http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRERWvDLHTc
This is a song about distance. It's a man singing across distances, and we imprint ourselves on it; for me, it's a man singing to his long-distance girlfriend, who lives too far away to see more than once a month or so. This is what it meant when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen; this is still what it means to me. It's resignation: it's not a sad song, but it's not a happy life described.
Searching for the video on YouTube, I found that rarest gem of all: a worthwhile internet comment. And the point is raised: this isn't a fifteen-year-old singing this. It's a grown man. City and Colour, the Canadian singer Dallas Green, is a grown-ass man. He's 32 now; he was 25 when the song came out. This is whiny acoustic guitar folk, maybe, but it's not invalid or immature. This is something a grown-ass man feels and thinks about, and wrote and recorded and performed a song about.
What are most songs about? If they're stories, or anthems, or rap songs, they're fuzzy and many-splendored. But this is a focused song on a single emotion at a single time, and it hits harder because of it.
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