A celebration of mewithoutYou

Yesterday, as I was driving home from work I was listening to one of my favorite bands, mewithoutYou, and I had an idea for what I want this blog to be. That idea is, "a celebration of life and all the things that make it worthwhile." So periodically, I'd like to take one thing that I love and try to communicate why I love it as I did with Philip Seymour Hoffman in my last post.

Me Without You has a new record coming out and its produced by the unlikely Daniel Smith of Danielson Family fame. I read a little of the press for the record and it seems that singer Aaron Weiss has given up his normal M.O. of talk-yelling for full time singing on this one. Honestly, that kind of scares me because that's one of the things that I think sets MWY apart. However, I want to say that I have nothing but high hopes for this record, and I believe in this band. And by that I mean that I think that they are genuine, and honest artists, and genuine, honest artists tend to consistently make genuine, honest art. (I know that I don't actually know them and there is an inherent level of BS when you try to judge a person by their art alone.)

I don't want to belittle their music because its fantastic and epic in all the right places, but I don't think its any secret that their most notable strength is in Aaron's "stream of consciousness" lyrics. While said lyrics are unabashedly Christian, and I am not, the truth is that great lyrics are great lyrics. He's introspective as hell and never overly preachy. Here are some of my favorite pieces:

"My exit, unobserved, my homesickness, absurd,I said 'Water,' expecting the word would satisfy my thirst!Talking all about the second and third when I haven't understood the first." - from My Exit, Unfair

"Why pluck one string?

What good is just one note?

Oh, one string sounds fine I guess, and we were once 'one notes'.

We were lonely wheat, quietly ground into grain (What light and momentary pain!)

So why this safe distance, this curious look?

Why tear out single pages when you can throw away the book?

Why pluck one string when you can strum the guitar?" - from Torches Together

"You were a song I couldn't sing, caught like a bear by the bees with its hand in the hive

who complains of the pain of the sting when I'm lucky I got out alive!

A life at best left half behind, the taste of the honey still sweet on my tongue, and I'd run (Lord knows I've tried) but there's no place on Earth I can hide from the wrong I've done." - from Nice & Blue pt. 2

"She was grace and green as a stem,

but I walk heavy on delicate ground

(...There I go showing off again, self impressed by how well I can put myself down!!

and there I go again, to the next further removed level of that same exact feigned humility!!!)

[this for me goes on and on to the point of nausea]

Shadow am I!

Like suspicion that's never confirmed but it's never denied.

Wolf am I!

(No, "shadow" I think is better,as I'm not something, more like the absence of something)" - from Wolf Am I

"I half-heartedly explained but gave up peacefully ashamed as a glass can only spill what it contains.

We went to Portugal and Spain and in her mind the entire time it rained!

A glass can only spill what it contains.

What new mystery is this?

In overflowing emptiness, the Invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist.

Before my doubting eyes the Infinite appears in time-the Unquestionable is questioned but makes no reply!" - from A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains

And lets not forget that the first time I saw them live, they blew my effing head off.