I put the headphones on and played the sampler from the latest issue of Paste, and there turned out to be one of those songs, the sort that stick in your head and insist on being listened to again and again. It's called Chinese Translation (though it seems to me to have nothing to do with China aside from being about cryptic advise from a sage or hermit which is sometimes a theme of Chinese poetry), and it's by this guy, who I vaguely recall seeing on Letterman's show a couple of weeks ago when I was being dazed and muddled and comprehending even less of whatever was happening than I am now.
So I put the song on repeat and it's been going into my head for quite a while. I'm not even sure what there is about it that made me want to put it on repeat. Maybe it did something to my head when I half heard it on the television that night. Perhaps this is evidence that it is unwise to have the television on when one is less than fully mindful. But it doesn't sound like the sort of song that would usually capture my interest. I'm thinking perhaps it's got another song hidden inside it. It devoured some other song, and that's what I'm hearing. Maybe it's based on the chord changes of a song I already know, but I can't figure out what that song might be. Weird.
M.Ward's Letterman appearance is available at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xFp1oXoNuE#
I have to stop listening to this and go get wet, AKA shower. Someday I might wake up again and I'd like to be nice and tidy in case I then get a chance to go out into the big world. I wonder if that will really happen? I'm not sure of anything anymore.
