Whenever I Breathe Out, You Breathe In — Modest Mouse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0eWHu2aAofI

Every once in a while you'll be in a situation where you hear a song at the perfect place and time; one of those moments where you momentarily wonder if some higher power is tailoring your iPod's current shuffle music tastes to the rest of your life. I was listening to this song this weekend, driving the three hundred-odd miles between Rochester and Baltimore, a trip that cuts directly through the heart of rural Pennsylvania: roads twisting endlessly through wooded hills, dilapidated farmhouses, rusty F-150s, advertisements for advertising and more "adult video outlets" than you can hope to count. All punctuated by the occasional strip mall with the same array of stores. It probably helped that my mind had staled after the first hundred miles, but the song seemed to correlate precisely with what I was seeing: mountains and valleys dwarfing the meager settlements within, while those same buildings tarnished the beauty of the setting they were set against. Positives and negatives, cancelling out to nothing. My eyes glazed over, I tapped my fingers to the anesthetic guitar strokes, and I drove on mindlessly for a while - not angry, not depressed, but not feeling anything at all.