September 26, 2015
Its 3am on a cool, rainy night, you look out of your windshield and see street lights and cars distorted through the water in your windshield. The feeling is hard to describe, there's a certain eeriness to it but it draws you in...the world is asleep and you are a lone passenger...it feels philosophical, dreamlike, somehow loosely nostalgic.
There are a few artists that create music that embodies this feeling, and in my opinion it is one of the greatest achievements in songwriting. Artists that capture this feeling inspire a peace inside the listener that makes them content to sit and think, introspect, and for a brief moment exit a stressful, unrelenting world. Here is a list of artists I think capture this feeling.
If you find yourself driving at night, watching a sunset, or wanting to escape, put one of these albums on repeat and you'll find yourself getting lost in them and listening all the way through. The feeling is a hard one to come by, but when you feel it you know it. These artists interplay emotions of awe, passion, and loneliness into an almost worshipful vibe that never fails to make me relax and just take time to recharge and think. I wrote this last year at a place in my life when I really needed and sought this feeling in an attempt to capture what it meant to me...
MY STEEL TEMPLE:
I pass from a chaotic world into a steel temple.
A busied commuter's cage ironically,
Unleashes my mind and eases my struggle.
For when days come and challenge emotionally,
To the steel temple I come, my soul undone.
From the dim florescent luminescence,
To the mellifluous quiet sounds my spirit one.
I yearn for the journey's surreal transcendence,
A mobile holder of bards new and thoughts lofty, divine.
To this temple I write, though oddly out of sight,
My reason for fulfillment, such a peculiar shrine.
Maybe an environment for fostered thoughts at night,
Is what drives my mind to the beauty of silence,
Of a mobile cage, while not incarcerating,
Merely a vessel for my thoughts quite violent.
Here's to the long road, thought inducing,
Which clears my mind, restless, unceasing.
God, I bid You thanks for providing a space,
A steel temple for peace unending,
So simple and surreal, an odd space to find your grace.
There's something special about the times where you realize the vastness of the world, your place in it, and imagine what your life has in store. Sometimes these moments just hit you like déjà vu, and sometimes I think they come along because something or someone inspires you. I truly believe that artists have the potential to catalyze these moments in out lives and I think that this odd feeling that is so hard to describe is essential to our human experience.
One thing I want to leave you with is a definition from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows- "a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for." Koenig gives a brilliant word...
I hope that this feeling of the 3am car ride isn't just an exulansis, but something that is shared by all and I hope if you have felt this feeling before but thought you were alone, you are not. Find purpose, question things, discuss ideas, and never stop growing.
Like, comment, and share if you enjoyed this post!