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Specifically "Canola Fields" by James McMurtry. I feel like the older I get, the more this sort of songwriting resonates. It's impossible to escape. Even if you're not a dad yet, the dad rock finds you. Be warned.
Anyway, one of the lines is so simple, yet poignant, and, to me, that's the true hallmark of good songwriting. The line: "cashing in on a thirty year crush, you can't be young and do that". It reorients aging in a way that really struck me. Smashing together the childish and the mature and flipping the usual loss/gain calculus. Showing that just as there are certain things unrecoverable to the old (that humming freshness of youth!), there are also things that are incomprehensible to the young. It's a dialectic, and romance and beauty come in many forms.
Mar 4, 2024
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Despite my best interests I will likely be an Emo Kid for the rest of my life, and this song feels like an anthem in earnest pursuit of that ideal.
This track comes from lasts year‘s “152”, the proper album since their genuinely solid 2016 album Tidal Wave (although throughout the past few years they’ve done an excellent job pushing out 20 year anniversary collections and unearthing demos to really accentuate how fucking old we’ve all gotten). With that in mind, this track really hones in on this concept of aging — hopefully gracefully — while holding onto whatever spark in your life that keeps you going. The production sounds tight and anthemic on a level not quite like the noise and angst of their old songs but hey, that’s what two decades does to a mf.
As i stumble into my 30s and perpetually see the sentiment that anyone born before 1995 should start collecting Social Security, I cannot help but resonate with this song. the subtle contrast between Lazarra’s pronunciation of “S’old” really drives this home; we refuse to admit it but we really do discard the Old for the New. It’s one of their simpler choruses, yet it says so much as the phrase shifts its context with each repetition of the phrase.
it feels honest about the passage of time yet optimistic about how that shouldn’t keep you from what makes you happy. I can’t help but sing this from the top of my lungs on every listen, even as i feel my body slowly become brittle and fatigued. But I’ll still sing.
After all,
We’re gonna get so old, either way.
Jan 27, 2024
A two-fold rec. First, the song 'back on the road' by half moon run. Isn't it incredible when a new release from your favourite band lines up exactly with your current experience of being alive?
Second, I rec getting actually back on the road. For a second, I'd lost my way. Stationary, forgotten. But when you simply begin to place one slow, painful, difficult foot in front of the other, believe it or not, the journey starts to happen.
It's so hard, being on the road (especially approaching 21, when the gears are shifting) but it is always worth it. I never wish I took more breaks, I always wish I did more living.
Back on the road baby!
Feb 18, 2025
Inspired by 80‘s production, this song feels bigger than itself. End credits of a movie vibe. Reflective of passing youth. In layered, reverb laden vocals he sings “Growing up is never easy…Wrong enough to say I’m sorry. Owning up to things I can’t undo.” It’s great for a drive alone thinking on all the things that’ve passed you by and all that has yet to arrive :)
May 4, 2024
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I don't know how well this actually answers your initial question, I think it's more of a counterpoint to some of the stuff people have already said, but here it goes.
In the past (prior to social media or search engines) specific styles, specialized knowledge, and niche awareness actually took effort. You had to go out into the world and find a scene, be accepted, participate in it, contribute to it, and learn from others with specific knowledge within the specific sub- or counter-cultural scene. It took time, effort, and experience to craft an identity. Nowadays people cycle through various identities and trends like commodities because it takes no effort (they're sold to them by social media algorithms, influencers, brand accounts, etc.). It comes to you in your phone without you ever even having to leave the house or put in the time to discover it or participate in it (you just follow specific people or subscribe). You can be a passive observer or consumer, not an active contributor. As a result, you're not invested or tied down and committed to that core identity. You can cosplay depending on your mood or who you want to momentarily convey yourself as, because it's easy. Essentially, being a poser has become normalized. An identity is now something to be momentarily consumed and affected, rather than grown, built, and developed over time.
Granted, it's always been different in regards to "mass" culture and popular trends (both in the past and now). Those are impossible to miss and were always monopolized by specific trend setting institutions, but always by the time it gets to that point, the actual initial counter- or sub-culture that inspired it has already been coopted and has started to disintegrate under the weight and attention of mass consumption.
Feb 18, 2024
It's an action deserving of its own nickname. My cat's name is Gomez, but when he crosses his paws like this, he turns into Hodgkins Plumpersocks.
Feb 2, 2024
I feel like everything about this photo captures that unique period of time - the covid masks, the protest signs, the boarded windows, the national guard.
I look at it now and I still feel glimmers of the hope I felt in that moment, when the rigid and all encompassing oppressive and systemic ruts of society felt like they were becoming more plastic and might even come undone. However, in retrospect, I am of course also hit with the ultimate disappointment, betrayal, and futility of it all.
So in that sense, it really captures that hovering sense of disillusionment and hope that I'm perpetually caught between within my day to day life.
Mar 30, 2024