soundtrack to my life

When I was 14-years-old I caught my big break. I was chosen out of thirty some girls to play Anne Frank in the stage adaptation of her diary. I was enthusiastic, but I lost some steam when rehearsals carried on until 11PM six days a week. My grades slipped, and I didn’t have time to participate in extra-circulars or hang out with my friends. The ghost of Anne was my best friend, and at the time this song seemed like it was written for me just as much as it was for her.

Neutral Milk Hotel - Ghost

By the time I was 17 I had never seriously dated anyone. Boys my own age seemed disinterested in me and I was disinterested in them. Then I met Brian. He loved the bands I loved, had read the book I had read and we even had a predilection for the same movies. He was older. Six years older. My parents overlooked that because he was a college graduate, had a good job at a publishing house, and was all-around “clean cut.” He made a mix-tape for me (yes, an actual tape) and this was one of the tracks he chose:

Broken Social Scene - Anthem for a Seventeen-year-old Girl

Brian and I moved to Portland, OR after I graduated. I made new friends there—friends Brian thought were the wrong sort of friends. Maybe they were because their lifestyle didn’t align with my student lifestyle and subsequently I dropped out of Portland State. The same year Brian turned 25, and I was carrying the weight of his “quarter-life crisis” on my shoulders. We decided to spend time apart, and after three weeks without seeing each other met up at a café. It was raining (it was always raining in Portland), but the weather only compounded the devastation of our break-up. After giving me his umbrella (which I obsessively held onto for months) and I departed on a bus. This was my “break-up song”.

Radio Dept. - Where Damage Isn't Already Done

After dropping out of school, I got a minimum wage job at a thrift store and moved into an apartment with my best friend in a very bohemian neighborhood. With a pseudo-bohemian life comes pseudo-bohemian cling-ons, and strapped for cash my roommate and I opened our home to them, subletting to vagrant “gutter punks.” Eventually our landlords caught on to the loud parties and coming and going of what they called “suspicious characters”. Overworked from two jobs, I came home one evening to find an eviction notice on my front door. I didn’t initially react because I was so wiped-out. This song was written about Portland (Rose City on the 409) and feeling wiped-out. I don’t think any song has ever been so apropos.

Elliott Smith - Bled White

This is currently my favorite song. I’m struggling and I feel like the proverbial roof is caving in on me, but I can’t hide.

Wire - Outdoor Miner

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (extra credit)

PJ Harvey has been careful not to repeat herself with her 2011 release Let England Shake. Her lyrics about war and poverty are as dark as ever, but her delivery is notably softer, singing in a higher range than on her seminal Dry. It would be misfortune if Harvey abandoned her dark side, but rather than singing about being a woman lost, she laments an entire country. The album unfolds like a history lesson on 20^th and 21^st century English tragedies—from “soldiers falling like lumps of meat” to cynically taking failed hopes for peace to the United Nations in “The Words That Maketh Murder.” Incorporating English folk rock, early rock and dream pop, Let England Shake is more accessible than the more distorted arrangements on many of Harvey’s prior albums. When it’s broken down, Let England Shake is a collection of protest songs, drawing on influence from The Zombies and The Pogues and, most apparently, Patti Smith. Although it’s a tribute to England, Let England Shake should not be overlooked by an American audience because if you substitute England for the name of any other nation, you’ll still have a solid album about the barbarity of war.