sham

Granted, lyrics like "Everything's bigger down in Texas, 'cept the minds that try to lead us" may not be especially deep. Last night, though, standing in Will and Tawnya's basement next to the washer and dryer and the workbench lined by tubes of caulk on the unfinished concrete floors, with fifteen people next to me standing or sitting on a remnant of carpet or a folding camp chair, listening to Saint Olas sing about spiders and iguanas and zombies, I got to hear one of the best live shows of my life.

Maybe the thing about live music that makes me so melancholy is feeling confronted by the really beautiful expression of emotion and knowing that I'll never be able to express those parts of me (whatever parts of oneself, I mean, which can't be expressed in words) as clearly and as beautifully as a musician. It's sort of like when people say, "Man, yoga yesterday worked muscles I didn't even know I had"--for me, live music stirs parts of my soul that I don't usually even realize exist, and it leaves me aching in places that no ice pack can reach.