(50) Sundays of Music: #1

#1: Taking Back Sunday - Where You Want To Be

Someone asked me a short while back when I started liking music. Like, when did I get to the point I am now, where it's basically an obsession - where new music put me in a great mood, concerts are life changers and a good cd can give me a high that drugs won't be able to touch. I thought about it a second and then immediately came to this cd.

You know how some senses take you back to time periods? Like if you eat a fruit that is grown the best in a certain area or smell a perfume that your first kiss was wearing. When I hear the beginning to the opening track of Where You Want to Be, I become transported back to the early years of high school.

I went to school in a small town, but technically lived in an even smaller town. Another resident of said smaller small town would go on to become one of my best friends. One year for her birthday I got her a cd holder thing and I put the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack and this release by Taking Back Sunday in there. Being the clever guy I was, I listened to the music before I gave it to her.

And I fell in love.

Maybe it was the dual vocals, the lyrical angst, the pounding drums; whatever it was I was mesmerized. Taking Back Sunday was a band I had always heard of and after putting this cd in my player I needed to hear more. It was after this cd that I actually went back to Tell All Your Friends and prepared myself for the albums that were to follow.

At the time, I think I was just singing along to the music, but not really hearing it. To be quite honest, as much as I liked the band, a part of me felt the second half of the album was kind of lacking. Fast forward a few years later and my eyes re-opened.

A cd I first listened to in my early years of high school came back to me in my middle time period of college. I went through a long, drawn out breakup, the kind that you mix equal parts of sadness and anger. One day, I randomly put this album and it spoke to me in a whole new way.

Taking Back Sunday was the first band where I started to read into the music. And they have a way of taking words that look good on paper and make them sound even better coming through a stereo.

I think it speaks to the musicianship that I may not be in "that place" where these songs speak to me, yet I can still put this on and get totally immersed in the music.

Fight Club will always be my favorite movie. Where You Want To Be will always be my favorite album.

And to switch things up for the finale, no videos. Instead, I want to focus on what I feel are some of the best passages of these songs, the ones that I re-discover time and time again.

"Well there's a secret I've been perfecting,
I swore I wouldn't but you let me
I'm comfortably confused
(and you...) You've gotten so removed"

"Now I'm lying on the table
with everything you said
it will all catch up eventually
well, it caught up and honestly
the weight of my decisions
were impossible to hold
but they were never yours
they were never yours"

"I always hoped to avoid the issues
Got me alone so I couldn't address you
Home is where you make it, Love,
Don't get yourself confused
Besides what's it to you?
I traded my conscience for your
For your confidence
Attacked my lungs with lies to pass the time
Made states move like regular days"

"See the months they don't matter it's the days I can't take
When the hours move to minutes and I'm seconds away"

"She says live up to your first impression (Come on, just say it),
Well my best side was your worst invention (Come on, just say it),
Why can't you live without the attention (I need you defenseless, dependent),
Why can't you live without the attention (alone)."

"Well I'm blowing smoke out of your window
And you're slipping back into your dress
You know you were always such a lady
I've always been impressed
But gentlemen
They don't ask questions
Just keep quiet
She'll pay attention
Gentlemen don't ask questions
We could pay attention"

"This glass house is burning down (open all night, know it...)
You light the match, I'll stick around (open all night, know it...)
I'll give you everything you want (open all night, know it...)
And wish the worst of what I was (open all night, know it...)"