Vertical Horizon -- Go

I’m violating my promise to only mention more-obscure artists here, but I’ve already gone back on the quality over quantity thing. A blog has as varied a life as the one who creates it, I guess.

Vertical Horizon is, yes, a more mainstream band, but their new record seems to have missed most people’s radar…which is to be expected as it is some of their best work since before they were signed. I assume VH is still paying off label debts at this point, so the sophmore release is critical to their longterm sustainability (although maybe not–they were around a long time before breaking, and so they probably were already sustainable and therefore in a good contractual situation). So hear me out, and if their kind of music is your bag, go get the disc.

The thing about Go is its lyrical maturity, and specifically its relevance to themes in my own life. If Ohio is the anthem cry of one trying to save love, Go is the productive love-goes-on soundtrack (bit of a freudian there–I meant to type life-goes-on).

The song that turned me on to this record, it is apparently on the radio in some limited fashion, is I’m Still Here, although this doesn’t really fall into the said category. This is the beginning of the journey, looking back down the road before spinning around the taking the first new steps onward. I was most struck by the last lines:

Remember how you use to say I'd be the one to run away But I'm still here

…but the second verse and chorus are interesting as well:

You've seen the ashes in my heart You smile the widest When I cry inside and my insides blow apart I tried to wear another face Just to make you proud Just to make you put me in my place But everything you wanted from me Is everything that I could never be The cities grow The rivers flow Where you are, I never know But I'm still here If you were right and I was wrong Why are you the one who's gone And I'm still here

Matt Scannell and I seem to have had some similar experiences at least…but the better stuff is yet to come. Goodbye Again:

Guess I don't know what's, left to say But hear me out All of the dreams of, yesterday Keep breaking me down What's on the outside, can you say Or am I getting carried away It's in your mind It's in your eyes So it's goodbye again It's way past time For one last try So it's goodbye again Goodbye... again I'm getting on, what's the use You know how I get I can't decide which is the truth At least not yet I got the feeling, it's you What can be said, alone in this room No... chorus Who wants you now? Maybe somebody else I'll wait around Maybe you'll forget you were ever here Maybe forget you were ever, never here

It’s Over, another one! This one, though, indicates the kind of idealistic love that artists seem to always aspire to and be crushed by:

I'm here, wide awake again This fear is something I call a friend Hello again It's been a while since I saw you here I don't remember you saying goodbye No, It don't matter it's over Here I've been waiting All my life All this time It don't matter it's over Here I've been waiting All my life All this time Here we go, jump to the stars above So low, why do I fall to love? Hello my love This voice never called your name This boy will never be the same

Echo communicates some of the frustration of the artistic life. We are prophets, the only ones left, but so much of what we say is prepackaged into irrelevance and forgotten as soon as it’s consumed:

Everything I say fades out Echo, echo... We come, we go No I don't want to be just another Echo, echo...

The last tune I’m going to mention is Inside You. Right away you think it is a carnal reference, and it probably is, but the song communicates the true intimacy that that experience comes out of, the true, beautiful intimacy that humanity longs for, both with its creator and with other people.

We're all lost We're all found We're all the same Just one heart Beats in us With different names Just one heart --different names Hold me, inside you Cause I wanna be, Inside you Inside you

…i changed some of the words to what I hear when i listen to it…

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