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prairiedaun Sep. 17th, 2006 01:31 am)
prairiedaun Sep. 17th, 2006 01:31 am)Just got back from seeing The Weakerthans. I have thoughts, some that are hard to get across, but I'll try my best.
I was in grade 12, I think when mom bought me my first Weakerthans CD. This really was my first introduction to music that wasn't "mainstream"- I'd heard about them from somebody and thought that I might like it, and hey! I did.
Grade 12 was tough for me. I was having a really hard time dealing with everything, most of it being that the shock of dad passing away was finally starting to wear off and I was waking up to having to actually live my life. Academically I was struggling (especially always trying to keep up with my friends, who aren't really the best benchmarks since they're geniuses,) and socially I was really pulling away from an old group of friends who really weren't that good of an influence (and who, looking back, really didn't like me that much and treated me like shit.) This was the first year that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ananasananas, _jibberish_, coleman_genie and I really started to gel as friends.
We graduated and then went on to our separate things while still staying together. Really, out of the four of us we went to three dufferent universities (okay, technically CUSB is affiliated with the UofM, but still. St. Boniface!) I had another crises halfway through the year when my Gandma Johnston got so very sick and again, The Weakerthans' music was a comfort.
(At this point, I had never seen them live.)
That summer, Left and Leaving came out and it was the best thing ever. I went back to school and focused on anthropology andpyroclasticgrub was there at my side, and I had LJ and it was great. I got caught up in NSYNC, but still loved these guys from Winnipeg. I can't remember if it was that summer or the summer after that I finally saw a show of theirs at the Party Downtown... thing. They were playing some things off of Reconstruction Site, so it was probably two summers later when I finally first saw them, and it was perfect.
I'm not sure exactly how it worked, but a few weeks/months after Reconstruction Site came out, I had probably one of my worst experiences with depression (spending all day in bed, alternately crying and wishing for something to change for me.) I would listen to music all day, and then I realized that I hadn't listened to Reconstruction Site much since I'd first got it.
I put it on, and listened to it, I mean actually listened to it. The second song on the album is The Reasons, and this song... it's a song that I think everyone should have a friend give to them at one point or another. I know you might roll your eyes at this, but I'm so glad that you exist.
The fourth song is really what helped me though. It's called Plea From A Cat Named Virtute, and it's from the point of view of a cat whose owner is going through depression. The first time I heard it, I wasn't really paying attention, and I thought it was really silly. Once I listened to it again though, it just became so damned meaningful and important to me. I swear I'm going to bite you hard and taste your tinny blood if you don't stop the self-defeating lies you've been repeating since the day you brought me home. I know you're strong.
I just... I like to sing along to their music, but I can't get through this one without wanting to cry. Because, yes. Grimm would jump up on me and nudge me and basically be a pain in the ass when I would be wallowing with no good reason but seemed to understand when I actually needed comfort and was there for me when it felt like no one else really was. This song got through to me when nothing else really did, and I'm so damned thankful for that.
Thankfully, the album then goes on to something much lighter and fun, Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961) which has one of my most favourite lyrics ever: I could show you the way shadows colonize snow. I can't explain it, but it's just so beautiful to me and seems to speak to the part of me that will always be linked to the northern land that I'm from (I will always be more at home in the cold of winter than in the heat of summer.)
(hospital vespers) is another song that is very personal to me; when Grandma was in the hospital all the time I would spends as much time with her as I could.Doctors played your dosage like a card-trick. Scrabbled down the hallways yelling "Yahtzee!" I brought books on Hopper, and the Arctic, something called "The Politics of Lonely," a toothbrush and a quick-pick with the plus. You tried not to roll your sunken eyes, and said "Hey can you help me, I can't reach it." Pointed at the camera in the ceiling. I climbed up, blocked it so they couldn't see. Turned to find you out of bed, and kneeling. Before the nurses came, took you away, I stood there on a chair and watched you pray
Grandma was not happy in the hospital,and I know that being away from her home in Powerview only made her condition worse. It's the same thing that Gramma is going through now,where she can't really remember why she's there in the first place, but she can see and feel the bruises she's getting from the needles and the tests. She knew that she would be dying eventually and just wanted to be left alone so that she could actually enjoy whatever time she had left- she didn't want to die but was willing to accept it. I remember one woman that she shared her room with who was so afraid of dying and was willing to prolong her life even if it meant being in pain and unable to enjoy anything around her. I don't want to be like that, ever. I don't want to die, but I don't want an existance that is joyless.
...wow, that got kind of heavy. It's late, I'm going to see gramma tomorrow and for now? I'll leave it at the concert was great, and I have thoughts still.
I was in grade 12, I think when mom bought me my first Weakerthans CD. This really was my first introduction to music that wasn't "mainstream"- I'd heard about them from somebody and thought that I might like it, and hey! I did.
Grade 12 was tough for me. I was having a really hard time dealing with everything, most of it being that the shock of dad passing away was finally starting to wear off and I was waking up to having to actually live my life. Academically I was struggling (especially always trying to keep up with my friends, who aren't really the best benchmarks since they're geniuses,) and socially I was really pulling away from an old group of friends who really weren't that good of an influence (and who, looking back, really didn't like me that much and treated me like shit.) This was the first year that
ananasananas, _jibberish_, coleman_genie and I really started to gel as friends.We graduated and then went on to our separate things while still staying together. Really, out of the four of us we went to three dufferent universities (okay, technically CUSB is affiliated with the UofM, but still. St. Boniface!) I had another crises halfway through the year when my Gandma Johnston got so very sick and again, The Weakerthans' music was a comfort.
(At this point, I had never seen them live.)
That summer, Left and Leaving came out and it was the best thing ever. I went back to school and focused on anthropology and
pyroclasticgrub was there at my side, and I had LJ and it was great. I got caught up in NSYNC, but still loved these guys from Winnipeg. I can't remember if it was that summer or the summer after that I finally saw a show of theirs at the Party Downtown... thing. They were playing some things off of Reconstruction Site, so it was probably two summers later when I finally first saw them, and it was perfect. I'm not sure exactly how it worked, but a few weeks/months after Reconstruction Site came out, I had probably one of my worst experiences with depression (spending all day in bed, alternately crying and wishing for something to change for me.) I would listen to music all day, and then I realized that I hadn't listened to Reconstruction Site much since I'd first got it.
I put it on, and listened to it, I mean actually listened to it. The second song on the album is The Reasons, and this song... it's a song that I think everyone should have a friend give to them at one point or another. I know you might roll your eyes at this, but I'm so glad that you exist.
The fourth song is really what helped me though. It's called Plea From A Cat Named Virtute, and it's from the point of view of a cat whose owner is going through depression. The first time I heard it, I wasn't really paying attention, and I thought it was really silly. Once I listened to it again though, it just became so damned meaningful and important to me. I swear I'm going to bite you hard and taste your tinny blood if you don't stop the self-defeating lies you've been repeating since the day you brought me home. I know you're strong.
I just... I like to sing along to their music, but I can't get through this one without wanting to cry. Because, yes. Grimm would jump up on me and nudge me and basically be a pain in the ass when I would be wallowing with no good reason but seemed to understand when I actually needed comfort and was there for me when it felt like no one else really was. This song got through to me when nothing else really did, and I'm so damned thankful for that.
Thankfully, the album then goes on to something much lighter and fun, Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961) which has one of my most favourite lyrics ever: I could show you the way shadows colonize snow. I can't explain it, but it's just so beautiful to me and seems to speak to the part of me that will always be linked to the northern land that I'm from (I will always be more at home in the cold of winter than in the heat of summer.)
(hospital vespers) is another song that is very personal to me; when Grandma was in the hospital all the time I would spends as much time with her as I could.Doctors played your dosage like a card-trick. Scrabbled down the hallways yelling "Yahtzee!" I brought books on Hopper, and the Arctic, something called "The Politics of Lonely," a toothbrush and a quick-pick with the plus. You tried not to roll your sunken eyes, and said "Hey can you help me, I can't reach it." Pointed at the camera in the ceiling. I climbed up, blocked it so they couldn't see. Turned to find you out of bed, and kneeling. Before the nurses came, took you away, I stood there on a chair and watched you pray
Grandma was not happy in the hospital,and I know that being away from her home in Powerview only made her condition worse. It's the same thing that Gramma is going through now,where she can't really remember why she's there in the first place, but she can see and feel the bruises she's getting from the needles and the tests. She knew that she would be dying eventually and just wanted to be left alone so that she could actually enjoy whatever time she had left- she didn't want to die but was willing to accept it. I remember one woman that she shared her room with who was so afraid of dying and was willing to prolong her life even if it meant being in pain and unable to enjoy anything around her. I don't want to be like that, ever. I don't want to die, but I don't want an existance that is joyless.
...wow, that got kind of heavy. It's late, I'm going to see gramma tomorrow and for now? I'll leave it at the concert was great, and I have thoughts still.
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For me, Sarah McLachlan's almost always been the comfort music. I remember listening to some of her songs like crazy when Nana was in the hospital. "Hold On" is one that I remember listening to a lot, and hearing it at her concert, remembering all the times I'd listened to it, all the feeling I had wrapped up in it, made me all misty eyed.