365 project"give me good legs, and a japanese car, and show me a road"

96.

artist:iron & wine
album:the Shepard's dog

imagine taking a 9 hour road trip with one CD. imagine that at the end of that nine hours in the car, you see the band that you just listened to in the car for nine hours, and then imagine having to drive nine hours home with that same one CD. would you ever listen to that album again?

for me, thankfully, the band that in question was iron & wine, and the album was Shepard's dog, which was one that i had been anticipating for quite some time. ill talk about seeing them at bonnaroo in another entry, because that is definitely something worthy of its own time. but i can distinctly remember being on the way home from 'roo, sitting in a traffic jam on the side of a mountain where we were more or less in three states at once, and putting this CD on for the umpteenth time that trip, and being happy about it.

i love iron & wine. i adore everything that Sam beam has ever written or sang or created. i don't think that i have the ability to dislike anything this man has done. it is perfection on plastic (or wax) and i believe that this album might be my favorite, even after listening to it for a million times in one weekend.

the song above is called "carousel" and its one of those songs that just ends up being played on repeat for hours because of the way that it makes me feel. I've been thinking a lot lately about the way that music makes me feel both mentally and physically. i did my senior thesis on the effects of music on our psyche, but i think its so much deeper than that. i often put myself out there in this blog, saying things that might make me seem insane, but that's what its here for...i think the best way to get to know me is by the music i listen to...i actually find that true of most people i meet. at any rate, i believe honestly that we can physically feel music as much as we do emotionally. when i hear a song that i really love, much like the one posted above, my heart beats faster and i can feel a twang where the music is connecting to me. i cant figure out how to put that feeling into words, but hopefully someone else out there knows what I'm talking about.

this is another band that i fully endorse. if you are in the mood for some good sitting-on-the-porch-drinking-iced-tea-on-a-summer-Saturday kind of band, this is it. absolutely.