Best of 2023: Lana Del Rey – Grandfather Please Stand on the Shoulders of My Father While He’s Deep-Sea Fishing

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I was in a rented RV with a group of friends, barreling through the night on a journey to the Grand Canyon. Some in the group would later embark on further travel across the country for the remainder of the year. Some would move away. Others would be buried in new professional ventures.

The point is, we were uniquely in a space where we could all enjoy this time together, right before irreversible changes would split us apart. It wouldn’t be easy to assimilate again in the same manner.

It was a transformative time, and I’m annoyed I didn’t see it for what it was in that moment.

Night one of our travels was Thursday. We were shouting conversations back and forth over the loud engine, some of us in the cockpit while others relaxed on the pop-up furniture, securing Solo Red Cup drinks with one hand as we sped through uneven roads.

“Didn’t the new Lana album come out tonight?” my friend asked me. “Oh shit. I’ll be right back.” I said in response, half joking because I wouldn’t move from the passenger seat for the next hour. I held my phone to my ear and squinted my eyes, trying to listen to each track over my friends’ hilarious conversations. I knew they’d understand, and we’d have plenty of laughs in the weekend ahead.

“Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” deserved my undivided attention, and received it in the weeks to come. The one one track that could not wait was this one. The keys, the melodies and Lana’s desolate smoky voice ripped me away from the scenario around me. I was catatonic.

“I know they think
That it took somebody else
To make me beautiful. Beautiful.
As they intended me to be
But they’re wrong.”

What comes across as a hyper-specific scenario reveals itself to be a moment for Lana to dismiss the notion that she’s a fabrication of the entertainment industry. Instead, she credits the masters of her making: Her dad, and his dad before him.

God if you’re near me
Send me three white butterflies
Or an owl to know you’re listening
Sitting while I’m drinking

By this point in her career, she’s comfortable stepping up to her critics and claiming her legitimacy in the music space. She’s on album number nine, and can’t be discredited as an industry plant any more. 2024 Grammy nominations would further validate this point, but it was never really about that.

Good for fucking her.

Best of 2023: A R I Z O N A – Graveyard

I can’t tell you shit about A R I Z O N A. I’d rather not research them, because my lack of expertise makes for a more fun perspective to write from. Sometimes it’s nicer to keep things green and speak from the heart, rather than rattling off stats.

I know that I’ve skipped their set at two different music festivals in favor of another artist or due to logistics. I was never really disappointed. What was I even missing?

Graveyard yanked me in by the collar. Right from the top they start:

I’ve been waking up at four in the morning
For no apparent reason
And I can’t go back to sleep
I’m ashamed that I ain’t done the things I haven’t done yet
And all these years and wasted seasons…

The writing is sharp. It’s tough. It’s jarring. It’s just like life.

The chorus lightens up tonally and lyrically.

There’s a place out there fit for kings and queens
And the suns shines beautifully
In the springtime

Look closely. He’s not talking about a place he’ll arrive to. He’s happy for those other guys, though. The ones really enjoying the journey. Meanwhile, he’s busy focusing on the house he’s not buying and the kids he’s not having like his father did at his age. Damn it all.

This song is calling out to a society that’s probably feeling all of the same things. It’s hard to be a downer, but even worse to feel like everybody’s lying. Nobody is killing it anymore. We’re not set up for success like those in the past may have been. The cards aren’t dealt fairly every time, or most times. Despite all that, we can try to enjoy our time anyway. We’ll all end up in the same place. The graveyard.

I Can See Clearly Now

Lying to yourself can get you through a lot, or at least make you laugh at the irony.

This song has always had a hypnotic effect on me, but never one that was probably intended by Johnny Nash when he wrote it back in 1972.

You’ll hear it in a diner, as part of a film trailer, during a particularly tender scene in The Wonder Years, or maybe ironically used during a slowed down massacre sequence on a war battlefield. It’s so optimistic and uplifting, it almost casts a shadow of contrast on reality.

“Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day“

Try listening and not thinking of someone who’s no longer living, but deserves to be.

Nancy Sinatra covered this song beautifully on her 2013 covers album “Shifting Gears,” and sings from the perspective of someone who was there in the “good old days.” I have no idea if things were actually easier then, but it’s nice to think so. I trust Nancy.

For me, when I hear this song, I try to put myself in the position of anyone who can truly relate. I’m happy for that person, and I’m glad that they’re out there enjoying some good fortune. But I’m not that guy. Any personal victory or moment of true alignment will have me playing “Dancing on my Own” or some Lana Del Rey. Some of us are just wired differently, and that’s ok.

I leave this song in my music collection so that, in the odd event that I’m in a sad place and it comes on shuffle, I won’t skip it. That whole thing about smiling while you’re sad or in pain to trick your body… look it up.

Challenge yourself to let it spin the next time you’re crying. Even if you’re gritting your teeth and trying to avoid a blink that would send tears streaming past your jaw, sing it:

“Look all around. There’s nothing but blue skies.
Look straight ahead. NOTHING but blue skies...”

Tears – Charli XCX feat. Caroline Polachek

Everyone knows I’m the crying man. After a good solid personal breakdown, I shed my armor of toughness and became everyone’s most touchy friend.

I’m often disarmed by a heartfelt moment, a triumph of someone I love, or the observation of pain. I don’t often cry because of anguish, though.

This 2017 song from Charli XCX’s star-studded album Pop 2 circles in on an untapped space within bubblegum pop – agony.

“Say your name so nervously now
Kiss in the hallway, fade out
Tears are rollin’ down my face, tears are rollin’ down my face
Tears are rollin’ down my face, now you gotta go, go, go“

This track is highly produced. I initially overlooked it, focusing instead on the Tove Lo, Carly Rae Jepsen and Kim Petras features on Pop 2. In time, though, I would circle back to this “filler” track that under-utilized pop music’s most powerful vocalist, Caroline Polachek. After seeing this song performed live twice at Charli and Caroline’s own headlining shows respectively, I realized the magic within this song: the screams.

Running as a backbone through this tinkering song is a loop of shredding, eviscerating shrieks. It ties together this tale of lovelorn distress. There’s no other way of verbally expressing the pain of unrequited or unmatched love. It’s humankind’s greatest tragedy, and calls for the most primal form of expression: screaming to your lung’s capacity.

Defying demographics of the listener, we have all been in this space. Love brings elation, nervousness, bravery, and tears.

Shania Twain – Forever And For Always

Forever doesn’t exist. It never has.

Artists of every kind throw the term around with little care for the severity of the idea. Forever. For ever. With no end and in perpetuity. Nothing that has ever existed lives up to that.

Shania Twain has a charmed and beloved place in music that gives her the right to play on this concept with no repercussion. She has earned the right to say whatever necessary to tell her lush, gentle and playful stories. We can trust her.

“And there ain’t no way
I’m letting you go now
And there ain’t no way
And there ain’t no how
I’ll never see that day”

This song fits neatly into her catalog, reflecting the sentiments of a honeymoon, or maybe a perfect first date. It romanticizes the very present, very current sensation of foolishly believing that she’s got someone secured for all time.

It’s a cute, cheesy song that she could still release today. She can get away with defying the realities we’re all facing that prevent us from rejoicing like she is. It’s a sweet deviation.

The song makes me think about the best things we’ve ever had, and how we probably didn’t realize their quality while we had them. At some point, we wore most comfy pair of socks of our lives. One day spent with our best friend was the most fun we’d ever have together. One neighbor, coworker or lover will treat us better than anyone before or after them and neither of us will realize it.

In many ways, at many different times, we’ve been super lucky. It’s a strange thing to fixate on, but an important one.

“Cuz I’m keeping you forever and for always
We will be together all of our days
Wanna wake up every morning to your sweet face
Always.”

You can’t seek out the best things in life, really. They tend to just find you, and all too often go unnoticed or unacknowledged. Maybe it’d be worth it to think back and let those responsible for your best moments know what they did for you. If I haven’t made it clear by this point: nothing is forever.

Sing it Saturday: The Verve- Bitter Sweet Symphony

I find a deep satisfaction in bringing awareness to songs that I know will make other people happy if given a chance. It is always a differently rewarding experience, however, to talk about one that I know everyone already loves.

Bitter Sweet Symphony was a perfect contribution of 90s music. It feels like a love letter, or a message in a bottle from the youths in that decade to the future. It epitomizes young angst, and a collective wariness about the current state of affairs and what the future might hold. We certainly didn’t know the answers then. We still don’t now. It’s cool to bitch about it.

It feels grand, but casual. It picks up on the sensation of feeling stuck, but pushing forward anyway. Figuring yourself out is a palpable and relatable struggle, but not altogether insurmountable.

It was also an early indication that I’m a sucker for strings, which was nice to know as a young person figuring out their music taste.

It’s famously not a profitable song for The Verve, since it evidently sampled a (far inferior) Rolling Stones song, and resulted in a lawsuit. Like those dudes needed more money. It remained heavily engrained in pop culture nevertheless, and soundtracked many of our lives.

Graduation? Bitter Sweet Symphony. Breakup? Bitter Sweet Symphony. Finally got your revenge? You know what to do…

Sing it Saturday: Daft Punk – Get Lucky

Say what you will. Actually, don’t. Daft Punk is rad and nobody will ever do it like they did.

I realized their polarizing appeal the weekend that I moved to LA back in 2017. Elite streetwear megastore Maxfield hosted a pop-up shop dedicated to our favorite space robots to commemorate their Grammy’s performance with the Weeknd.

The line stretched for hours just to enter the mixed exhibition/gift shop that sold archive merchandise starting at around $300. The crowd was composed of every flavor of cool kid. Dads with their children, skaters, hype beasts, hot girls, homos, burners…all of them queued up to splash around in the Daft Punk supernova.

Random Access Memories, the French House duo’s final album, was full of bangers that–like their previous three records- would influence EDM thereafter. Get Lucky was the centerpiece. Featuring ultra-smooth vocals by Pharrell Williams and an impossibly cool bassline by Nile Rodgers, the track does that thing where it can be played to equal enthusiasm at a wedding, a sports game, a barbecue or in a car. It’s just a good song.

When it was freshly on the radio ten years back in 2013, my brother was in town for my college graduation. He drove me the hour and a half to my campus for the last time, and the track played almost continually on the radio for the drive. “Crazy,” I thought, to have the robots back on the airwaves over a decade after my bro introduced me to their earlier albums. All ends with beginnings.

Lyrically it’s pleasantly simplistic. More people can relate when the message is broad, and true to form, the production is pristine.

We’ve come too far
To give up who we are

The song has been played to infinity. As it should.

It was a fun era, and I wish it weren’t their last. I’ve seen Get Lucky performed live twice: once at Pharrell Williams’ 2014 Coachella set, and again at a Nile Rogers Hollywood Bowl concert on the 4th of July. But never with the robots. I’d pay any price to experience Daft Punk live, but I don’t see it happening. I’ll just have to keep bringing it up forever and driving everyone around me insane.

Sing it Satuday: LEN – Steal My Sunshine

1999 was a blast in the face from pop culture. Film, TV and music were at their peak, and we saw content that is still referenced today, even by young creators who weren’t born yet. Steal My Sunshine is a creation of that time. Everyone remembers this song, but probably wouldn’t be able to tell you why.

It’s a basic, incomplete story where two individuals (siblings, evidently) are observed by their friends in the wake of some massive party. Each individual is just barely hanging on, coming down from whatever they took on that epic night.

Their friends react to their grotesque state of being with a shrug and a laugh. When you’re young, you can get away with a lot of shit.

This song is super vague, and might allude to substance abuse and depression, but nobody was really getting too deep in 1999. Are their respective struggles admirable? Nope. Is it that important right this second? Nope. Don’t steal their sunshine.

Sing it Saturday: Cher – Believe

No matter how hard I try, I can’t get past this late 90’s banger. It reshaped the landscape of pop music and showed that electronic elements in music were the way of the future.

Sonically, it slaps. Lyrically, it’s devastating.

I’m so sad you’re leaving. It takes time to believe it.

As much as the gays would love to claim it, this song is for everyone. Everyone who’s ever withstood the shattering loss of love, and everyone who’s had a time of uncertainty about whether they’d survive the storm.

Country music artist Jake Owen famously covered it several years back as the extension of an olive branch to the LGBTQ+ community in a move that would clearly dictate that we’re not so different after all. Everybody hurts, and everybody has had to survive.

We can trust Cher. She’s seen a lot and learned timeless lessons that can be applied to anyone’s life. That transcendent wisdom is crucial in navigating life, especially for those who choose to hold on, or, believe.

Sing it Saturday: Allie X – Sanctuary

I remember being told by a friend “It’s literally my idea of a perfect pop song.” about Sanctuary.

I’d listened to a good handful of Allie X songs, and understood that she purveyed an odd girl image against pop bangers and earworms. I always love when an artist creates challenging imagery to surround feather-light material that pleases any palate. Remember early Lady Gaga?

This track is vague enough to apply to anyone you trust and love, and hits harder when you’ve identified them.

When they’re throwing stones
There’s a place I know
I can always go
To my Sanctuary

With low-to-high pitch range, Allie X emotes at her maximum to sing the praises of her person, her confidant and her sanctuary.

Any of us can only hope to find that person, and to be that person.