Category Archives: Brian Eno

FROM a Friend #001

Is this my beautiful house?

Is this my beautiful house?

I’ve decided that a central purpose of this blog will be this: the transparent and earnest exchange between friends.

So there you have it and here it is: the first recommendation from a friend here on Subanimal Sounds. This one comes from Julie Anne Reda (I remember her under an earlier name), whom I knew in college, and with whom I attended Gulf War symposiums, nature preserve lie-ins, and Saturday afternoon common room singalongs (often featuring U2′s “40″ and the entire oeuvre of the Waterboys). “Warm memories” are how I would describe those times.

Fifteen years of life later, together we look back one small year: one of Julie Anne’s favorite records of 2008 was “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” by Brian Eno and David Byrne. I happened to have “Life Is Long” in my iTunes library, so I will post it here. I hear a potential world to be drawn into here, and my interest is piqued (the names alone would do that), but I’m on the fence. I fear the song’s title promises more than the lyrics deliver. I remember a character from the movie Magnolia chanting “life is long” on his death bed, and depressives everywhere nodded in their guts… a little later I stole it myself and used it in a song. I hear a different message in this song. More measured, more instructional. Any thoughts out there? What does this album mean to you? Please share with us.

Brian Eno and David Byrne: Life Is Long

Flooded World

Just me and the water

Just me and the water

Without lyrics to entice exegesis, music can become anything you want it to be, and it reaches places you can’t touch. Tonight I will share with you four instrumentals from my library, each reaching separate itches that other songs won’t scratch. My places are different than yours, of course. Leave a comment and let us know what yours are.

1. I grew up in the rural part of rural Pennsylvania, where at night I’d hear trains from across the cornfield and I’d wake uneasily, remembering the trouble I had gotten into that day and how mad my Dad got.
Tindersticks: Vertrauen II

2. I’d try to fall back to sleep, and suddenly I’m floating on a flooded world, my twin-size bed the last life raft for me and my friend from school. I hold her hand gently, and we become best friends, ready to be lovers when we get old enough.
Brian Eno: Deep Blue Day

3. Older now, the same waters are imagined, and they’re inside out now. I’m the flood, and the world is a stone in my stomach. Joy is terrible and close.
My Bloody Valentine: Glider

4. I’m still the flood, but now I’m friends with the water. I look over the tops of the trees of the childhood forest, over the farmers’ fields, over the toy trains, and into the window of a rowhouse with warm light.
The Clientele: The Dance Of The Hours