I love this song.  Even though Doug Martsch doesn't have the most beautiful voice, there is this delicate balance he creates in this song between rough, scratchy vocals and this vulnerable, drawn out confession.  He does this with the two key words in the song, terrible and perfect.

The rest of the song is hardly delicate or soft.  I have in fact described it as a "clangy/clashy song,"  when I was struggling with word recall. Unpolished, the opposite of clean, definitely not girly.  It's one of the songs that I'm trying to use as my "vision board" for a new playlist, Less Girly.

The playlist is an attempt to get away from love songs.  Love songs are great, don't get me wrong.  I just don't try that hard to listen to new bands (or even newer songs) these days, and everything in my collection feels used.  Like I can't reassociate love songs with new people.  I would never regift a mix or associate the same song with multiple guys.

Most love songs make you feel happy and good, though.  I need more of that.  I would just rather have that without being reminded I'm lonely though, thus Less Girly.  They can still be about love, (I think Terrible/Perfect reflects on two widely acknowledged views of love), and hope and heartbreak and possibilities, but they also need to be about more than just love.

Labels: Built To Spill. Doug Martsch, Less Girly, love songs, mixtapes, music appreciation

It took me a while to find this song after I first heard it on Grey's Anatomy, but in the end the easiest way to find something is to start from the beginning. The song itself was perfect for this week - sickly sweet when you play it on repeat, but whose lyrics you can't help but smile to.  Similar to Home by Edward Sharp and Ho, Hey by The Lumineers.  I'm sure in the next two years it will be played at several weddings.

I find hearing new love songs when I don't have someone special in my life to be numbing.  It's kinda like I can't fully hear the song because I can't fully appreciate it now, but it also feels like a choice.

Then there are all the love songs you knew and loved when you had someone.  It's like I can't reassign them.  They're about that one person and can't be re-purposed.  I hate that.  There are songs I avoid now just so I won't be reminded. That sounds silly and it feels silly, but I know I'm not alone.  I had a friend in college come over one night with an empty flash drive and download half my library because she couldn't listen to any of her own music without thinking about her ex. I couldn't imagine living in a world like that until I did.

I used to live in my mixes in iTunes, so eager to make a new one and burn it for a friend.  But then Spotify came and I don't know why I didn't rush to make mixes with it.  I think I was going through shit, losing myself and reshaping myself and I just let my ex run the mixes without me.  I mean I had some input, but I didn't try as hard as he did.  I lost my vision for perfect mixes. The mixes I have in Spotify from when we are together are like vague ideas, short, incomplete, and not really worth finishing.  I haven't exactly finished any of the mixes I made after him either, but they're not meant to fit on cds anymore so they don't need the constraints of a time limit. I like that a lot.  It's like I set them free.

Edit: Since the song is not easy to find, I'll share it here.

Labels: itunes, love songs, mixes, spotify, We used to be friends.