"tallahassee," from tallahassee

(warm-up listen yields a scary, possibly personal-record-breaking 74 seconds of goosebumps)

"tallahassee" comes at the beginning of the album of the same name. whenever i hear a song from that album, i almost immediately have an itch to hear the whole thing, start to finish. it's not neuroses; these are just how stories work. at the onset, peace. no broken bottles! no marital trauma! no personal obliteration! can't hardly believe.

but then you come to know it as an album; you put on "tallahassee" and know the trouble ahead; it's poignant, almost, to hear how green and naive and unsuspecting the narrator sounds. i want to shake him. things are going to be ugly like on COPS, and you are going to come to know life as a totally different routine.

then, what with my nostalgia queasiness over the last couple days, i drift into replaying my own stories. the first song is cool! really. good beat. things get hairy after that. not bad, just hairy. but when i see the first few shots, i can't help but use history as a wax or a salve. nostalgia is a thing for the weak, but i sorta love weakness. doesn't everyone?

anyway, this pavlovian narrative thing is one of the reasons why tallahassee is sorta "the one" for me. even if i feel like i don't love every single song on it, i love feeling like i'm in a well-worn place with a beginning, middle, and end. and, the better i know it, the more i love anticipating those feelings i'm going to have--and the more i come to appreciate the feelings i don't expect.