Day One: Coachella: Part Two

Leonard Cohen

Just thinking about the set, and seeing the man in person, I get tears in my eyes. There are moments in life where you realize, without a moment of doubt, that you are glad to be alive - and watching Mr. Cohen sing was one of those moments for me. I stood there watching, with my beautiful daughter beside me, one of my good friends standing close by, and a few other good friends spread through the crowd, and felt amazed, lucky, and healed. Though I wish he had played my all-time favourite song, he did sing Bird On A Wire and Everybody Knows, and of course, Hallelujah. When everyone in the crowd sang along to the chorus, with him, as the sun began to set in the desert, tears were streaming down my face. It was truly my most favourite moments of the entire festival, and one of those unforgettable moments in my life. Mr. Cohen himself was so humble, genuine, and truly a beautiful soul. I still do not have the proper words to describe seeing him play, nor the coherent thoughts to describe what the experience was like. I just know that, as my friend Dale has said about the experience, my heart felt healed.

Hallelujah (live, Coachella 2009) ~ Leonard Cohen

Morrissey

We missed the first half, or so, of Morrissey's set because of Leonard Cohen, so I am not sure my assessment of this is all-together fair. That said, we did arrive at the very moment he was stating that the smell of burning flesh he was experiencing, how he hoped it was human. Then Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others started up, and he was visibly annoyed, and would go from singing loudly to mumbling the lyrics half-heartedly, as if he was grumbling, or struggling to remember the words. He seemed overall to be put upon being there, and perhaps he was. The highlight of the set for me was hearing him play How Soon Is Now, and I was also cheering him on when he took his shirt off, as I'd always heard he did back in the days of the Smiths, as I'm all for being proud of your body at any age. I wanted to like him, I wanted to enjoy the set, and I wanted to feel something more than let down by him. Maybe it was not fair, as well, for me to react to him right after Leonard Cohen, but it happened the way it did. He ended his set and I was disappointed in the experience, that is just how it felt for me.

How Soon Is Now? (live, Coachella 2009) ~ Morrissey

Paul McCartney

I was born into a Beatles family. There is not a moment of my life where I do not remember knowing who the Beatles were, or having their music around in my life somehow. They were the first albums I remember memorizing the lyrics to. They were the music my Mom listened to that changed her expression, that lifted her up when she was down, and that brought her to tears sometimes, too. I learned what it looked like to love a band, and would remember it later when I fell for bands myself. I remember the stories my Mom told me about the music, and her memories she had attached to their songs. And, after awhile, I started building my own memories to their music.

Julia's Dad grew up in a Beatles family, too, and he loved them as much as I did, and as much as our families did. We had every album in that first tiny apartment we shared, and when I found out for sure I was having a daughter we both agreed that Julia (named after the song, and John Lennon's Mother), was perfect. Her father sang her Blackbird when she was a baby, and we both sang Hey Jude to her on long car rides. Standing next to her singing along to both songs, and so many others, was incredible.

He played for three hours. He was amazing and emotional, and seemed to give so much to all of us. He spoke about Linda (the day he was there playing was the 11th year anniversary of her passing). He spoke about John (and played a song I hadn't heard since I was much younger, from a Paul McCartney album that I would take for days on end from my Mom and sing along to). He spoke about George (and played Something on the ukelele). He came out for three encores, and I truly believe he would have stuck around and played further into the night if the venue would have allowed it. This was the closest I'll ever come to seeing The Beatles, and I'm grateful for the experience. It was an unforgettable night, and really the best way to end my very first day at Coachella.

Hey Jude (live, Coachella 2009) ~ Paul McCartney
Something (live, Coachella 2009) ~ Paul McCartney

you and i, we're two of a kind

just another (video) ~ pete yorn

"i love to wear my work inside of my head,
i can’t complain,
but you should never react the way you did,
i feel your time.

you were lying wide awake in the garden,
trying to get over your stardom,
and i could never see you depart us
and you’re my baby…"

one of my all-time favorite songwriters is leonard cohen, if not my very most favorite ever. those who know me well know what his songs mean to me, and how particular songs of his have become interwoven into the very fabric of who i am. i know for certain that his music and lyrics, especially his lyrics, have fastened themselves so deeply into my soul that they filter and flutter out into the way i write, the stories i craft, and even in the way i express things such as love, loss, and wishes.

yorn wrote this song after hearing jeff buckley's cover of leonard cohen's song 'hallelujah', and was inspired to craft one of my favorite songs of his, just another. you can hear it in the first guitar chord strums, but you can also feel it in the meanings between the words, and in the way the melody and verse weave in and out of each other. the stories behind the songs, the muses and landscapes that move an artist, and the way the song becomes its own to the listener (my own stories to this song, they evolve, they flow, and definitely exist) are some of the reasons music means so much to me.

all of it fits back into my long-held belief that art begets art, and that music is the oxygen to nearly everything we create. i know, for me, everything i write has music infused and intertwined in every word and phrase. music is forever my muse, my solace, and my inspiration. i know it seeps into the way i feel, the way i love, the way i let go, and the way i express everything.

and this morning, for many reasons, this song...well it feels like everything to me.

love is not a victory march

i heard this song in the car this morning, driving into the morning sun, and sipping from my still too hot coffee. and the tears started. leave it to leonard cohen's words to always bring me to tears. it just happens, and i usually can't pinpoint the reason, or the actual memory the song loosens, and pushes out of me. i just wind up in tears. it happens, it just happens, everytime, with this song. it is usually these lines that do me in:

"love is not a victory march

it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.
hallelujah, hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah

there was a time you let me know

what's real and going on below

but now you never show it to me, do you?

i remember when i moved in you,

the holy dark was moving too

and every breath we drew was hallelujah"

hallelujah ~ rufus wainwright

book of longing

ah. that.

that's what i was so disturbed

about this morning:

my desire has come back, and i want you again.

i was doing fine,

i was above it all.

the boys and girls were beautiful

and i was an old man, loving everyone.

and now i want you again,

i want your absolute attention,

your underwear rolled down in a hurry

still hanging on one foot,

and nothing on my mind

but to be inside

the only place

that has

no inside,

and no outside.

book of longing ~ leonard cohen

blue songs on a grey day

something about hearing an abba song first thing in the morning makes me inexplicably happy, as does bob dylan following it with it's all over now, baby blue. sometimes the shuffle feature, and a cup of coffee, is enough to get me by. bob is singing tangled up in blue now. this is one of those songs that hits deep beneath the surface, a story that is not mine, but still resonates somehow. i would put it up there with famous blue raincoat as my storytelling musical favorites.

i would love to pen a story about jane. perhaps she met up with bob on the road, or in the topless bar; perhaps he wore a raincoat and gave her a rose before he left her that rainy morning. the rose, she pressed it between the pages of a well-worn copy of on the road, the one she tucked in every bag she took with her everywhere. it has a hole at the bottom, a seam that tore open on a bus up the coast, she patched it up with crimson thread.

now i wonder if there is a blue theme to my day. the sky outside the office window looks grey and overcast, one of those mornings that seem so bleak, but that everyone assures each other will burn off by the afternoon. i just sorted a playlist by the word blue. do you ever do that? pick a word and see what it brings? the blue songs bring to mind blue characters, blue from desert blue, blue from old school and how that became my younger brother's nickname when he went to university because he was older than his roommates. perhaps jane goes by the name azure when she dances at the topless place, a connection back to that blue raincoat, the last glimpse of him that she caught as the bus pulled away.

and this, my friends, is how my mind works.

it's all over now, baby blue ~ bob dylan