Once again I find myself apologizing for not writing this newsletter with any real regularity. Is there a term I should be using instead of “newsletter” at this point? It’s not a blog, because that feels even more frequent. It’s certainly not timely because, today being another example of this, I typically post music that has been out for years.

Maybe, like we try to teach our son, labels and what people call you isn’t important. I write when I have something to write and you get to read it. Also, like, who needs someone bothering them every week with some new obsession (this question is rhetorical if you are my wife)?

I celebrated my 38th birthday three weeks ago, which means I am supposed to reflect. A lot happened last year: terrible job at awful faceless company turned into better job at nice small company, son is now a full-fledged person (who has been dressing like Indiana Jones for the past week - well, Indiana Jones in a The Flash mask), we made it through another house remodel, and I’m trying to be more patient, and less of a reactionary asshole (not there yet).

One thing I never thought about because I lived in two-season Texas for so long was how fitting being born in April is. Rebirth, renewal, wearing sweatshirts and shorts together. As the flowers bloom, the windows come open, and we spend more time watching Jack scooter and learn to ride his bike(!), I can’t help but see the cyclical nature of things and also our ability to break free of those patterns.

I’ve got high hopes for this year, despite, you know, EVERYTHING, and this is my written-down declaration that I’m gonna do my best to do whatever I can to make my family’s life better and be a positive person. Fingies crossed.

Death Cab for Cutie - “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” (2015)

Coming up on two years ago, Reagan and I traveled to Maine to see Death Cab for Cutie play Transatlanticism in full, followed by The Postal Service performing Give Up.

It was an incredible night, one that made my wife endlessly happy, and one that reminded me that I like Ben Gibbard quite a bit. I remember buying Transatlanticism at Best Buy after seeing it mentioned on AbsolutePunk and without hearing a single song because I assumed, due to their name, that it was some loud, emo pop-punk. Got the emo part right.

Thinking back, the only song I probably really loved was “We Looked Like Giants” because it was catchy and also about sex, which at that time was as mystical to me as a MacGuffin in an Indiana Jones movie (nice callback baby). My loneliness and awkwardness aside, I kept up with Death Cab because they were one of the few bands that felt, to me, as if they were always changing but never abandoning their fanbase.

Side note: Reagan and I walked down the aisle after being married to the song “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” which is about dying, but who cares. It’s beautiful and it’s about people who can’t take the next step without each other. Sad but happy. Like her and I often are.

Which, impressively longwindedly, now brings us to today’s song, “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive,” or as Jack calls it, “I Don’t Know Why” after the super catchy refrain. Nerds refer to this album, Kintsugi, as the last album that featured Gibbard’s main collaborator, Chris Walla. But us New Girl-heads know this is the album that most directly addresses his breakup from Zooey Deschanel. Songs like “Ghosts” and “No Room in Frame” are personal, of course, but also feature a specificity usually lacking from Gibbard’s lyrics.

We can all relate when he sings, “I don’t know why / I return to the scenes of these crimes.” It’s like driving slowly past a car accident, except you’re driving by and in the destroyed car. Moving on is a myth. What we carry doesn’t just disappear with time or change. It becomes interwoven into the fabric of our DNA.

It’s easy for me to be like, that guy who used to drink a lot, he’s gone. But he’s not. He’s here, with me, teaching me, helping me use the bad to feel better. He says, so melodically we almost dismiss it, “So let us not be lonesome / Lost in between our needs and wants.” In everything but romantic relationships, we seem to crave balance. So when that goes away, it’s not the same as moving to a new place or going vegetarian. We are changed at the cellular level.

(Remember when this was a light little newsletter about funny kid stories?)

So even though I’ve been familiar with this song for going on a decade, hearing it again with my son brought back a lot. The song is the same. The song has changed. Why I love it is the same. Why I love it has changed.

Earlier I said I hoped for change this year. And I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to be a new person. I’ve been working on this one for a long time, and while my “needs and wants” have taken new forms, there’s no reason to erase the journey that got me here.

Is it a JackJam?

Oh baby, yes! We’ve had this one on non-stop. In fact, if I was a more organized person I could have written this last week. Unfortunately, the other song we are currently obsessed with is “Who Let The Dogs Out?” so it’s been a week of musical whiplash.

I think this one resonates with Jack because it’s catchy, no duh, but it is also a song that both me and his mother instantly get absorbed into. Like most 4-year olds, Jack has FOMO, so if we’re in, he’s in. Despite the entirety of the point of this newsletter, we’re not trying to turn Jack into carbon copies of us. There are plenty of songs he couldn’t care less about. But when one hits that we also really love and have fond memories with, it makes the whole thing that much more special.

We’re not trying to influence his likes and dislikes, per se. We’re trying to share our hearts with him. It will simply never get old when we find something we all love.

See you next week (or not),

BLAKE