Day 26: Gold Dust – Emarosa
Things can seem like a good idea at the time. Part of what makes us human is learning from our mistakes or looking back at our past and realizing that maybe we weren’t in the right in that moment. At that point, it’s our job to work through those emotions and make it right.
For Emarosa frontman Bradley Walden, he’s found it easier to layer the past with “gold dust”–a way to make him feel better about some of the things he did or said. In this song, he lets out righteous anger about things he was feeling when he broke up with his previous band:
I ain’t a ghost man
You can see my feet walking on
And I ain’t dead yet
I am singing songs so sing along
And you can let em’ know I took what I was looking for
And you can let em’ know I took it cause’ they couldn’t, no
He’s described this song has having a “Patrick Stump” (frontman for Fall Out Boy) vibe, and he’s right. This song is returning to Emarosa’s pop punk roots (they have mellowed out in more recent albums, like 2014’s Versus, which is where this song comes from.)
The band breaking up was the end of an era for Walden. It’s kind of like how most people have specific friend groups in high school, college and beyond. After awhile, they dissolve, and a new chapter begins. Sometimes there’s a big falling out, sometimes there’s not. But oftentimes there is the question:
Where do we go from here?
Walden arrived at a crossroads with his band. Maybe they no longer shared the same vision. Maybe they had different goals. But they reached that pivotal question. Then comes the accusations:
Then you walked away
Then I walked away
“Gold Dust” is an example of a crossroads where the best decision was just to walk away. Sometimes that’s the only option we have available, and oftentimes, walking away is the best thing to do.
Day 27: Movement – Hozier
I like dancing, but I really don’t dance well. I wish I could. I used to swing dance a lot, but now the most dancing I do is in my kitchen, and it usually involves a cha-cha while I wait for something to microwave. Not glamorous, but I have a lot of fun doing it. Someday I’d like to learn ballroom dancing. Will that ever happen? Maybe, but probably not.
“Movement” is about a man who is in awe of his lover as she moves. Maybe she’s moving to a rhythm, or maybe she’s dancing in the kitchen. But he’s so taken by her that it moves him, too. He watches her from afar:
I still watch you when you’re groovin’
As if through water from the bottom of a pool
You’re movin’ without movin’
And when you move, I’m moved
You are a call to motion
There, all of you a verb in perfect view
Like Jonah on the ocean
When you move, I’m moved
Hozier has a knack for making his songs hymn-like, a la “Take Me to Church.” This song also has this quality, as though watching the human body move has something of a religious or worshipful quality to him. Andrew Hozier-Byrne has described himself as very much a non-religious person, but the robust chorus backing him in this has a very church-like quality.
So move me, baby
Shake like the bough of a willow tree
You do it naturally
Move me, baby
Audrey D. DeBoer 