Hard Wounds

We were too tired to fight.
Too close to death to dig out of the cave
We'd holed up in.
We laid our limbs down,
Stacked upon each other
Like sticks for a fire.
And darling, we did burn,
Brighter in the cold and
Deeper in our hearts.
With our Oedipus hands
We took such sharp knives to each others eyes.
I thought we'd never learn to see again.
And when the devil's work was done,
The lull came.
It was such a terrible stillness,
Each of us weary and indifferent to movement.
Now the moon in all her lonely beauty watches us
As we still sit here,
In this darkness,
Eyes bleeding out and yearning to feel the morning,
Or just anything but this.

"But don't forget the songs that made you cry and the songs that saved your life..."

This isn't a list of my favorite songs that came out this year, but the songs that had the most meaning for me in 2011.


The Ticonderoga -Bowerbirds
"Old friend, give me back my hands. I'm the crutch that's missing, and you're the crippled little lamb. Those claws will get you; those teeth will take your life, but you wont know what's missing. This gift ain't giving. This wolf ain't worth the fight"

I remember listening to this song over and over for several days straight sometime in January. It was at a time when i felt i needed to say goodbye to someone who had a very present role in my life and it really moved something in me.

About Today (Live Version) -The National
"Tonight you just close your eyes and I just watch you slip away"

This song has always been such a simple and beautiful song to me that I've felt so vividly and it sang me to sleep many nights last winter. It's about the end of something being near, and knowing it.


Last Of The Famous International Playboys -Morrissey
"I never wanted to kill/ I am not naturally evil/ Such things I do/ Just to make myself more attractive to you/ Have I failed?"

I just love this song, through and through. Any time I hear it i lose myself in it and forget whatever happens to be on my mind and I end up belting it out. And probably dramatically dancing too. There were many times this year when i just wanted to forget things for a few minutes and put this song on. It also reminds me of a very dear friend who has a similar reaction to it.

New Orleans -Former Ghosts
"If you leave this city/ Take me with you/ Or don't look back"

I used to listen to this song laying on the floor of my dorm room until my roommate would come home and tell me to cut it out and "stop listening to that song, it isn't helping you". She was right, i eventually stopped listening to it but for a period of time last winter I'd sulk inside of that song.

Barnacles -Ugly Casanova
"I don't know me and you don't know you/ So we fit so good together 'cause i knew you like i knew myself/ We clung on like barnacles on a boat/ Even though the ship sinks you know you can't let go."

Knowing something isn't working but not being able to let go. I've had such trouble with that and it influenced a lot in 2011. This song always got to me.


Just Like Heaven -The Cure

"You/ Soft and only/ You/ Lost and lonely/ You/ Strange as angels/ Dancing in the deepest oceans/ Twisting in the water/ You're just like a dream..."

This song. It was the eye of the storm for me. I'm not sure if I love the song or what I associate with it more. There was a time last spring where listening to this song made me so happy but I can't listen to it anymore because it is reminder of what has been lost.

The EP -Owen

I couldn't pick just one song off of Owen's The EP. I remember a lot of special nights that happened with Owen as the soundtrack and I hope I never forget those nights.

From Russia With Love -Fences
"Somewhere there's an in between place/ A place where my face hasn't been erased"

I don't think there's anything special to me about the song itself but more of the memory attached to it. A night last spring when i wanted to get away from everything was spent in the back of my car with the heater on and that song stuck on repeat. I loved that night.

Atlantic City -Bruce Springsteen

"Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold/ but with you forever I'll stay/ We're goin' out where the sands turnin' to gold/ so put on your stockin's cause the night's gettin' cold/ and maybe everything dies/ That's a fact but maybe everything that dies someday comes back"

This song is so hauntingly beautiful to me and it's my favorite Springsteen song. This summer I listened to it for three 24 hour periods and i sat and played it on my guitar for countless hours. There were some dark days this summer where i rested in the arms of that song. I don't believe I'll ever wear that song out.

Lucky Clover Coin -Rocky Votolato
"There's a world I wanna leave behind/ Where a sunset in a constant bloody winter/ Gives the only light"

There was a night this fall when my old ghosts got to me more than they usually do and someone very dear to me played this song for me and this song will always remind me of them/that night.

Do I Wait -Ryan Adams

"I could stay forever if I tried/ surrounded by things like a shadow in the light."

Ryan Adams is an artist who has meant something substantial to me since I was sixteen years old and sorting out all sorts of confusion. When Ashes and Fire came out this year I was a little aprehensive about it. The whole album could've been absolutely terrible but i wouldn't have cared, this song would've made it wonderful. There isn't anything remarkable about this song, it touched on something that was very real to me at the time. I couldn't stop listening to it.

I Don't Want To Grow Up -Tom Waits
"When I'm lyin' in my bed at night/ I don't wanna grow up/ Nothin' ever seems to turn out right/ I don't wanna grow up/ How do you move in a world of fog/ That's always changing things/ Makes me wish that I could be a dog/ When I see the price that you pay/ I don't wanna grow up/ I don't ever wanna be that way/ I don't wanna grow up"

I don't want to grow up. I don't. And there's somethign beautiful about an old man who is still saying that.

Sister K -Kelli Schaefer

"It might seem like we've no use for nostalgia/ I think you're right/ So we pull the anchor plot the course."

Kelli Schaefer's 'Ghost Of The Beast' came out this summer and it ended up being one of my favorite albums of 2011. There isn't a song on that album that I don't love. This song encouraged me to try to let go of something that I wanted to cling to and felt very sentimental about.

The Gaslight Anthem/The Horrible Crowes

These two bands, I don't even know where to start. Everything that TGA has done and 'Elsie' have been the soundtrack to my year. This is not the time or the place for me to express my love for TGA but it is there.

Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes/Monsters of Folk

I liked Bright Eyes back in highschool but Conor's writing took on a whole new importance to me this year. A lot of what he's written became very meaningful to me because of where I was at in life philosophically, spiritually and emotionally. His voice became a dear friend to me through many sleepless nights.









This was more for me than for you.

Set This On Fire

So I guess I'm supposed to forget
About you.
Is that what people who once remembered each other
Do once they decide they don't want to
Remember each other anymore?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
Maybe it's one of those things that's
Supposed to "get better in time".
Bullshit.
How can the loss of someone who once
Lived in the spaces between your breaths ever be reconciled?
Someone who unpacked the cardboard boxes
In your heart.

You let the sunlight in and it felt like
An honest to goodness smile.
The kind that can't be forced, it just
Knows how to spread itself out.
You woke me up.
You were ice water on my face in the
Groggy morning.
An urgent dream that struck me with a
Beautiful fear.
And the hushed but present glory of it
All was you didn't even have to try.
You left your seal on my letter of a
Heart and I will never be quite the same.
I suppose I should thank you for that.
But I can't talk to a ghost
And there are no ears to hear on the
Cold side of a bed.

Winter's Widow

I listen to those sad poets as my brain melts
And what are left are thoughts of the only one
And he is gone.

The sun shining on the back of a neck.
Tired eyes and tired breath
Wrapped up in the sheets of a summer nest.
Grass stains from lying outdoors for too long.
Words and ideas, shared and exchanged,
Lit by the glow of a dashboard.
Time did not know us and we paid him no mind.
One human hand stitched upon another human hand.
Pressed so firmly but still with a gentleness
That the smallest of the animals would understand.
I would hold you at the worlds breaking if it came to that.

The small grains of sand pushed their fists up to hold us safe,
The ocean beat against itself,
Singing at our feet while we read the minds of those older than us.
Minds who have walked and thought and braved it all
Far longer than us, then dared to write about it.

I remember when the twang of country music
Swept over our heads and you held me close
Amidst the swirling whirlpool of others.
We had such awkward steps
But it didn’t matter,
My heart was exploding.
My God, it was so real.
I never wanted to be anywhere else.

I thought it was the earth’s trembling causing
My knees to shake like this
But it was the world inside of me
and I had lost control.
I tried to hide it,
cover it up with a mound of dirt and stone,
My own burial ground.
But instead it broke and flooded over.
What is truly tender cannot appear to be hardened forever.
And now the streets are sinking with the weight of it.
And I may drown,
But dear, I would drown for nothing less.

June On The West Coast

I'm no singer, or guitar player, but i haven't been able to rid myself of this song all day.

I said i never wanted to take prisoners.
But here they are
Lined up like corn in the field begging
For their sickle
Rotting in disbelief
I am frozen in fear
The not knowing
The inexperience
My blundering stupidity.
Yet this soil is mine
Those were my seeds
And I paid dearly for them
Heartbroken kernels.
And these are the calloused hands
That tend this field
I never left its side
I would cut you loose,
But I'm no reaper.

Under Our Hearts

These dreams, these capes.
What we fear most is twisting our arms
And tying them in bows behind our backs
To leave us in the despondent streets.
A rotting gift for some poor hero to find and unwrap in horror
As the truth slips out.
Then we will know.
Then we will stand motionless at the oceans edge.
And only dark will be left.
And these dreams that we dream so well
These capes that rest on our shoulders,
blades and scales on our backs.
They will rule supreme
And be the black truth,
The leather fist at our throats.