Footprints

Here's a song I wrote today:

Freedom, oh freedom
Our nation’s broken anthem
Charging on, to chase a silhouette
College, houses, prescriptions
Government-sponsored addictions
Deepening the drowning pool of debt

We sold the farm to find
A little piece of mind
But left behind a wasteland in our haste
Supposedly believers
We’re takers and we’re leavers
Took all we could, left the world in waste

Freedom, oh freedom
If we would truly find some
We’d liberate ourselves from all the lies
We’d take it on our shoulders
To not wait ‘til we’re older
To fix the fractured fence that we despise

Admit you were what you weren’t
Reverse the swirling current
Count currency a calculated sorrow
Commit to a simple story
Taking what you need only
Leaving tiny footprints fit to follow

Goodbye, Summer

The summer came to and end. It always does. While I welcome fall with its colors and sweatshirts and soups, I have to admit that it's difficult bidding fond farewell to conversations on a warm night, driving with my windows down, and awkward sweating. Maybe most difficult is the shelving of my "summer songs." I simply cannot listen to these songs with the same fervor as when I'm comfortably wearing a tank top, sitting on my porch, sipping Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. Here are some of the songs evoking this feeling:

Motorcycle Drive By - Third Eye Blind
Is there a better opening line than:

It's summertime and the wind is blowing outside
In Lower Chelsea and I don't know what I'm doing in this city
The sun is always in my eyes...

There's something fundamentally brilliant when a lyricist chooses to ignore both conventional rhyme schemes and the concept of a chorus. Instead, Jenkins gives us:

I've never been so alone
And I've never been so alive

June on the West Coast - Bright Eyes
Anyone who knows me knows that Connor Oberst is my favorite poet of all time, and this is by far my favorite song of his. Again, no chorus, but instead the brief vignettes of a summer spent in various places with various people. He manages to give us not just a vivid description of his location and host but also of his dreams and fears, his deep desires and insecurities:

And the truth is I've been dreaming of a tired, tranquil place
Where the weather won't get trapped inside my bones
And if all these years of searching find one sympathetic face
Then it's there I'll plant these seeds and make my home

All with four chords. Less is more, I suppose.

The General Specific - Band of Horses
While the lyrics are a blend of random ideas which span December to July, the melodies have a clear summer vibe. The vocal harmonies immediately bring the listener to a coastal city's downtown, where you can smell the ocean but can't see it, and although no one has spoken a word, the shop doors propped open and the smiling sun seem to say "Welcome home."

In time I'd find a little way to your heart
Down to the general store for nothing specific
Gonna wash my bones in the Atlantic shore
Only for you and me

Kids - MGMT
I know very little of this band/group, but what I know I love. Formally called "the Management," this Brooklyn group now goes by the abbreviated "MGMT." This song, in my opinion, is their underrated masterpiece. The poppy, electronic chorus entrances and the simple lyric entices one to get on their bike and just ride.

Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees
Wanted to be haunted

My personal conservation theme song. Personally, I can't ride my bike when listening, because my incessant clapping only leads to an inevitable crash.

M79 - Vampire Weekend
The happy-go-lucky song of the summer. Also one of my favorite bands right now. Whenever "Whoa, oh" can be the primary lyric to any chorus, I've been wooed. My favorite line of the song has to be: "Coronation rickshaw grab."

There are so many more summer songs, but these are my top five. Check 'em out, and offer a final kiss to the summer breeze.