68. "And summers turn so fast, like everything I knew..."

I've mentioned my propensity to play--on exclusive repeat for days and days on end--particular songs that have managed to capture some beautiful kernel of truth that speaks to--and for--my spirit.

Well, surprise, surprise: it's happened again.

See, there's this band I just met.*

Loney, Dear--the electro-pop brainchild of Swedish songsmith Emil Svanängen--opened for the magnificent Andrew Bird last Wednesday.

And while I thought Andrew Bird was spell-binding, I have to say: I think Loney, Dear's music grabbed me in a more immediate and captivating fashion.

I hate to be the sap-addled chump that says, "Their music, like, totally spoke to me, man." But that, essentially, is what happened.

Nowhere was this connection more immediate, poignant, and compelling than on the song "Summers," a number with a haunting, achingly beautiful melody line that Svanängen taught the Orpheum audience to sing along to in spine-tingling fashion.

So buying the band's second (and newly-released) album--Dear John--was a complete no-brainer after Wednesday night. But I didn't expect "Summers" to so thoroughly engross me.

It's a wistful song, full of longing, full of regret. I'm still trying to make out the lyrics (Google has utterly failed me in attempting to discern what Svanängen is singing in his Swedish-tinged vocal), but what I'm hearing sounds, so far, like nothing short of a pitch-perfect encapsulation of the confusion, desire, and Ecclesiastical sense of fleetingness that factor quite prominently into the days leading up to my 28th birthday.

Unlike the role played for me by The National's "So Far Around the Bend," there's no life lesson to be gleaned here, no moment of moral clarity. "Summers" simply affirms and expresses the feelings and thoughts I have--a strange sort of musical intercessor, perhaps. It connects.

Well, that, and it's just brilliant, beautiful pop goodness.




*Jeez...how often have I uttered a variation of that statement, only to have it result in disastrous consequences? It's a good thing the same generally isn't true of musical infatuations.