Comets and uber-Anne

Lately, I am unable to stop listening to "A Comet Appears" by The Shins. Have a listen and work see how it makes you feel. I find it a very intense listen. The sparse instrumentation, the hollow timbre of James Mercer's voice, the warmth of the lonely guitar and the echo of birdcall...each of these combine to create a piece of music that speaks to me of what it means to be human. 


Lyrically, the song is masterful. Don't we all struggle under the weight of trying to be uber-people while simultaneously trying to suppress the sense of being "barely a vapor"? Who hasn't ever wanted to metaphorically carve their aging face off and start afresh? The chorus delivers the harsh self-assessment that I think we all reach at one point or another as we get older: the worst part (and we know it) is having to face up to the truth of ourselves and stop blaming others for our own shortfalls and choices. The knife-edge delivery of "every post you can hitch your faith on, / is a pie in the sky, / chock-full of lies" is made sharper by "there is a numbness, / in your heart and its growing." 


Painful and lonely as this song seems, behind these soulful, biting, penetrating-right-into-your-heart lyrics lurks more than a glimmer of hope. The irony? We enter and exit the world alone; we are not alone in our recognition of our solitude. Binary opposites.


A Comet Appears


One hand on this wily comet,
Take a drink just to give me some weight,
Some uber-man I'd make,
I'm barely a vapor

They shone a chlorine light on,
A host of individual sins,
Let's carve my aging face off,
Fetch us a knife,
Start with my eyes,
Down so the lines,
Form a grimacing smile,

Close your eyes to corral a virtue,
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard,
To cement a failure,

We can blow on our thumbs and posture,
But the lonely is such delicate things,
The wind from a wasp could blow them,
Into the sea,
With stones on their feet,
Lost to the light and the loving we need,

Still to come,
The worst part and you know it,
There is a numbness,
In your heart and it's growing,

With burnt sage and a forest of bygones,
I click my heels,
Get the devils in line,
A list of things I could lay the blame on,
Might give me a way out,

But with each turn,
It's this front and center,
Like a dart stuck square in your eye,
Every post you can hitch your faith on,
Is a pie in the sky,
Chock full of lies,
A tool we devise,
To make sinking stones fly,

And still to come,
The worst part and you know it,
There is a numbness,
In your heart and it's growing.