symptomatic nomadic
drifter's life is a drifter's wife
so, a writer is setting a scene. he wants you to imagine the gunslinger, in pursuit but fuck - wait - that’s been done. so instead he must make you see the velvet sunset over black desert sand. a foreclosure of dark night. the cape worn carelessly. the blistering. hot steam pouring from the muzzle of a horse who appears like a hell hound. a parched mouth. but none of this can be cheesy. the more serious the writer is the more you laugh at his charade. like a toddler begging you to watch them do a big jump into a swimming pool. the impact is just a splash. how can i convince you of the gravity i feel … well, i better stop with the cowboy nonsense. i’m not sure how this has gotten into my head. ranchers still exist. but i’m not sure about the drifter, the rail-rider, where he’s gone. he’s a cloud of dust. he’s transformed into the alcoholic gen X-er at the record store in the tight black t shirt. he’s transformed into the electric razor dragged across the skull of a punk. he’s me, in my stupidity, consulting a tarot deck about where i’m supposed to go next, who i’m supposed to love next. as soon as i decide something is definitive and fixed about myself i immediately find evidence to the contrary. this is the drifter, who can’t take corporeal form, and can only possess us momentarily: that urge to run. who has not thought about throwing down their breakfast and sprinting toward the door, running in a straight line until exhaustion, just to see what would happen? how far could i go, if i just got up and walked?
here’s a playlist. it’s around 3 hours long and it took me a few days to make it. every song is purposefully placed. and we go through a few genres, but none of it is random. there’s an art to making playlists. you can’t just insert songs willy-nilly. you have to bring the listener along waves of energy. there are absolutely songs that, when placed next to each other, either enhance or destroy your listening experience.
so with this one, it tells a little story of a wanderer, who experiences the freedom of leaving, the sorrow of saying goodbye and dithers into aching longing and homesickness. it’s made for riding the bus and looking at the dust on your shoes, squinting in the sun. there are some very well-known artists on here: leonard cohen, radiohead, the rolling stones … some lesser knowns: peggy lee, my bloody valentine, arthur russell… and then some close-to-unknowns I think you’ll find delightful: phil cordell, michael yonkers, the music machine.
