tony and I were at his place and he was late to work. He lived far off of campus, so walking wasn't an option and the bus would take even longer. We didn't even really have time to make a stop at my place for my car. He came up with the solution that he'd drive us over to the Lighty/French Ad area of campus and then I'd drive his car back to my place.
"Really?" I inquired, "You're comfortable with that?" I am super possessive of my car and not really disappointed that it's got a manual transmission and therefore can't be driven by just anyone who needs wheels. Tony insisted that he was cool with it, that he trusted me to not smash the shit out of his little Jetta. We soared over to work, dodging other cars and screaming through stoplights to come to a screeching stop in front of the admin buildings. (Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit. I mean, it's just Pullman. Consider this creative nonfiction.) As we hopped out of the car and Chinese-fire-drilled, I asked him once more if he was certain he was okay that I was getting behind his wheel. ("That's what she said"? Teehee.)
"Yes," he said, giving me a peck on the lips, "I trust you." He hustled off toward the building and I slid into the driver's side of his car. Scooting the seat forward, I smiled to myself as those words reverberated in my head: "I trust you." I turned the ignition, opened the windows and the sunroof, and turned up his stereo. A CD was playing, and I hadn't heard the track that came through the speakers. I took note of the song number and asked after the album when he got off work.
"Erm, Doves? I think..." He thought right. Those lyrics seemed so appropriate on that day, driving around in my new boyfriend's car, the uncharacteristically sunny day. I almost forgot myself again in the best way possible.
We fell asleep together listening to this album more times than I can count. Legs entwined, windows open, watching each other's eyes close. This was my favorite song to lull me to sleep.
(OMG, the corniness is overwhelming and I'm only at song number three!)
Tony gave me SSPU's Pikul EP early in our relationship and it would be a lie to say I fell in love with it instantly. However, the first track on the EP, Kissing Families, intrigued me by title alone so I kept listening to it, really listening over and over, deconstructing it and putting it back together, and I grew this strange love for the song. It reminds me now of hot sunshine and cool Pullman breezes. (Also, we saw them in concert at the Doug Fir in Portland two winters ago and it was such an incredible, high-energy show. I'm pretty sure we held hands while this song played. I KNOW.)
(That video sucks, by the way. You don't even get to hear the best part at the beginning. Lemme know if you want the song, I'll send it to you.)
Good God. I don't even know where to start with this one. This song has always resonated very deeply with me. I think it's because when Tony and I first got together, Pullman seemed as ethereal and magical a place as the college town Maria describes in this song. Sure, it was spring and the seasons were changing, but man, I was in love!
This is what she sings: "A college town with a musical sound, and everyone had a new face. There was something there, maybe it was the trees, or the flowery air, or that everyone seemed so glad they were there. And we were two of those, too."
That was it, dudes. It was springtime, the air was alive with the scent of new grass and buds on trees. This song made me want to spend my life at Reaney Park with Tony, a blanket, and a picnic basket. And I wanted it to be sunny and 80 degrees forever. That feeling resurfaces whenever I hear this song. Maria, you are a soulful, spot-on chick.
And you can't sustain anything, everything must change. So be thankful for everything.
And I am.
Feist is another artist that Tony introduced me to and I am ashamed to say I didn't know about before. I love everything about Leslie Feist: I love her voice, her face, her lyrics, her music videos, her melodies. This song is like an old blanket or teddy bear for me, except it's way too upbeat to be an old teddy bear so, really, it's like my grandma's old can-can dresses or my favorite pair of heels. (I don't even know what my favorite pair of heels is. Probably my red round-toe Steve Maddens, but my square-toe, deep shimmery gray Nine Wests are a close, close second.) Whenever I listen to this song, I want to grab Tony's hand, yank him up Kamiak Butte, and skip to the top singing, "Oooooooh dirt road!"
P.S. That video is magnificent. Feist is luminous. I wish we were friends.
(Don't pay attention to anything but the song here. This is the only video I could find that wasn't a live version of the song recorded on someone's cell phone.)
When I sent Tony this album, and he listened to this song, he said to me, "They sound like the look of impressionist paintings." (I know because I wrote it down.)
That may have been the exact moment I fell in love with him.
You know how some songs have that inexplicable pull on your emotions, that make you feel something you don't really understand, or even know where that feeling came from? This is one of those songs for me. It makes my heart hurt. It makes me want to sob big, fat tears with a crazy smile spread across my face. I can't describe why; all I know is that it makes me want to be in Tony's arms, (metaphorically) spinning around and around in the middle on Stadium Way while cars swerve to keep from hitting us. It's fragile and complicated. I don't know how to describe it.
I have the same feeling toward this song as I do for Sunny Road, but it's a bit different. This album was, like, thebeginning of Lauren and Tony. (And Sleep is the first song on the album.) This was also falling asleep next to each other, but in a different way. This was more intense or something. Sunny Road is like, "I love you, you're beautiful and magnificent and I'm so happy we're here together." Sleep is more like, "OMG HOW HAVE I LIVED WITHOUT YOU FOR TWO DECADES?!?!?!?!"
And, interestingly, it has nothing to do with the song. Because to me, the song is kind of sad. I think my feelings are mainly fueled the tranquility of the voices of Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink.
(I have NO idea what's up with this video. But, again, the only other version I found was live and it sounded horrible. Tons of static. Anyone know a better place for music videos than YouTube??)
There is one reason this is on the list.
"Maybe it's the whiskey sours, but I think this could be it."
eep!
Also, Tony had gotten a poster of this EP cover mere days before the first time I went over to his place. Whenever I see the image now, I am reminded of sitting in his computer chair, in his old apartment, and just staring at it. It's kind of how I felt with him. Handcuffed together, like we were destined to be together (?? Ugh, cheesy), but so in love we wanted to be there. Stuck together. Christ, that is so ridiculous. But it's true.
It was really hard to pick one song from one Rilo Kiley album. I mean, I can't pick every song on two albums, right? But this was, I think, the first Rilo Kiley song I ever heard. And it's such an intense, rapid succession of lyrical shittiness. I don't relate to this song at all (I wish I did, because then I'd be, you know, hot and mysterious and incomprehensible. Kind of like Jenny Lewis), but I like the way it makes me feel: transported back to that green, fragrant, love-filled Pullman spring.
12. Nada Surf - Blankest Year
12. Nada Surf - Blankest Year
I love listening to this upbeat album because it's so appropriate for driving the back road to Moscow with your boyfriend, rolling down the windows, and screaming into the wind together, "Ah fuck it, I'm gonna have a party!"
13. The American Analog Set - Aaron & Maria
(I can send a better version of this to you, as well, if you're interested.)
Tony loved this song when he first heard it, and it made me really happy because it's a powerful one. I can't really relate to the story in this song, but it's about a couple who don't want anything but to be together. (That's what it means to me, anyway.) Now that, I can relate to. Sometimes, to be cute, I'll sing it using our names: "Tony and Lauren ran from the Northwest coast to the city and..." But my two-syllable name kind of screws it up.
14. The Wrens - She Sends Kisses
You know what I said about For Real? This song does the same thing to me, but in a much more forceful way. Like, when I hear this song, it feel like someone punched my chest open, ripped out my heart, picked little pieces off the edges and then plopped it on the ground to kick it across the dirt... then picked it up again, tossing it like a baseball at dumpsters, cars, and trees, watching the shiny red trails it left behind, wondering where to finally discard of the broken, pulpy mess.
Tony gave me this album, The Meadowlands, and when I said "more more more," he gave me The Wrens' other albums and warned me that they contained a very different sound. He was right. I really like The Wrens, but this song just gets to me every single time I hear it. It reminds me of how I felt about Tony when we first started dating: that all-consuming, intimidating feeling of love that makes you grab at your chest, trying to stop the pain.
13. The American Analog Set - Aaron & Maria
(I can send a better version of this to you, as well, if you're interested.)
Tony loved this song when he first heard it, and it made me really happy because it's a powerful one. I can't really relate to the story in this song, but it's about a couple who don't want anything but to be together. (That's what it means to me, anyway.) Now that, I can relate to. Sometimes, to be cute, I'll sing it using our names: "Tony and Lauren ran from the Northwest coast to the city and..." But my two-syllable name kind of screws it up.
14. The Wrens - She Sends Kisses
You know what I said about For Real? This song does the same thing to me, but in a much more forceful way. Like, when I hear this song, it feel like someone punched my chest open, ripped out my heart, picked little pieces off the edges and then plopped it on the ground to kick it across the dirt... then picked it up again, tossing it like a baseball at dumpsters, cars, and trees, watching the shiny red trails it left behind, wondering where to finally discard of the broken, pulpy mess.
Tony gave me this album, The Meadowlands, and when I said "more more more," he gave me The Wrens' other albums and warned me that they contained a very different sound. He was right. I really like The Wrens, but this song just gets to me every single time I hear it. It reminds me of how I felt about Tony when we first started dating: that all-consuming, intimidating feeling of love that makes you grab at your chest, trying to stop the pain.
(Again, no video watching. Especially the beginning if you don't want to have a seizure.)
This song is akin to basically what I have been trying to do for this entire post: describe something so special and wonderful by using words. I mean, sure, I like to pretend I'm a great writer, but more often than not I have no idea what I'm doing. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm being too hard on myself. Like a typical writer. ["writer"?]) But how do you quantify something, down to strings of letters and syllables and sounds, that is purely conceptual? Something that you can feel, but you can't touch? Everything just sounds like a cliché, you know? "His skin felt like silk against my skin," or "His kiss sent electric shock waves down my spine." Metaphors and similies. Blah.
So, when you love someone, how do you say it? And I don't mean, "Say it with flowers!" or "Say it with chocolate!" or "Say it with a trip to Jamaica!" I mean, what are the true, pure words that come out of your mouth, without any inflation or any cliché?
Isn't it always just, "I love you"?
Tony told me he loved me 16 days after we were officially together. I know this because I wrote it down. (I have a habit of doing that.) If you didn't know that before, well, surprise! And, true, we didn't become a couple, like, the second we met. It was not long after, though. And from the moment we started dating, I knew how I felt about him. But you can't really tell someone you're in love with them after you've known them for a week, right?
So, instead, we did that little dance for a while; you know, the whole, "I... um... I think you're... when I'm with you... *sigh* I care for you so much." (And when I say a while, I mean, like two weeks.) When he finally told me, he wrote it to me. I know. It's too perfect.
But before that, this song was my savior. Sometimes, on those warm, windows-open nights with him, I'd put this album on and will him, so hard, to understand what I wanted to say without having to say "I love you."
So, when you love someone, how do you say it? And I don't mean, "Say it with flowers!" or "Say it with chocolate!" or "Say it with a trip to Jamaica!" I mean, what are the true, pure words that come out of your mouth, without any inflation or any cliché?
Isn't it always just, "I love you"?
Tony told me he loved me 16 days after we were officially together. I know this because I wrote it down. (I have a habit of doing that.) If you didn't know that before, well, surprise! And, true, we didn't become a couple, like, the second we met. It was not long after, though. And from the moment we started dating, I knew how I felt about him. But you can't really tell someone you're in love with them after you've known them for a week, right?
So, instead, we did that little dance for a while; you know, the whole, "I... um... I think you're... when I'm with you... *sigh* I care for you so much." (And when I say a while, I mean, like two weeks.) When he finally told me, he wrote it to me. I know. It's too perfect.
But before that, this song was my savior. Sometimes, on those warm, windows-open nights with him, I'd put this album on and will him, so hard, to understand what I wanted to say without having to say "I love you."
*
I realize that this post is more "my relationship with Tony" as opposed to "my time in Pullman, Spring '06." The thing is, though, that springtime in Pullman reminds me of Tony, and all of these songs remind me of that time. Perhaps the specific memories associated with them relate more to Tony than to the actual place, but Pullman in the spring is like a backdrop to my cache of memories of Lauren & Tony: The Beginning. I'm so happy when the sun is shining and the air feels fresh, and that feeling was amplified two springs ago when I met him.
I realize that this post is more "my relationship with Tony" as opposed to "my time in Pullman, Spring '06." The thing is, though, that springtime in Pullman reminds me of Tony, and all of these songs remind me of that time. Perhaps the specific memories associated with them relate more to Tony than to the actual place, but Pullman in the spring is like a backdrop to my cache of memories of Lauren & Tony: The Beginning. I'm so happy when the sun is shining and the air feels fresh, and that feeling was amplified two springs ago when I met him.
I know this post is really gross, and probably more lovey-dovey shit than you ever cared to know about my relationship, but I'm trying this thing where I'm more open with people. I like talking about stuff like this (and I like it even more when someone wants to listen), but I'm often afraid of, I don't know, ridicule or annoyance or something. So I end up keeping it to myself. Or, I end up writing it privately. Maybe publicly writing stuff like this will be a nice segue into, I don't know, actually talking to people about substantial stuff in my life.
Or maybe I'll get embarrassed and delete this post in two days. Here's hoping my courage stays strong.
may 29, 2006
2 comments:
um...don't you dare delete this.
it's pretty amazing, actually.
love the photo of you and tony!
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