We Will Ne'er Be Broken Hearted
This song has the power to change your life.
The ratio of songs in existence to songs that can change your life is something like 1 : 100,000,000,000,000,000 [I wish this keyboard had an infinity symbol].
You have to trust me on this song though. No matter what genre of music is your favorite this song can speak to you. Every time I've seen Ted Leo perform live with his Pharmacists he has ended his sets with "Biomusicology" which is easily his greatest song to date. The beginning of this song is like the grayest day imaginable giving way to a blazingly beautiful sun. That sun casts shimmering light all over the puddles and wet grass and presents you with enough beauty to fill you up 'til you can't help but smile a bit. Ted Leo knows how shitty this capitalist existence can be,
"Or come to find
that loving is labor,
Labor's life and life's forever -
Or come to see
that keeping's not giving,
You get what you've given,
you get what you deserve;"
he understands how meaningless life can seem on this backdrop of concrete and pavement and how hard it can be to breathe in this consumer-driven nightmare. Yet Mr. Leo offers a gleaming light at the end of the seemingly perpetual tunnel. "Oed und leer, das meer," Leo quotes Wagner's Tristan and Isolde/T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland". The translation is "the desolate and empty sea". Ted gives us a chance to find happiness though, "look beneath the glassy surface. All the songs you hear down there they have a purpose." Music has the power to improve our lives astronomically. It is why I write in this blog and share these songs. It is why some people are still alive. I cannot imagine who I would be without much of the music I've listened to. "All these songs down there they have a purpose." Beneath this seemingly barren wasteland of a world there are things -- not necessarily just music -- that make life unbelievably worth living. I think of [to paraphrase Morrissey and The Smiths] all the songs that made me cry and the songs that saved my life. I think Ted really sums up the power of music with the final powerful stanza,
"All in all,
We cannot stop singing.
We cannot start sinking.
We swim until it ends.
They may kill
and we may be parted
but we will ne'er be broken-hearted."
If we never stop singing we can "swim" through this "vast sea" that is life. It's an empowering song and is easily one of the most inspiring tracks I have ever heard. Let it invade your mind for weeks and then join me in seeing Ted Leo in May at the Avalon. I can guarantee you he will play this song and it will give you mad chills.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Biomusicology
The ratio of songs in existence to songs that can change your life is something like 1 : 100,000,000,000,000,000 [I wish this keyboard had an infinity symbol].
You have to trust me on this song though. No matter what genre of music is your favorite this song can speak to you. Every time I've seen Ted Leo perform live with his Pharmacists he has ended his sets with "Biomusicology" which is easily his greatest song to date. The beginning of this song is like the grayest day imaginable giving way to a blazingly beautiful sun. That sun casts shimmering light all over the puddles and wet grass and presents you with enough beauty to fill you up 'til you can't help but smile a bit. Ted Leo knows how shitty this capitalist existence can be,
"Or come to find
that loving is labor,
Labor's life and life's forever -
Or come to see
that keeping's not giving,
You get what you've given,
you get what you deserve;"
he understands how meaningless life can seem on this backdrop of concrete and pavement and how hard it can be to breathe in this consumer-driven nightmare. Yet Mr. Leo offers a gleaming light at the end of the seemingly perpetual tunnel. "Oed und leer, das meer," Leo quotes Wagner's Tristan and Isolde/T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland". The translation is "the desolate and empty sea". Ted gives us a chance to find happiness though, "look beneath the glassy surface. All the songs you hear down there they have a purpose." Music has the power to improve our lives astronomically. It is why I write in this blog and share these songs. It is why some people are still alive. I cannot imagine who I would be without much of the music I've listened to. "All these songs down there they have a purpose." Beneath this seemingly barren wasteland of a world there are things -- not necessarily just music -- that make life unbelievably worth living. I think of [to paraphrase Morrissey and The Smiths] all the songs that made me cry and the songs that saved my life. I think Ted really sums up the power of music with the final powerful stanza,
"All in all,
We cannot stop singing.
We cannot start sinking.
We swim until it ends.
They may kill
and we may be parted
but we will ne'er be broken-hearted."
If we never stop singing we can "swim" through this "vast sea" that is life. It's an empowering song and is easily one of the most inspiring tracks I have ever heard. Let it invade your mind for weeks and then join me in seeing Ted Leo in May at the Avalon. I can guarantee you he will play this song and it will give you mad chills.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Biomusicology
posted by Astro Boy | 5:20:00 PM
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