A-lign. You're al-right. | 3-Tune Tuesday

Mood changes at the drop of a hat. It's been rainy a bit these past couple of days, and the house gets dark when you don't turn on the light.

So turn on the fucking light, already.

I woke up knowing I wanted to do my small contribution to the three-tune thingy that wonderful @ablaze created, and invites us into each week. A space to share. I do think connection through music is the most genuine type there is.

So YouTube said okay, I'll help you with that. Not that I hadn't enough ideas already, but between you and me, I think it was feeling a little guilty with all this YouTube Ads bullshit. Is it just doing that for me, or is it where you are, too? Where are? You?

Lucky

Very.

I have a thing about seeing videos, especially music, right after they come out. I like when you look at the little view count and see something like 10 or 50. It feels a little special, like you're being let in on a secret, and sure, the rest of the world will be along in a minute, but for now, it's private.

This was a cool secret. So in case no one told you you're lucky today, here's this James guy.

Old and young,
But feeling good
I'm lucky

So much of it is in your perspective of the world. You can know your demon, as James calls it, and you can let it smother you. Or you can sing in its face, and follow the little stream in your head that tells you to dance and be merry. Your choice.

So I found this, and already my dark-room mood had lifted a bit. Then, I found a couple of podcast episodes that sparked my interest and that I look forward to seeing a little later, and there it was. Happiness. Release. Smile.

How Long Has This Been Going On

Integrating the old with the new. There's a special place inside my soul for the songs other people teach me, and this one falls under that space. It's in a play I love, and it just gets louder and louder, until the small, private theatre room is enveloped in Ray Charles' voice. Whoever said theatre was boring?

Sure, the song itself was written by composer siblings Ira and George Gershwin (yes, those ones), and got performed by a bunch of different artists down the river of time. Chet Baker has quite a lovely version of this song, but you gotta pay attention to the lyrics, 'cause it doesn't sound like the same song at all.

But for me, the Ray Charles version is the one. There's just this depth to the man's voice that other musicians weren't able to capture, I feel.

P.S.: The play where I learned this is about depression, and finding reasons to stay alive in this crazy world. "The way Ray Charles sings "kiss me once"" is reason #314. :)

Trouble

Everything aligns sometimes. Sure, we keep expecting it to be this grandiose thing, like winning the lottery. Sometimes, it's finding a cover of one of your favorite songs (one that's literally been stuck in your head for days) by another favorite artist. Sometimes, it's really just enough.

I saw the title to this, and thought no way. It's gotta be some other Trouble. But it wasn't, because things play out as you'd want them to, and you might just see it if you're not busy wishing for that lottery win.

This isn't to say the world isn't fucked. Or that we're not making it a pretty terrible place sometimes. We are, and it is. And there's this tendency by empathic, feeling people to get bogged down in that, and let it drown them with all the sorrow that's abundant these days.

Well, you'll have a pretty hard time pulling the world up, towards better that way. Is there a way to honor your own frequency, and appreciate the extreme beauty that can and does exist on Earth without losing your capacity to feel, and empathize with our brothers and sisters? There's gotta be. Because if there ain't, the game's fucked, anyway. Might as well enjoy the music.

But how can you say "sure the world's shit, but there's good music"? How could you put those two in balance?

Because they are. I'm not putting them there, I'm just observing the balance. What else would counter the war, and explosions and endless violence we subject one another to? A nicer, flower-scented bomb? No. Music doesn't have the same mushroom-iconoclast shape, no. But only something of terrible beauty can rival (and, I hope, defeat) something of terrible ugliness and pain. So I try not to forget the good things that are here to keep us alive. Because the rest of the world is making sure I don't forget the bad and permanent stench of evil that surrounds us. You gotta balance that out, or you start thinking that's all there is.