A Shelter Made of What Ifs

Four songs is a good amount.

That’s the rough mixes that Mark did at Jake’s request so we could get some objectivity on the sessions and probably so Jake could show them off.

Both ends have been achieved.

I have been slow to listen in any depth.  I’m a little slow in general.  Mark will attest to that.

But, here’s what I found upon close listening:

Four songs are the perfect number to get you through a day.

I’ve been listening during breaks from the first day of gradual school and they still sound as good now as they did at 8 a.m.

The songs in question are: Indications, March Forth, Undiscovered Light, and What If.

Each has been my favorite song at some point during the day.

When you walk through a crowd while listening to Undiscovered Light or What If it is entirely possible that you begin to float rather than walk.  These song carry thoughts beyond simple locomotion and before you really notice you have arrived at your destination.  It happened twice today.  Once as I made the trek down to the over priced bookstore and floated throughout courtesy of What If.  By the time a tiny woman reminded me that I’d need to leave my backpack up at the front (something that makes me a bit nervous due to standard paranoia and basic thievery) the song ended and I had no real recollection of the steps between Mark Twain’s hall and the spot where I now stood.  All the while Mark Longolucco was asking me a very pointed question via the song’s lyric: 

‘ What if you’re not what you wanted to be?’

Well, on the best days that’s a call to arms, a call to betterment.

On the worst days it’s a reason to watch season 3 of The Wire in its entirety. 

Today was somewhere in between so I heard it a bit differently. 

He sings of ‘a house built of walls turned a shelter made of what ifs.’

I think it’s about how things change, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but when the change occurs it won’t ever ‘change back.’  I think it’s about how we hide behind ‘What if’ and how the same phrase is often that call to arms, that which betters us.  And, if that’s the case, then it’s about perspective and what you make of it.  I’m completely ready for Mark to explain to me that I’ve got it all wrong or that this is actually a Pearl Jam b-side and he didn’t want to tell me for fear that I’d refuse to play it (and I may have) but as it floated through the air, through the ether, through my ears and into my head, that’s exactly what it meant.

And, it was beautiful all the while.

We are recording tonight and while I’m not the type to be ‘excited’ about such things, I am looking forward to it.

Just don’t tell Mark.

-Peter