How Can Even The Stones Remain Silent

meloncauliflower:

Favorite Music of 2011 Project

Album: Fleet Foxes // helplessness blues

I first heard this record on a late April afternoon. I was amazed, I had pre-ordered the vinyl, and I had a little over a month left of school, so I decided that I wouldn’t listen to the record again until my first day of summer, and I would listen on vinyl. It would be my treat to myself for finishing up well.

Summer came, and my first day of break started, a sunny June morning, the sunlight floating in the dinning room window as I sat, eating my breakfast, my record player’s needle gliding over “Montezuma.” In the second half of the song,

Oh man, what I used to be. Oh man, oh my, oh me.

And then the golden harmony erupts, the distinctly Fleet Foxes-esq “Ooohs.” And the joyful feeling of all of the summer freedom ahead wells up inside me and a smile cracks across my face. This is imprinted on my experience of Helplessness Blues.


 

A weekend this summer, a few close friends and I made our way up to a friend’s property in central Wisconsin to camp. We arrived at the property late at night, the grass was overgrown. We decided to mow the lawn in the morning; we set up the tent, stat around a bonfire, and gazed at the wilderness stars. The next morning I was energetic and willing to work, so I volunteered to mow. I put in my earphones and played… of course, Helplessness Blues.

It was invigorating. It was the best work I could have done at that moment. It was a bright and humid July morning. I pushed and pushed the mower under the sweltering sun. I tore my shirt off, my skin glistening with sweat, my wirey muscles wrapped around my body working to the bone. Pushing through the overgrown grass as Pecknold sings in my ear “I woke up one morning! All my fingers rotten. I woke up a dying man with a chance.” I pushed harder. Invigorated in “Helplessness Blues” as the electric guitar sparkles after Pecknold shouts “IF I HAD AN ORCHARD, I’D WORK TILL I’M SORE!” And in ”The Shrine / An Argument” when his voice lets loose, “SUN LIGHT OVER ME NO MATTER WHAT I DO.” That whole damn album. Hard work never felt so good. This is imprinted on my experience of Helplessness Blues.

Without a doubt the best folk album released in years.

Sampled Track: “Helplessness Blues”

(June)