album review :paul westerberg- stereo

so, uh, i'll preface this by saying i'm alone in my room right now, real alone, listening to this album and typing. type...type...typeing!!!! it's best to keep my hands busy at night. otherwise i throw punches at my ghosts and anger them toward nightmaring me. i don't want to be nightmared tonight.
there's lots of alones. i'm alone tonight, true. alone, alone. other people are at work alone, or at partys alone, or in a room with someone, alone.
and it's tough, either way. we all want to be connected. we want to be heard. i do. that's why i'm writing this. it's for me, true. but i know someone is reading. and that makes me less alone. and makes them less alone too, i hope.

'just add water someones done for'.

i have listened to paul westerberg for over 20 years. in many ways he is my oldest friend. the way 'tim' spoke to me as an angry, lost, sad, drunk, and lonely kid, 'stereo' speaks to me as, well, pretty much the same kid 20 years later. 'boring enormous' reminds me of my former, blissful, domesticated ways. and the moving van part hints at how it ended.

'Moving vans and swollen hands leave their mark
I pledge allegiance to the sky
Of the only place I like
Anymore'

i mean, i don't know if you ever had to move out of a place you called home, but that nails it. like when i was 17 the lyric:

'the ones who love us best
are the ones we lay to rest
and visit their graves on holidays at best.
the ones who love us least
are the ones we'll die to please
if it's any consolation, i don't begin to understand them.'

nailed it.

that makes me think about how i didn't visit my dad's grave when i was in ny. 5 minutes away. i'm a heel. that's another story. i'm gonna take a break now and grab a drink.

(5 minutes later)

ahem.

'THERE'S A WORLD IN BETWEEN BEING EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE AND BEING NOTHING, TO NO ONE.'

i capitalized that, sure. for a reason. it goes through my head. daily. i tried, once, to be everything to everyone. haven't you? when you grin like an idiot and pretend everything is ok. but you're empty, cuz the people you grin at consider you a secondary character. and it's not their fault. they have their hands full. they have friends, and wives, and lovers, and boyfriends. and you are on the periphery. a shadow, a floater. something seen, something in the field of vision, but not important. a diversion, at best.

so loneliness, i guess, is westerberg's muse. he's alone in a crowd. he walks through the mall and invents stories for the people on the escalator. he mocks the silly bastards waiting on line for a 32 oz. coke and a bag of popcorn. he scowls at the beauty with the dark hair, and the beautiful dress, and the sad, brown eyes. the one he wants so bad. who will never turn her head to him again.

or, y'know, not. that's what i got from the album. you should give it a listen and let me know what you think. i'm not a fucking expert, y'know.


'just add water, i'm disappointed
just like my father, i missed the point'.

yikes.









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