Prompt: "A song about starting over"
Selected by Joe
"Woke Up New"
The Mountain Goats
Get Lonely, 2006
I logged some serious reps of this song back in the winter of 2008, in the wake of my first breakup. Which is very embarrassing, now that it's all of a sudden sixteen years later and that four-month relationship seems minuscule against the grand scope of a fully-lived life, especially given that this particular song (off the Mountain Goats' very sad breakup-themed album, 2006's Get Lonely) speaks to love and loss in ways that my puny freshman-year-old-college brain couldn't even begin to comprehend at that point, but, like, hey, let's also maybe have a little grace for the sad messy tortured boy of yesterday. It's undeniably true that on a cold February morning in 2008 I woke up a different person, and let's not pretend that just because the "big difference" was that my Facebook relationship status was changed makes it any less worthy of emotions spent.
"I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared" is the line that sticks with me after all this time, long after the burn of that heartbreak and one thousand others have faded with time. Probably due to the way the three key words juxtapose each other, how "free" is usually used in a positive sense, but in this particular scenario, it comes attached with unforeseen circumstances: with freedom comes loneliness and fear for the future.
I can apply this koan to anything I so choose. Let's say, for instance, I'm at a shitty job that's getting shittier. This is the same job I complained about in the opening gambit for the last song challenge, by the way, and in the intervening seven months, I've felt even more boxed in than I did at the re-beginning, and at this current juncture, am suffocating (figuratively speaking, with hyperbole for effect). There's a dim light at the end of this particular tunnel, but I'm scared of it, if I'm being honest. There's a very real probability that I'm going to be promoted at some point during this Yearlong Song Challenge, and the only thing worse than missing out on that opportunity would be nailing it, because I fear the unknown, and I don't know what a promotion would look like or feel like. There's that lingering fear that change will only make my life worse, like a slightly bigger paycheck will act like a monkey's paw and I'll... I don't know, what's the worst that could happen, say that I won't have as much time to blog anymore or whatever? Or, a more serious answer: less time with my family, and all the maudlin cliché stuff your working family man could spout in this space?
Take that cocktail of imposter syndrome and laziness and regret at feeling compelled to pursue a career that doesn't necessarily spark any joy, and stuff it deep, deep down.
I can apply it too to some new blog project. Say, one where we are going to spend the year discussing music, and then discussing the stuff that music makes us think about, and know, and feel. In this regard: welcome to the Yearlong Song Challenge, I'll be your editor-in-chief for the next 366 days. I'll also be writing some bullshit down in my own posts, and you're unfortunately gonna just have to withstand if for the time being. This is what brings me joy. And yes, also: freedom, and loneliness, and fear.
Free because I have stumbled into a space online in which I feel like myself, and feel like I can express who I really am and how I really feel, and I want to hold onto this space for as long as I fucking can.
I can apply this koan to anything I so choose. Let's say, for instance, I'm at a shitty job that's getting shittier. This is the same job I complained about in the opening gambit for the last song challenge, by the way, and in the intervening seven months, I've felt even more boxed in than I did at the re-beginning, and at this current juncture, am suffocating (figuratively speaking, with hyperbole for effect). There's a dim light at the end of this particular tunnel, but I'm scared of it, if I'm being honest. There's a very real probability that I'm going to be promoted at some point during this Yearlong Song Challenge, and the only thing worse than missing out on that opportunity would be nailing it, because I fear the unknown, and I don't know what a promotion would look like or feel like. There's that lingering fear that change will only make my life worse, like a slightly bigger paycheck will act like a monkey's paw and I'll... I don't know, what's the worst that could happen, say that I won't have as much time to blog anymore or whatever? Or, a more serious answer: less time with my family, and all the maudlin cliché stuff your working family man could spout in this space?
Take that cocktail of imposter syndrome and laziness and regret at feeling compelled to pursue a career that doesn't necessarily spark any joy, and stuff it deep, deep down.
I can apply it too to some new blog project. Say, one where we are going to spend the year discussing music, and then discussing the stuff that music makes us think about, and know, and feel. In this regard: welcome to the Yearlong Song Challenge, I'll be your editor-in-chief for the next 366 days. I'll also be writing some bullshit down in my own posts, and you're unfortunately gonna just have to withstand if for the time being. This is what brings me joy. And yes, also: freedom, and loneliness, and fear.
Free because I have stumbled into a space online in which I feel like myself, and feel like I can express who I really am and how I really feel, and I want to hold onto this space for as long as I fucking can.
Lonely because, yeah, I guess it's a lot of work too, and though it's worth it, there's that crushing sense that one gets at the beginning of something like this, so many unknowns, so many words left to be written and published, a whole body of work that exists now in the hypothetical and only through a long and occasionally arduous process will it come to fruition and exist here in the real world. For now: empty space, and a bunch of promises.
Scared because a year is a long time, and I don't know where I'll be on January 1, 2025, and I'm afraid that if my life gets worse, than this blog project will inadvertently track that downfall. Or: I'm scared because we're starting over with another Song Challenge, and I hate starting over, and I'm afraid that starting over here will become somehow symbolic of other ways in which I am forced to start over in my actual life outside of the blog. Mainly career, but who the fuck knows, man!
I attempt to address the fear by setting goals, and drawing limits. Here during the Yearlong Song Challenge, nestled in a bustling Blogspot blog in the year 2024, my personal creative goals look similar to last summer's. I want to share some good and interesting music. I want to share a variety of music, too, and not just focus on the same ol' players in this game I've been playing for fifteen years now. I want to write creatively, but efficiently. I want to use the songs I choose to act as creative writing prompts, and I want to keep sharp the ability to just sit down and type and let the requisite number of words flow and call it a day. New this year: I want to keep the word count down, and I want it to feel denser, and I want my words to actually mean something instead of doing that thing where it feels like I'm just circle-jerking my way toward 1000 words.
Mainly, I want to have fun in this space. That's the thing that keeps the fear at bay, in all honesty. Blogging is fun! I sincerely enjoy what we do here, and I'm exciting to cultivate this space and to keep it alive. What fear? We're just doing this for fun. Fear?! Jesus fucking christ.
Scared because a year is a long time, and I don't know where I'll be on January 1, 2025, and I'm afraid that if my life gets worse, than this blog project will inadvertently track that downfall. Or: I'm scared because we're starting over with another Song Challenge, and I hate starting over, and I'm afraid that starting over here will become somehow symbolic of other ways in which I am forced to start over in my actual life outside of the blog. Mainly career, but who the fuck knows, man!
I attempt to address the fear by setting goals, and drawing limits. Here during the Yearlong Song Challenge, nestled in a bustling Blogspot blog in the year 2024, my personal creative goals look similar to last summer's. I want to share some good and interesting music. I want to share a variety of music, too, and not just focus on the same ol' players in this game I've been playing for fifteen years now. I want to write creatively, but efficiently. I want to use the songs I choose to act as creative writing prompts, and I want to keep sharp the ability to just sit down and type and let the requisite number of words flow and call it a day. New this year: I want to keep the word count down, and I want it to feel denser, and I want my words to actually mean something instead of doing that thing where it feels like I'm just circle-jerking my way toward 1000 words.
Mainly, I want to have fun in this space. That's the thing that keeps the fear at bay, in all honesty. Blogging is fun! I sincerely enjoy what we do here, and I'm exciting to cultivate this space and to keep it alive. What fear? We're just doing this for fun. Fear?! Jesus fucking christ.
Okay, so, here we go. Starting over. Again. I woke up this morning, and I felt free, and I felt lonely, and I felt scared, and I face the new day, and the new beginning, with courage and with excitement and hope.
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