mishupishu: Condensed Music (part 1)

My time has become more valuable over the years and I'm afraid that it's time to shrink my year-end lists down to a more condensed and manageable process. One of the unique experiences that I have with music is that it has turned into a wonderful inspiration for my storytelling flair to spread its wings. Perhaps this has always been the case as the parts of brain that process each element in its own way could easily be linked by some creative force that cradles the ridges and valleys of my cerebellum with electrical current that encourage me to sing sing sing in the most beautiful voice that I know. What that means is that I dig down within my subconscious and find a story to tell the world and it all comes from an impulse or feeling that registers when the songs fill my head. So here's a few stories that I wish to tell. Though they are condensed versions, I suggest you simply add water, click on the songs and cultivate the earth. In time, the full version may come to blossom there, where you sit and listen.

30. Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter - Marble Son

A moment of fear grips her, then nothing but confusion takes over. Quick as that and everything changes. Everything is taken. Hope descends into anguish, love becomes a hidden torture, a blemish on their heart. Walking down the crooked road, lined with reeds, sticks thick with juice and hungry for the sun, she glances up at that warm face and is blinded with the white intensity. That's when she hears it, like a precious voice inside her head but coming from outside her, to her right. A weak cry, a message of new birth, calling to her, beckoning her. She turns her head and looks deep into the shadows, hears it again. Please give me breath from this night. She feels the darkness of the binding that suddenly surrounds her and for a instant she feels the fear that is so natural and honest that it's impossible to describe or explain. She hunches back, retreats from the menace scurrying away from her. Then the voice reaches out with delicate fingers and deep within her heart she knows that she can't look away, whatever the consequences. She reaches forth again with her hand, her head hanging down but her shoulders hunched back, the last of the strength she can muster. It doesn't matter. She's already gone. The blank space from where she left the roadside giving no trace of the person who used to be. There's no sound, just the sun beating down from an empty sky, harsh and white. She sinks and the current grabs at her. Turning her head she tries to look back through the thin slats for a brief reprieve of light in the darkness but she's sucked down below the surface. Gone. Eventually her body washes ashore. Then the mob follows and a tragedy occurs on top of a tragedy and a soft laughter can be heard in the wind.

29. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

Across the terrain he traveled, with guitar in hand and a swelling following growing behind him. What kind of society was bound to erupt from this ragged sea of gypsies? This was the type of question that invaded his dreams when his fingers would lay down his emotions on the strings. His father, an ardent fan of the great philosopher Woody Guthrie, taught him how to reach through the heart of the instrument and make it a vehicle for inspiration, to become the power of a voice that might transcend all of the hate that drove the mice into the shadows. The world had grown tired of those fearful masked faces and now they turned to a fresh tone of change, of hope and appreciation. He couldn't say when the ears, eyes, hearts of the people began to turn his way but it never affected the energy that he gave to the cause. His spirit was the same as any great poet who came before him. It was the spirit of the people and it sprang from the earth as a natural spring wells forth with the clean fresh beauty of tomorrow.

28. Caroline - Verdugo Hills

After awhile, he forgot to count the years. It happens when you choose to spend the remainder of your life on a space station that orbited Mars. He could count the days since Mariel passed away and it wouldn't be long before they would be sending a new crew up to take his place once his frail soul decided that it would take no more abuse. Perhaps there would be no more missions, the last transcript from earth informing him of the growing instability of the New Order and it was true that the construction down on the surface of the red planet had yet to continue after the last tragedy that destroyed the fledgeling colony. But Wayne could care less about all of the insignificant plans of men who never truly had the heart to invest in the stars...for he had heard the voice of heaven. At first he thought it was Mariel coming to take him away from this frivolous life, immersing him within the essence of the universe. Oh, what a blessing that would be but then he began to notice that it was something else, even more beautiful than what he initially imagined. It was a voice that transcended any human expectation and it lifted him up beyond the limitation of the mind into a realm of magnanimity.

27. Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine

Everyday after work they went to the club and danced, a primal imperative that had to be fulfilled, a need that was theirs alone. It never affected their other lives at home, neither her live-in boyfriend or his wife suspected them of having an affair, as long as they came home every night. This dance they shared was never about a desire to take their relationship into a passionate dream of sexual enticement. Their friendship was different, a unique connection that centered on the touch and swirl of the rhythmic symbiosis that could only happen on the dance floor. Their bodies were partnered in only one place, the club. His wife once suggested that the two of them take professional dance lessons to hone their craft but it wasn't about that either. A dance studio was too intimate and would ruin everything. Only the club could satisfy their need, to let down their hair and shake off the cubicle rust. One night he lightly said that the two of them must have been lovers in a past life, during an era when dance was transcendent, a genuine release for the human spirit. Who knows, maybe it was sometime during the seventies.

26. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

Emma Wocjekowski made a discovery and it was either going to kill her or make her famous. Very few laboratories around the world monitored the prism of quantum physics within the realm of possibilities as her lab. She was already considered one of the greatest minds in her field even after the controversy surrounding her theories on genetic coding conducted as a college student under the guidance of a Nobel Laureate. They say the man stole the prize from her and she has never truly disputed the claim, but it's something that is no longer discussed around her. Rumors are frivolous distractions, as far as she's concerned and she doesn't have time for distractions. Emma rechecked the equation and began to trace the length of the tail toward where it lead. Down the rabbit hole, she laughed to herself. Wasn't that the type of thing that she told those who inquired of her research. Well, the equations didn't lie and it appeared that she had found a source of energy unlike anything that had ever come before, tiny in scope but massive in intensity. She was about to blow the cover off human perspective.