Careful Now

It is a Friday night, I have had a rather long week at work and have exceeded my exercise quota for the week yet again despite having a forced day off on Tuesday.  I feel reasonably content, reasonably exhausted too, but content nonetheless. It was been somewhat of an exciting week musicwise for me: Copeland have resleased a new album and it is nothing short of awesome, they are/were streaming it here but there should at least be something to listen to regardless. Copeland are one of those bands that whenever I listen to them, I am reminded of how much I like them, the music is simutaneously simple and interesting and above all beautiful. The new one may even be better than Beneath Medicine Tree, but I have thought that about the other two which, while good, are not a patch of the original and the best.

Also released recently was an online EP by This Providence, the other Gatsbys‘ rip-off. This was okay but nothing special, the song Waste Myself is good but the rest is fairly boring. I like whiny vocals and these ones kinda annoyed me, let’s hope the same doesn’t happen on Razia’s Shadow with his song(s).

I have my music sorted by album rating now and so I scrolled to the bottom to see the dregs of my collection, the stuff I don’t listen to but can’t bring myself to delete. And I saw Jeff Buckley‘s Grace there. I vaguely remember ripping it from my mother’s collection but had since forgotten. Every person worth his salt has either listened to this album or pretends to have listened to it and I realies that I had not done so in one sitting before (similar to The Holy Grail, love it but for various reasons have had to leave or arrived halfway through). A quick glance at the play count showed my that my listening was motivated by a desire to listen to Hallelujah. So I am listening to it now and am amazed at his voice. It turns out that the album was unrated rather than rated poorly.

Life ought to be looking up.

Forgive Durden have a new album coming out later this month. This has the potential to be my favourite album of all time; it drips with flavour, involves what is already one of my favourite bands as well as artists from (just to mention a couple) Gatsbys American Dream, Saves The Day, has the cover/promotional art done by Shawn Harris of The Matches. If not all this was enough, the work is dubbed as a musical with a story and characters, it is like a nerdy-pretentious-indie/punk-kid’s dream!

The album tells the story of a world divided in two by the selfish actions of a powerful and egotistical, yet insecure angel. After generations of darkness, the world is eventually brought back together by the love and sacrifice of a couple brave enough to fulfill their destinies.

If you preorder (like I have already) you get a special booklet with the script. As for the first song that has been released: it is not as catchy as the old stuff, but upon multiple listens I found it excellent in other ways.

All this Forgive Durden mania I have been experiencing these last couple weeks have driven me to listen to their previous album, and I have been reminded of the reasons it trebucheted itself to the top of my most played list. Rather than wax quasi-lyrical about an album I have done many a time before, I’ll give a run down relevant to what I want to talk about.

The story of the album, to me at least, is the following: The world is a terrible place full of greed and selfishness. Our hero, above such petty matters, reforms the love of his life and takes them both away to a place devoid of these aforementioned evils. The catch is, that when they wake up, they realise that they were a part of the world they so despised and took it with them. The penultimate song (I’ve got a witch mad at me and you could get into trouble) has the part of the story that really attracts me through the despair it represents.

No matter how far we go
It’s all a fragment of a whole.
Even it all locks are keyed
Or calloused become our feet.

No matter how far we go
There’s no escaping the glow.
We’ll take our seats at the throne.
Wonderland is now our home

I too am starting to see that the corruption described in the album pervades despite best intentions and best defences. In younger days I was quite concerned with money and the making lots of it, later I decided that money was a means to an end rather than an end in itself and so was not nearly as enamoured by it. This is the attitude I took with me when I started working at the bank, the attitude that baffled the few that became aware of it and the attitude that is being eroded by continual exposure to the prevailing, alternate view.

In many ways I envy my former self, the one who would have been contented with life making bucketloads and hanging around with like minded political types. Even if my ambitions were vacuous, having that sense of purpose filled in its own way, and being around similarly minded hollow people vindicated my own hollowness. I was more contented, but certainly not happier.

It only occurred to me about a month ago to even consider how much the people around me were earning (when it became apparent that I was to be taking on more responsibility with various departures). Then as I considered that I was being paid a lot less than those whose mistakes I was unravelling and fixing, I had moments of jealousy before catching myself. It was not about that they were getting more than me so much as (in my estimation) I was more ‘deserving’ of it. Luckily these moments are few and far between but they do occur, and that frightens and worries me.

I feel that my competitiveness is the most ugly and destructive part of me, it only becomes an issue when I think that I am better at something. Until then though, I think it is a really positive force for me, driving me to become better and, at times, a better man. I am naturally inclined to think I am not that great and it is only with a tangible measure (like oh say salary) that comparisons can be made. The things I really enjoy, I do so because I am still learning and mastering. Then once I become good at them, it becomes boring very quickly. I fear success much more than failure.