Here is the track list for I Was Out Late: 26 Absolutions, Vol. 3, completed by Jay Thompson in June 2012:
Side A:
The National, Daughters of the Soho Riots
The War on Drugs, Comin’ Through
St. Vincent, Cruel
Curve, Horror Head
American Music Club, If I Had a Hammer
Arcade Fire, Sprawl II
Billy May, Snowfall
The Bats, Tragedy
Big Star, Daisy Glaze
The Replacements, Never Mind
The Breeders, One Divine Hammer
College (ft. Electric Youth), A Real Hero
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx, I’ll Take Care of You
Side B:
Tall Dwarfs, Sign the Dotted Line
The Clean, Whatever I Do Is Right
The Kinks, Wonderboy
Belle & Sebastian, Asleep on a Sunbeam
Look Blue Go Purple, Cactus Cat
The Go-Betweens, Clouds
Gold Panda, Same Dream China
The Mekons, Chivalry
Meat Puppets, Lost
Magnolia Electric Co., I Cannot Have Seen the Light
John Jacob Niles, The Lass From the Low Country
Jherek Bischoff, 02:36
Perfume Genius, Mr. Peterson
Another of the mixes that I love like a favorite afternoon or a book read three times over. This one traces a coherent path around, into and through melancholy, a ragged kind of melancholy that departs from its title — I Was Out Late and have come home feeling every touch of those crucial decisions, to stay out and to return. Here’s one narrative from that space, one line per song:
Here we go melancholy: settle into place, drape your arms around me. Bury your head in my back, I’m here just for you. The night goes on forever but the lights go out sometime in the middle…A sweet and tender yearning like your girlfriend just walked away, you’re sunburned and tired, nothing left to do but gaze out at the ocean as evening falls into place and you wait for the last bus home…Even as you eat the ice cream sundae you feel the irritation of the sugar crash creep through your veins. So many ways to feel bad buried within so many things that feel good…Looks like anxiety’s gonna become a panic freakout right here on the bus this time. The noise is like the noise in a bad dream. A bummer comes on heavy and passes through you like neon lighting flashing through a marquee…Reaching the end of a line of emotions, you’re spent and empty in there. It’s an anthem that lifts you up and helps you look around again. Something repeating and endless, something hopeful down in its own murk. So many good things buried in so much that feels so bad…Most things are not what they seem, but just to keep things honest some things are exactly what they seem. The glamor and desolation of boredom are stitched together tight…A pretty little daydream passing through. That’s the fruit of boredom when you sink in far enough to let go of all aim otherwise…You’ve opened space in your heart and your spirit for daydream, and if you stay there long enough you’ll arrive at reflection. A contemplative mood results in self-understanding even put late. Or so I’m told…But melancholy’s never far away. It rests this side of contemplation, that side of joy. It’s at the heart of rock ’n’ roll and that’s why rock ’n’ roll has always been for the young. And the young are the only ones left out this time of night…When it comes couched in joyful terms, in fact, melancholy gets rather ragged. Something like two voices singing out of tune and out of unison but full of feeling and speeding along the highway…Nothing good’s still coming your way unless you step out into the light. Cause one divine hammer’s looking too. It’s gonna find you in the end…You’re coming to the end of the night. A last burst of energy. Hope surges up again as it always does and you’re ready for any kind of fall that follows from joyful surging. Or so you think…Then careful fragmentation. Things you can’t hear no matter how hard you listen. A sensation like you’re somewhere else and nobody can reach you there. Desperation in limbs you can’t understand what to do with. Morning light just at the edge of night…A little bit of sunshine’s welcome here. The room may be a mess and you may be dazed and drowsy but you’ve had some rest. There’s a freshness to the air that you can’t do anything with but breathe…Here we go confidence: slide on over here and make yourself comfortable. Morning’s open and infinite, what more do you want? There isn’t anything more…When you step outside everyone is smiling. Over here your friend from school is waving at you. Your girlfriend is sitting in the cafe two doors down. All the sadness is gone and the world loves you once again, even if you are still sunburned…A bit of bliss emerges from the edges of summer. You do everything you can to wrap it in your arms, to fit its warm embrace around you. It’s like falling halfway asleep…In that half-sleep playfulness takes shape…Playfulness tinged with melancholy…Melancholy tinged with agitation…Agitation tinged with memory turning to regret…But this is supposed to be a day where the world finds you with its love and energy, or anyway as ragged as you are there’s a shred of energy in there somewhere…Once you’ve spent that energy what’s left is the bottom of the feeling and illusions of some sort of salvation passing…When you know however much you both may have loved, she’s gone forever from this valley, these avenues, this shoreline, nights out late and lifetimes of sorrow you’ll swallow…Nothing to do then but walk alone back down the street you live on, scrambled and seeing things differently…Whistling a tune to yourself, a ramshackle tune about someone you used to know and how it felt to know them.
Sunday Mixtape #6