Field Music keeps the weep in check

The floodgates opened yesterday with that REM song, and I have been in a conflicted, snotty, sobbing mood ever since. There is a gray cloud hanging over my head that I can't shake. I am Charlie Brown. I am the weeping willow. I am waking up from a not-so-nice dream over and over again. There's no identifiable source of this emotional malaise, but it is undeniably malaise. I didn't even get as excited about the PEN World Voices Festival line-up as I normally would. And I know there's something wrong with me when the only thing I am capable of reading is the New Yorker, cover to cover (Bill Buford's profile of Gordon Ramsay nearly made the sun break through, but Buford's misstatement that Ramsay's kids aided in the slaughter of the turkeys they raised kind of set me off again).

The absolute only thing right now that is keeping me from curling into a ball in the corner of the room and devolving into a weeping lump of uselessness until The Husband makes it home to pick me up off the floor is the new Field Music album, Tones of Town. It's the kind of music that seems to come from the buds erupting on trees, the first drops of warm rain, bathed in sunlight and backed by the chirping of birds. Music produced using the same mold Mother Nature used to give birth to the concepts of springtime and Ray Davies.

"Kingston" ("the weather's changed, but has your mind?") tells me it'll all be okay. "Closer At Hand" ("the questions we tend to ask are useless if time is too fast") almost makes me want to dance like a hippie. And even a foul mood can't ruin the feeling I get from the chorus of "In Context". It's been a while since an album has been able to hold my hand through something like this. It won't let me cry. It reminds me that life can be beautiful and overwhelming without being sad. I can slowly feel the happy coming back. (Though the fact that I just found out today that they played Bowery last night kind of makes me die a little inside.)

Get your own little musical chunk of springtime here. I'll see you on the other side of these dumps.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.