Here is what tickled my ears over the past seven days.
Various – Rock ‘N’ Roll of the 70’s
The Moody Blues – Greatest Hits
The Giraffes – Cigarette
Baby Pictures – Wow! This is one of the best album openers I have heard recently. The lyrics resonated with me, and the music moved me.
“Moving on every time he couldn’t stay clean got him a room
To hunker down and hide from the covid nineteen
Well, he could’ve been you, and he could’ve been me”
Baby Pictures starts slow, like a baby learning to walk, builds, gets energized and blasts with those lyrics. I worked in addiction counselling for about 15 years, and those lyrics jumped off the page. “Moving on” is only too real. Guys, I would be proud to call them friends and brothers in our family of men who are in recovery. And then they move and hunker down in their bottomless pit of addiction in some crack house, hiding from everyone, including themselves.
“Well, he could’ve been you, and he could’ve been me”
All people with an addiction are one clean day away from returning to their flop houses. I don’t believe the time ever comes when we can say we are entirely apart from our addiction. I, like many others, change our addiction to something that society finds less troublesome. I went from being an alcoholic to having an insane amount of music in our house. It could’ve been you, and it could’ve been me all too easily. Staying clean takes hard work and commitment. On hard days, and those days come to us all, it is easy to say fuck it all and fall back to our old ways that don’t take hard work, accountability, social skills, commitment and a longer list than I want to post today.
That is just the opening track to an album that is good front-to-back. Skipping ahead a couple of tracks, we get to the song “Dead Byrd.” Shifting gears, this song gears down to a slower pace, but the lyrics got me again.
We overflow with our promises
And our promises like all promises
Are hopeful lies.
Yeah, they’re hopeful lies
We learn to lie, and the more we do it, the easier it gets. We make promises we do not keep but hope they will become reality someday. We hope that magic unicorn dust will someday turn our lies into reality. If we lie enough, we become habitual liars. But they are still lies, ‘Yeah, they’re hopeful lies.”
“The song “Million Year Old Song” is chugging power all the way. I love it.
From “The Shot” is this gem of wisdom,
“But the best part about being caught
Being cornered being forced to stop is that the pressures off.”
The album closes with the track Lazarus, a song that I am still trying to get a grip on what the message is. I have preached sermons on the complex life and death of Lazarus. I am more bewildered after hearing this song. I will listen to this album several more times and see if I get something.
Closing thoughts: I enjoyed this: The Giraffes new album Cigarette. I have listened to it several times and like it better after each session. I guess the best is yet to come.
TRACK LIST
1. Baby Pictures
2. Pipes
3. Limping Horse
4. Dead Bird
5. Million Year Old Song
6. The Shot
7. Lazarus
Keep up with The Giraffes
Website https://thegiraffes.squarespace.com
Bandcamp https://thegiraffes1.bandcamp.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheGiraffes
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thegiraffesofficial
Twitter https://x.com/thegiraffes
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@giraffes.official
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_MNr2PJpoZxBtyHCDXa52A
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/3OfQhA76hhDafHFYgyyokm
Apple Music https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/the-giraffes/4292129
Publicity by Shameless Promotion PR
Pause.
I had to pause after The Giraffes and reset my ears for another listening experience. Up next, we have The Pilgrimage by Arne Jansen, Anders Jormin and Uwe Steinmetz. I was looking for some chill music for bedtime a couple of days back and came upon this gem that is good to listen to at any time of day. But I still like it at bedtime.
King Crimson – Starless and Bible Black
Starless and Bible Black opens with classic King Crimson music; however, before the end of side one, it has morphed into a jazzy, open improvisation, psychedelic, prog/rock sound that continues on Side 2. Starless is a complex album, and I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry for a more lengthy story than I am offering here.
King Crimson – USA
USA is a live album that could easily be mistaken for a greatest hits album. It is another release that I encourage you to read more about on Wikipedia.
mewithoutYou – Live (vol. One)
I had been following mewithouYou for years. We had all of their discography but never seen them live. When their farewell tour came to Vancouver, we got 2 tickets, got a hotel room within walking distance of the venue and flew from Edmonton to Vancouver the day before the show. We loved the show, and it was amazing to see them live.
While we are on the topic of mewithouYou playing live, they released a stream of them live today. Also available on vinyl, CD, and cassette. Live (vol. One) is a good album, but it doesn’t matter how good they are; no one has been able to capture the blood, sweat and tears of the band on a stage, their energy, the crowd energy and the experience of being in a room with the band standing in front of you. At the same time, you are surrounded by people who love the band as much as you do. It is magical; this album is as close to that experience as possible. There are old favourite songs such as Tie Me Up! Untie Me! They sound amazing. mewithoutYou – Live (vol. One) could be the Frampton Comes Alive of this new era—or the whole Live at Budokan thing with Cheap Trick and Bob Dylan.
Wild, I am sitting at my desk with my head bobbing despite the headache that I have and my foot tapping despite the hip replacement surgery I had less than a year ago. Timothy Hay and O’Porcupine have captured me, live no less; the energy of Michael Weiss and Brandon Beaver on guitars, Greg Jehanian’s bass behind Aaron Weiss’ anguished vocals and pushing him towards me, and I am pumping the air to the beat of Rickie Mazzotta on percussion. And everywhere we look, Allah, Allah, Allah. All Circles is what their albums do on my turntable.
Love Ghost x SKOLD – Love Ghost x SKOLD
This is a link to a study on how music may speed up recovery after surgery. The answer is, it does. I used music as a part of addiction recovery, which is finding healing as well.
Thanks for checking out this meandery stroll through the music I listened to this past week.
Weathered Music 