alpenglow
noun
al·pen·glow ˈal-pən-ˌglō
: a reddish glow seen near sunset or sunrise on the summits of mountains
When is Blue Monday 2023?Blue Monday usually falls on the third Monday of January every year. The purported day of gloom this year is Monday, January 16. This is when, according to the formula, people will be most affected by the bleak winter weather, the post-Christmas comedown, and being filled with guilt over failed New Year's resolutions and therefore most likely to feel sad or 0depressed.
—Sam Webb & Amelia Beltrao (The Sun)
I approached each of them [Wonky Tonk & FAROUT] with the concept of making a “winter depression” album. Everyone else makes “summertime” music, so I wanted to try something different.—Juan Cosby
Juan Cosby isn't out to make things worse. He has family. I know him to be a hopeful sort of guy. And he loves to make music that does something and that I can feel. So when he puts two polar opposites and good friends together like FAROUT and Wonky Tonk to do a concept album about "Winter Depression," I know he's up to something good for people, and better by far than those happy albums out there that might just push a guy over the edge wrong time of year. I am talking about SAD here, and that stands for "Seasonal Affective Disorder." If you look up "Winter Depression" you get "Seasonal Affective Disorder" on Google. That's why the links I just provided to you for those two things both go to the Mayo Clinic for a checklist of symptoms if you maybe want to check.
But it really isn't just the season, is it? No, there is some serious crap goin' on and it ain't right and seems like nobody likes anybody anymore. Old folks are tryin' hang onto power they never really had, but sure do get told they had it once all those Mexicans coming over the border and young people educated in college want to take it away. I am talking about old white people, just like me, but I don't feel that way. Load a crap, you ask me. Everybody divided like a cake we want to eat all by ourself or throw half of it away rather than share. Selfish.
Things suck right now. Only thing seems to help is finding that little glow around the edge of things like this Alpenglow thing when I turn off the TV and go outside and look at how things grow that don't watch TV and they seem to believe there is a reason to live and life is everywhere and it is beautiful and has nothing at all to do with whatever is getting everybody so goddam upset and ready to give up on each other and just take power by force and shit.
I don't want to go back to any damn time when things were "better" cause I lived through those times and they weren't better at all, but only worse for most everybody, women couldn't vote, children worked in factories, and go back a little further people were forced to live as slaves. NO! I don't want to go back there.
"There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed."—Robert Kennedy
I want to thank Wonky Tonk for all her deep crazy mystic feelings shot through this whole album hear it in her voice! I want to thank Mr. FAROUT for keeping it real like he says half the time Icarus flyin' too high and I did that too, and also Sisyphus cause I sure did that day after day working get things done come back next day looks like worse than the day before. Now Juan Cosby put this whole Shebang! together, and did all the music took the time away from work and family to do it, so he gets extra special thanks for making something I can listen to doesn't make me feel worse and let's me know I am NOT the only one.
"According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus is condemned to roll a rock up to the top of a mountain, only to have the rock roll back down to the bottom every time he reaches the top. The gods were wise, Camus suggests, in perceiving that an eternity of futile labor is a hideous punishment."
According to the story, Daedalus, a mythical inventor, created wings made of feathers and wax to escape from Crete where he and his son, Icarus, were held captive by King Minos. Icarus, however, ignored his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell into the sea where he met his end.
I got to spend a longtime yacking with FAROUT on the telephone, because my WiFi wasn't good enough for a video chat. He really gets it! He actually told me that on this Alpenglow album, he alternates between characters Icarus and Sisyphus. We talked about that, and I think I have alternated between those characters in my life. Icarus is when on my own in my head I fly like Icarus ascending on my beautiful foolish arms, but it usually actually always winds up being a false alarm. Sisyphus is when I wake up the next day and go to work.
When I got sent songs from Juan Cosby that already featured Wonky Tonk, I got a vibe immediately. This wouldn't be a celebratory record but one where we recognize our issues and flaws and meet them head on.—FAROUT
How messed up must it be for this guy who has a fan base and found himself as a touring successful vocalist and rap artist then BOOM!!!!! COVID!!!!!! So he does something working at night and I didn't ask what and he didn't mention it. Who cares? In a better world, musicians wouldn't have to do so much crap work like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill, then while we sleep, work just appears again like nothing was ever accomplished the day before.
Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
I will cut this short on FAROUT, since I have his lyrics and there will be more to say in the Song-By-Song review herein below. He is Earth to Wonky Tonk's Faerie Fire Storm.
From my perspective, and this isn't canon, I represent the corporeal protagonist going thru struggles in life up the mountain everyday, like Sisyphus, while Wonky Tonk embodies the voice that faintly demands I keep going, which is the Alpenglow.—FAROUT
[New Order 1983 — Songwriters: Stephen Paul David Morris / Bernard / Gilbert / Peter / Morris / Sumner / Hook / Gillian Lesley]
02. Insomniac 2:53
he thought its time to hang it upit was an admirable runthe promises that he interwoven were unspunso he's weaving thru the masses he swore he would overshadowbut that is the kinda narcissism's got him feelin rattledmagically he used to drop his life and hit the roadhe never thought he'd see the series final episodeand its pretty, bittersweet, whatever you wanna call itthe subtle kisses from the wind when you know that you're free fallingso you shut your eyes and smile, the plans were the jokethis entertainment industry finishing what you wrotei'll never write again, offended to send in an end quotebeen broke, feels defeated when he sees the rent thoughhe thought it was the start of it, he thought it was a marathonhe thought he had a good enough leg for him to stand uponbut now hes facing a mirror he couldn't stare beyondnow hes by himself an insomniac when the beer is gone
FAROUT works nights. That may help to understand this song. He told me he was touring regularly and when that started happening his identity started to form around being a professional musician. But the then BOOM!!! COVID!!!! Had a meeting with the band. It would be irresponsible to tour get people sick. Can't do that and keep cred and plain can't do that it's wrong. So wait. Wait. Months go by. Soon. Coming, right? Years. It has been six years since a new album by FAROUT. This one marks the RETURN. Insomnia. "It was an admirable run." Damn, that shit hurts bad.
I feel a little better not alone hear this from FAROUT. My Covid stuff is just being sick, but I got well, and went back to work. My identity didn't change. Damn! He could have been somebody! Like Marlon Brando in "On The Waterfront."
You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charlie.
Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Looking for some meaning when everything is meaningless. Looking for a means to dream. To me it means nothing at all. Why are we so mad at each other? Why are we so mad at each other?
FAROUT is a double threat! The lyric above is sung by FAROUT throughout the song. But the rap comes on spitting fire at an obsurd world.
i dont wanna sleep for nothing
i dont wanna dream about the past
i rather like a nightmare. quite fair
cause when i wake up i can relaxyou can say i'm not optimistic
and i can say i don't have a reason
and you can say what you want about that
but the fact is there's not a lot to believe inwhy were we born to a world that we can't save
how can we fake another smile and wave
while we drive to the job for the money
its funny 9 to 5 means we just gotta be braveso much meaning is lost between the feelings and thoughts
that we keep to ourselves undercovers
its like the oxygen dropped, and now i'm feeling the plot
is that you gotta help yourself before otherswhen i wake up i just say fuck like
howd the job go and rope me back in
brush my teeth while i pee
tell myself that i gotta get up that i gotta try againand when we stand there the customer is always right
and then we contemplate about whats going on that night
and then we calculate whether or not we'll have time for some fun
and if they're gonna play that song we likeand then we stay out way too late as our drunk avatar says fuck us in the day
we dont even like working, why not do it hungover, and we think thats the playbut the truth is, we're doing okay
you can think about the lives that are wasted away
and try to smile while you follow the plan
just as long as you're giving it all that you can
There is a lot going on here! FAROUT is a practical dude. Wonky Tonk always brings it in every song like a Sprite or a Faerie or Psyche or something that is real in the mind when you are alone, but never ever get to speak out loud. She is a voice in the center of your head when you are so exhausted or flying on something or just out of the body for a minute. I can't say so much every song what she contributes, but it is ethereal, and FAROUT always brings it right back down to earth. The the sweet distance between then forms a web of tension between who we think we are deep inside and what happens when we get out in the world and do stuff. We are what we do, but there is someone living inside that has something else to say.
But these lyrics are a kind of prayer, which is great news with this FAROUT guy. The song is just better when he sings it and raps it both. Of course, Wonky Tonk adds the special sauce. Just assume that is true every one. If I don't say it, well shoot me, but it is there.
do you do you love me love me like i love youif i reached out would you still hold my handdo you do you hate me hate me like i love youi will hurt myself to make you understand
"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars and cars, sidewalks, everywhere. I'm God's lonely man."—Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver
"O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I know it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. "—Albert Camus from "Return to Tipasa" (1954)
"And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness."― Albert Camus, The Stranger
"Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self and is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self."—from "The Sickness Unto Death" by Søren Kierkegaard
And that's what we have here. We have an autocracy which -- which runs this university. It's managed. We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his Board of Directors?" That's the answer.Well I ask you to consider -- if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the Board of Directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something -- the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be -- have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean -- Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!And that -- that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!That doesn't mean -- I know it will be interpreted to mean, unfortunately, by the bigots who run The Examiner, for example -- That doesn't mean that you have to break anything. One thousand people sitting down some place, not letting anybody by, not [letting] anything happen, can stop any machine, including this machine! And it will stop!!
Email: billymwb@gmail.com
Submissions accepted. Send a link, not a CD. Lyrics and artwork plus any information is appreciated. Access to artists for interviews encouraged.
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