drinking wine alone isn't sad, it's romantic.

I've been driving around a lot lately,  listening to music and thinking a lot, and I just want to get a few things off my chest before I forget.

Also, I've just had a couple glasses of wine so I'm feeling pretty chatty.

...also, I just need to add that I didn't just drink and drive...I wouldn't do that.

...also, drinking wine alone isn't sad, it's romantic.

OK...here we go.

I know it's selfish of me to think this way but the more I think about it, the more I know it to be true.  I've been listening to a lot of songs that mean a great deal to me and the more I get sucked into a song, the more alone and sad I feel because I don't think anyone could possibly be this affected (and yes, I mean affected not effected) by music.  I know its fucking cheesy and I know I'm going to look back at this post tomorrow and cringe but for now I need to word vomit and get this out of my head and move on.

I'll start naming off songs:

Idris Muhammad - Loran's Dance
I can't remember when I first heard this song but I really listened to it for the first time last year around spring.  I had just pulled over and started to gather my wallet and the things I needed to get breakfast at D3.  This song was playing and I was paralyzed until it was over and it was the first time in a long time that a song was so captivating that it brought me to tears.  It's a fucking instrumental so I don't think it was meant to be melancholy but in that moment it was just what I needed and the most beautiful thing I had ever heard (or had heard in a long, long time).

I snuck it into the Apartment Tour video I did with Austin Leis and was kinda bummed that no one had mentioned anything about how beautiful this song is cause people always bring up the topic of music.  Oh well.

In any case, my buddy Nate Cole (I have 2 buddies with the exact same name) has this album on vinyl and was playing clips of it on his Instagram stories and I was so happy for a moment because I didn't feel so alone.  Cause in that moment I thought "maybe he gets choked up every time he hears this song too" or "maybe this song has the same exact meaning to the both of us---isn't that amazing and beautiful?"

And then I got upset cause it hit me that maybe it doesn't mean the same thing to him at all.  I realized that this is a fucking instrumental and can be interpreted in any way.  And what if to him, this song is for cleaning the house or for watering his plants.  What if it's just background music?  What if he never even listened to it all the way through cause it's a long ass song.  I don't know why this makes me so sad but it truly does.

Alright, I just graduated to my next glass of wine so here is where it gets lighter...

On the topic on long ass instrumentals that don't really have a real meaning cause instrumentals can be interpreted anyway...Queen St. Gang 'Arazachel' always reminds me of a 90s pop song in a film like The Beach or something were its the closing scene and you're driving away, off into the sunset or whatever but now that I'm really listening to it, I would kill to know how they interpreted it.  It's obviously not about Leo D driving off into the sunset.  It's probably not even about driving anywhere for that matter.  Oh fuck...there are so many ways to interpret this song.  It pains me to know that I am completely wrong here.

Funkadelic - I'll Stay and The RH Factor - I'll Stay (same song, different meaning?)
I really listened to the Funkadelic version of this song spring of last year when Ian and I were on a bike ride through Joshua Tree and I had it blasting on repeat into my earbuds.  I've never felt an attachment to the guitar before...always thought it to be a cheesy instrument.  I dated a guy once who used to serenade me with gentle guitar strums in the AM and lets just say it didn't work out cause it was too fucking much for me.  I just can't even make eye contact with that amount of cheese.  Either way---this though, is so painfully anxiety ridden...I can't get enough of it.

Again, I don't remember how but The RH Factor version of this song showed up and it completely changed the meaning of this song for me.  Suddenly, everything I thought this song was about changed and this is so much more heart breaking in a sense.

See, when I heard the first version, I could've sworn this song was about a woman who is cheating on a man who loves her so much he'll put up with it cause he thinks it's just a phase and she just needs to mature.  The second version though is so clear to me that it's about a woman who's addicted to some substance she'll leave for days and do questionable things just to not have to substitute this addition.  I could be completely wrong---it may not be about either of those things at all.  What a fool I am if it ain't.

Rotary Connection - I Am The Black Gold of the Sun
The more I think about it, the more stupid I feel.  I guess I just love Broadway/musical theater voices...maybe even more than I like "super Vegas Tom Jones voices".  I know its so so painfully cheesy but I always sing along at the top of my lungs and blast it in the comfort of my Prius... alone, driving in the mundane LA traffic.  Is it racist if I'm not even black?  Either way, this group has some catchy ass sing-alongs.  'Life Could' is bomb too.

On the topic of "musical theater voices", singing along to Eugene McDaniels 'Cherrystones' is so much fun.  He's got phenomenal vocal variety.  Also, 'Jagger The Dagger' has to be one of the most difficult songs to sing a long to.

Frankie Valli - The Night
I didn't know then but I know now but I first heard this song about a decade ago when I was going through the most difficult relationship and personal emotional problems---it was giving me so much anxiety and I had to cope.  I was at dinner with my employees at Mesa and the DJ put this song on and it was the first song I had ever really listened to the first time I heard it.  I hope I'm making sense...I'm on my 4th glass of wine.  I don't even know how to explain "listening" vs. "hearing"...it's like when you're working a thankless retail job and the client starts to tear up cause their decision fatigue hinders them from picking one impulse to the next and you...well, you are dying inside because your friend had just been killed in a car wreck the day before and you have to "check your attitude at the door".  You hear them when they speak and fake empathy but you just can't connect.

Woah, this got dark quick---word vomit went too far.  SEE YA