Half two AM, new keyboard, no tiredness

A strange thing happened perhaps two, three days ago.
I ejected the CD I had been listening to in my car and as per usual, the radio came on. I leave it permanently on the most inoffensive independent station possible so that if I can’t avoid hearing something being broadcast, it’s certain not to be pop drivel.

I actually got to pushing in the next CD but I thought for a moment and then hit the FM button. After a few seconds I dug out my phone and ran it through Sound Hound, lo and behold, it returned to me:

Patty Griffin – Ohio, from American Kid.

For a fair while I had been trying to figure out who Lisa Miskovsky reminded me of and initially I thought it was Karen Carpenter which at this moment I can’t recall just how much Lisa may or may not sound like.
Nevertheless, it ends up that I should have thought of Patty Griffin all along.

I don’t think it’s because I’m getting old, or rather not just because I’m getting old, more that… hmmm. Here’s my theory.

I have plenty of down tempo and particularly melancholy music in my collection, most of it recent, recent meaning in the last ten years or so. Now American Kid was released this year, but Patty’s sound reaches far back into the roots of American folk and country music. It’s steeped in a tradition of isolation, heartbreak, earnest love and a beautiful entanglement in the land and its history, indeed, and the history of its people.

I was born on a beach in Melbourne, Australia so I have no deep ties to the patch of land in North America, but some things are universal, and I find the emotions and moods, atmospheres and many ideologies at the centre of this particular kind of folk/country music are particularly powerful for me.

Do they bring about a sensation of… being aged? Aged by the music? Or perhaps some kind of recognition in cellular memory, translating and appreciating this traditional sound to match the moods my chemicals and thought processes are generating as I age, or as my experiences age me.

I’ve spent so much time driving alone, and I’ve always marvelled at this wonderful music that seems to touch the land itself and celebrate each isolated individual who crawls across its surface. Great expanses, quiet, sleepy towns – I can feel that kind of thing even driving through the city this evening after having bought the album earlier today.

I must say that I’m quite proud of myself that in a 48 hour period, I’ve listened to two discs of progressive trance circa 2010, a compilation of super frenetic alternative rock, an orchestral film score and now some folk-rock/country. Having a music palate capable of broad taste is precisely like having the same for food, each taste – though at times wildly varying, compliments all others. There is so much emotion, so much wisdom to be had in music.

I have addressed my problematic keyboard and am now flying along with a new zero degree Logitech as I should have for all this time. It’s not a diNovo as they don’t have number pads so unfortunately I don’t get that super solid metallic heft and feel, but this is the next best thing to it. It’s also illuminated, which is almost entirely redundant as a touch typist, but one must have one’s indulgences. It’ll help me find those pesky characters in the dark that I rarely use, like ^.

I had two consecutive nights of good rest, and that seems to have been cancelled this evening for whatever reason. It’s ten to three in the morning and I’m wide awake. Alas, I also have not had time to buy more scotch.

I’m going to have a shower and see if I can clean myself to sleep. Stranger things have happened.