I Need Mazzy Star
Music brings with it a rich mix of emotion, memory, and associations. So it’s not surprising that some music gets tied to seasons. Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants is a winter album. Beck’s Morning Phase belongs to a spring morning. Some albums are tied so closely to a specific week that they are inextricable, to think of one is to think of the other. Such it is with U2’s The Joshua Tree and my wife’s family’s annual trip to the desert of southern Utah, or Toad the Wet Sprocket’s Fear and my family’s trips to Bear Lake in eastern Idaho. Listening to these albums in their proper times is a reinforcement of the order of things. Listening to them at other times allows me to feel that experience in another time, another place.
And then there's Mazzy Star’s So That Tonight I Might See. The most well-known track off the album is Fade Into You and you can listen to it on YouTube.
For me this song isn't so much a season, or a week. It's a singular, specific experience, albeit one that repeated several times in my childhood. I listened to the song and tried to write down my thoughts, but I mostly fell asleep. So when I woke up I recorded the feeling as best I could.
Stultifying heat, unsuccessfully held at bay by closing the blinds, so that striped sunlight falls into the room. You are laying on the floor, too hot yet not uncomfortable, because you are almost asleep. the heat has slowed your thoughts, and you seem to only exist, you are no longer processing your emotions, just observing them as they flow past. Pain, regret, joy, peace, they all float and ripple in the haze of your half-dream, your mind in a state that can only be described as Mazzy.
And it's a welcome experience. It's a reminder that we don't need a perfectly air-conditioned house, we don't need bright, scintillating thoughts, we don't need to be up and doing every minute of the day. Sometimes it's okay to accept your circumstances, lay down, and simply let feelings wash over you like the slight breeze from the oscillating fan.
I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload. You can join in yourself by visiting 100 Days To Offload.
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