single space: Season of the Shark by Yo La Tengo
you're not alone at all
Sure I know it’s hard
it’s not just one way of expressing my feelings, whenever I have to write a new piece for this newsletter, it’s also something Ira Kaplan asks in Season of the Shark, a song written by himself along with the other two-thirds of Yo La Tengo, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew.
Season of the Shark is track #4 in Summer Sun, released in 2003.
Yo La Tengo was already 20 years old, having been formed in 1984 in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Sometimes happens that a song has a construction, a rhythm, a way of presenting when you listen to it for the first time, that you know that has to be more to it than you can grasp at a first glance.
That is why I’m listening on repeat this song while I’m writing this, and so many things are there to be said!
This is a song about shadows: those cast by people behind whom you nestle (“do you need someone to hide behind?”), those created by the sun when you step outside, and those that reach you when you’re among four walls.
Shadows as reflections, sometimes not perfect ones, in which we dump our insecurities, casting them away not realizing they are what we reflect, nothing more yet nothing less.
As soon as you realize that, you could use them to connect with others, to realize that “they’re not as bad as they appear”, and that if “you need someone to help you through?”, “someone to take questions for you”, you can count on one another.
And “no matter how much out there scares you so”, the shadows on the wall are like sharks: they seem scary for a while, then the sun sets, the season of the shark ends, and you end up being alone to unwind.
Kaplan’s voice is at once silky and sharp, smooth and decisive: his performance is aided by McNew’s keyboards and Hubley’s drums, to create a dreamy and warm atmosphere, a well composed lullaby that helps go through the periods when you sink so low, you even “blame the sun” for “the shadows on the wall”.
It helps remember that sometimes the only thing you need to know is that if you
just look around
If it's not me, then someone else you know
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See you next time!