Because of the size of my music collection, each week I randomly select a release from it to revisit on an ad hoc basis. It gives me the inspiration to get back to things I may not have listened to for a while, relisten albums I may not have spent much time with in the past, and lightly re-evaluate. So I'm going to try and post a little something each week about my revisits.
"Dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news: You are going to make it out of there alive. You will live to tell your story. Never lose hope."
The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle was a survivor himself, and following the passing of his abusive step-father he wrote and recorded The Sunset Tree (2005), where he processed the convoluted and complicated feelings of relief and sadness by way of personal anecdotes, diary-like memory lane trips and internal reflection. It's a beautiful, powerful album, dark in content but rarely in mood as Darnielle avoids the abyss and utilises melody and counterweight to balance his songs. One of the Mountain Goats' standouts.
I indulged my sad music nerd side by creating a ragtag mix CD for this year's Confuzzled, which I handed around to everyone who wanted it (and left copies of in the random junk table). The theme of my mix was "songs of togetherness", a celebration of belonging after many of us returning to conventions with CFz '22 after the COVID break, and I included the survivor anthem "This Year" (embedded below) in it not because of its actual literal meaning but because for me it symbolised the general strength to keep going when things were bleak during the lockdowns and the triumphant return undefeated and full of brightness that the pandemic couldn't vanquish. Just read the Youtube comments and you can see how it's become a communal anthem of inspirational defiance against the worst that life can throw at you.