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There are things I thought were universally understood about storytelling. I believed that stories generally had a beginning, middle, and an end, and often an overarching thesis. Or a general point, one could say.

At least that’s what I thought until I started listening in on Joe’s YouTube feed. He’s got a rotating selection of YouTube channels that are esoteric to say the least: bike vloggers, running bloggers, and a guy who talks about fly fishing and opens every single video by saying “Howdy friends,” and I strongly believe that his mullet may be sewn into his trucker hat.

More than half of the time, these videos feature people facing the camera and just chatting for 15 minutes and counting, no particular end goal that I can see.

It’s usually info that could seemingly relayed via text in a few sentences. I don’t get it. But people watch it! They’ve got major views!! What do I know, I guess. Same thing with Instagram Stories when it’s just a bazillion videos of someone’s inner monologue.

But the one thing they often say is something along the lines of “Sorry I haven’t been posting. From now on it will be back to daily vlogging, I swear.”

I always ask Joe: Why do they promise a daily vlog? Why not instead of 7 crappy vlogs a day that they can never keep up with, they just combine the best info to make one good video a week?

Anyway, all this is to say, I am going to start blogging again. Smash that like button!

Tunes Tuesday: "Texas Sun," Khruangbin & Leon Bridges

I always wonder if my neighbors can hear my music and if so, do they have complaints about the same song playing over and over for 3 hours at a time while I work? They couldn’t about this song. It’s perfection. Leon’s voice (that spoken word interlude!), the lyrics, the wail of the pedal steel guitar, all of it.

“Texas Sun. I wanted to capture a vibe that embodies the essence of Texas,” Bridges told Texas Monthly about the origins of the song. Do we ever need some sunshine now.

Tunes Tuesday: "No Quit," Michael Nau

This is my kind of easy listening. What a groove. When Nau sings over the fuzz: “Going over and over and over/To get closer to the start,” that’s my cue to drag the Youtube arrow back to the beginning.

Tunes Tuesday: "All My Happiness Is Gone," Purple Mountains

Purple Mountains's single "All My Happiness is Gone" is out May 10, 2019 from Drag City. This song is also on the debut self-titled album by Purple Mountains, available on LP/CS/CD from Drag City on July 12, 2019. Film by Brent Stewart and Matt Boyd.

I was half-listening to WTMD while doing chores and when this song came on, it struck me as the saddest song I’d ever heard. “Oh,” is all I thought when I looked up who sang it.

“Lately I tend to make strangers wherever I go…All my happiness is gone…I confess I’m barely hanging on…No way to last out here like this for long….” It’s all right there in the lyrics.

I went on to listen this song maybe 20,000 times in a row (sorry, neighbors!). Please don’t be worried about me. It’s just an excellent song, dark poetry set to the peppiest little Joy Division/The Cure-y synth-y riff. I know it’s a song ostensibly bereft of happiness. But to me, when David Berman sings “Ten thousand afternoons ago/All my happiness just overflowed,” it’s like my own heart is spilling out and I go back to moments when I felt just like that.

I wish I had known about him way before this, because I went and bought the Purple Mountains album based on this song alone. “I’ve always worked harder on words,” he told NYT, and my God, it shows. I was prepared to be depressed, yes, but not to laugh out loud (“ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude?”). He tosses off lines that I couldn’t write in my wildest dreams. I need to dive into the whole Silver Jews catalog, but I can already tell that David Berman saw the human condition and he pinned it down into something we could sing along to.

Tunes Tuesday: "Don't Say That You Love Me," Jade Jackson

Listen to the full album: http://bit.ly/325XRIu "Don't Say That You Love Me" by Jade Jackson from the album 'Wilderness,' available now Order at https://jadejackson.ffm.to/wilderness Lyrics I been on the outside looking in I was always waiting, for life to begin And I feel alright now Ain't nothing gonna bring me

Just a little country twang with a perfect chorus to start off your week. In between music gigs, Jade Jackson is waiting tables at her family restaurant, according to the LA Times. If it were a perfect world, she’d be opening for Taylor already, right? Hopefully that will all come soon…

Tunes Tuesday: "Never Had Enough of You," Van William

I can't remember a show I've been to expressly for the opening act, until the Van William + Lissie show at 9:30 Club this past weekend. I got into Van William via his song with First Aid Kit (because everything they touch is golden), but I love his whole album. Particularly this song, creative interpretive dancing and all. He writes a good chorus, no? 

This is a two-fer post because Lissie is super talented too. She can sing like whoa, as I learned. Really loving this positivity anthem because we could all use that these days. "'Cause the best days of my life are coming for me/Waiting to be realized...I want more best days."