Resurrected: Too Much Talking

The Thread That Keeps Us, by Calexico (2018)

All Kinds Musick is almost a year old! Here is an early post, resurrected from the archives.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that we have been feeling pushed apart for a long time. We can all point to a different time or event that seems to be when things started to slide into chaos, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to tame that chaos and find a way back to some sense of “normal.” (Especially given that “normal” wasn’t that great for a lot of us.)

Fortunately, there are artists out there with a knack for addressing our fears and giving us art that can help us get past them.

Calexico has been there for us for a couple of decades, but their 2018 album feels especially suited to this era we’re dealing with.

Calexico

The Thread That Keeps Us (via YouTube Music)

If you aren’t familiar with them, Calexico are a band from Tucson, Arizona, with roots in rock, country, and Latin genres. They’ve been together since 1996 and have released two collaboration albums with Sam Beam of Iron & Wine (both of which are worth checking out). And if you dive into liner notes, you can find members of the band appearing on all kinds of interesting records, working with people like

Neko Case

and the guys from Los Lobos.

The songs on The Thread That Keeps Us are varied but united by a few key themes. The album opens with “The End of the World with You” which manages to sound hopeful and apprehensive at the same time. The lyrics hint at some kind of cataclysmic event, placing the singer in a post-apocalyptic landscape with someone they are grateful to have around. You can fill in the blanks as you like - are they lovers? Strangers? It doesn’t matter, because they’re in it together.

From there, the songs bounce back and forth between edgy bangers, dusty ballads, and stories from the small-town lives that make the best of things when the “machine” moves on. “Under the Wheels” (see above) sketches out what that machine looks like and hints at who it is. Whether your unsettling feelings about the world we’re enduring are based in reality or not, we all feel that same sense of dread that forces beyond our understanding at work, and probably aren’t concerned with our well-being. But the real danger is captured in that line:

I wanted to hear what you had to say

But there was too much talking over...each other

~”Under the Wheels”

Not that Calexico will offer any easy answers for dealing with that. Nobody does. All we can do is face those around us and deal with them.

My neighbor Miss Lorraine commands
The town's attention when she wants
She has a way of making everyone she meets
Feel lost and alone with no direction home

~The Town and Miss Lorraine

For all that we have heard about the “machine” that wants to crush us, the thing that gets under our skin is the neighbor who doesn’t listen. The neighbor sharing wild conspiracy theories on NextDoor, the gossip complaining to everyone about your dog but never talking to you about it, the introvert who hides from you in their home and blames you for their isolation.

That’s where the real danger lies. Indulging in the sense that others hate us, feeding into our paranoia, and leading us to push them away, only managing to fuel their paranoia. It’s a dangerous dance, set to a soft and gentle waltz about a proud lady.

Any great songwriter knows how to build and release tension. Each song functions well on its own, but they also contribute to the whole, leading somewhere we should have been from the beginning. Each is their own story, but the stories fit together and ratchet things up until we hear the central theme in the Pixies-influenced cry of “Eyes Wide Awake”:

Eyes wide awake so much at stake
I'm frozen in place need to see your face
The lost and the damned, we'll find our way
But something out there keeps blowing back
Keeps blowing back, blowing back like the wind

Whatever it is that is blowing back is something that we have to resist. Like the wind, there’s nothing there to attack or hit, there’s nothing to shoot or punch. You can’t expect it to subside. All you can do is press into it and keep going. The alternatives aren’t any better.

And where is it that we’re going? Where should we have been all this time? What is it that we need to say to our neighbor, whether they are the Machine or Miss Lorraine?

I want you to know

This song’s for you

And I want you to know

That I love you.

~”Music Box”

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I hope you’ll check out The Thread That Keeps Us, and let me know what you think.

And let me know if you’re curious about other music that you’d like to explore. Better yet, tell a friend so we can explore together!