Album: Post-War, 2006.
Added 4/18/08, 43 plays.
This was a pretty important song in my life. I was a freshman in college, didn't know a whole lot of people, and didn't know a whole lot of music outside of classic rock. My sister sent me this, and it was all over for me; I was now an indie kid. First thing I noticed were the visuals, the gorgeous animation and clever jokes in the video. But when I sat down and really listened to it, I just fell madly in love with it (I must have listened to this hundreds of times, but it's low on the list because I replaced it with a higher-quality version two years ago).
I wrote a little bit ago about universal truths, but mostly applied that to common experiences in love and loss. This is probably the most philosophical song in my catalogue, one that deals with finding the some of those truths.
What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart
And how can a man like me remain in the light
And if life is really as short as they say
Then why is the night so long
Those are questions I've asked myself. No, I don't have the answers, and that's kind of the joke of the song. The wise old man doesn't know either, so he tells the story of how he tried to find those answers, and so on and so on. I think we know what's going to happen to the narrator of the story.
Which says nothing about the almost ethereal composition of this piece. Matt's guitar work is almost magical on this, over a great steady beat. Borderline magical.
I would be remiss if I didn't share his performance on Letterman. It picks up at the end:
There are no answers, there is only infinity.
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Billy Bragg & Wilco - California Stars
Cat Power - Lived in Bars
Sufjan Stevens - The Dress Looks Nice on You
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