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The Shins' music brought wisdom
that changed my life
By Kelly
Greenwood
September 16, 2008 | There's a song adapted from Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night that goes, "If music be the food
of love, sing on, sing on. Sing on 'til I am filled
with joy." I remember thinking about how cheesy this
song was as my soprano voice sang the verses in high
school choir. Who wrote this, anyway? I thought
to myself.
But the more I learned about music, the more I knew
those lyrics, however cheesy they were, to be true.
Now as an amateur music collector, a supporter of arts,
and an advocate for general feelings of mirth, I believe
that anyone who truly appreciates music has experienced
music that has changed their life or at the very least,
rocked their world. This is the music that illustrates
our back pages -- the songs that comprise our life soundtracks.
It's difficult to gauge the precise moment when I
cracked - when my eyes and ears became glued open and
there was nothing I could do about it. Spring semester
freshman year. A burned copy of The Shins' sophomore
album, Chutes Too Narrow. I discovered it in
the depths of my CD collection and soon thereafter,
my roommate Stephanie and I listened and sang and danced
to it what seemed like a thousand times. It was pure,
it was life; it was honest. My friend Andrew had given
the copy to me in high school, but back then, my ears
were only programmed for the likes of U2 and David Bowie,
and I unintentionally turned a deaf ear to his thoughtful
gift. I didn't understand.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of things high school
kids don't understand. I became so proud when I finally
awoke, and I wrote him a letter while he was in Ukraine
as an LDS missionary. He responded with honest enthusiasm,
saying things like, "The Shins will change your life,
Kelly." He also said that memories of listening to their
music during happier days were some of the things that
kept him going in that bleak country of mud.
What was it about that music? It's not "better" than
the other music I have come to adore. The thing is,
it was the first of its kind in my life. The Shins were
the first artists to offer insightful, deeply poignant
messages of life wisdom to me. James Mercer's earnest,
pining voice floating atop jangly guitars and 1960's-influenced
pop orchestrations was striking and placidly haunting.
My ears only opened further when I moved back to my
parent's house that summer and purchased The Shins'
first CD.
Oh, Inverted World also affected me deeply,
but did so in a different way. This album pierced to
the core - to my innermost region that just may have
been a soul amongst all of the sinew and bones. The
thing was, that summer I truly felt that those inner
workings had left me for dead with nothing but a vacuous
hole. I felt lifeless - I was dead, as far as I was
concerned. Days went by where I just stared at walls
not even knowing if they were real. This sudden major
depression had blindsided me with some kind of caustic
veil. But no matter how achingly barren I felt inside,
Oh, Inverted World was one of the few things
that kept me going, that kept me trudging through the
throes of that summertime with glazed eyes.
This is not an exaggeration. I would not volunteer
to be revisit these less-than-delightful times in my
life if I didn't need to in order to express the power
this album had on my 19-year-old existence. It was raw
and deep, but cheery and spontaneous - a perfect mixture
that didn't cure me, but certainly did the most music
could for a disenchanted college kid.
So, Andrew was right -- it turned out that The Shins
did change my life. Though upon hearing me say this,
some people ask if I stole that line from Natalie Portman's
character in the movie Garden State, who expresses
a similar sentiment about the band. I reply with distaste
that I've never even seen that movie, and if I wanted
to steal an attribute of Natalie Portman's, it would
not be one of her movie lines. Then I proudly state
that I came up with the notion all on my own. The discovery
is my very own because the music literally changed my
life, even if it meant said life had to be turned upside-down
for just a little while.
NW
MS
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