On the Juke: The Lumineers - Cleopatra

Contrary to my belief, there are some haters out there for this lovely little band called The Lumineers. Well, I don't think I've met any of them yet, so I suspect there just must be haters out there who just like to hate, saying that they're cliche. Fooey.

Folksy as ever, Cleopatra, I dare say, is a little more mellow than The Lumineer's self-titled previous album. Mellow as it may be, the lyrics this time around are just as jam packed, which makes me, personally, adore them. It's the simplicity they convey in their story telling that entraps you. Lines like (if you'll pardon the expletive, please), "I can't believe what I found in daddy's sock drawer, sock drawer today. It was a pistol, a Smith and Wesson, holy, holy shit." Can you not just picture that reaction in your head? Brilliant.

So, yeah, they're the folksy sound that pretty much marks this generation of indie. But, they are indie. They're literally the definition of indie - they're independent. That's how they started: Nobodies just writing lyrics and making music while busing tables to pay the rent. And, praises be, they eventually hit it big with "Ho, Hey" and, soon to follow, "Stubborn Love." Rising from the bottom, they made it into popular culture. So far, they haven't sold out (and I mean fame-wise, not seat-wise, because they actually have sold out pretty much every upcoming show). Cleopatra holds true to their desire to not  be eaten by greed and popularity, as they admit on their website and chant about in their new hit single, "Ophelia." Secluding themselves from the world to write as they did when they were practically invisible makes this new album raw and inviting.

So, goodbye haters. I'll be turning the other cheek, as I should... if only to better listen to them and not you.

Peace and Blessings,

Olivia

Photo courtesy of The Lumineers: http://thelumineers.com/about/

QOTD: Ralph Waldo Emerson - Hindsight

"The years teach us much

which the days never knew."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poetry Hour: Entry 9 - The Mortification of Me

The Mortification of Me

And I am again overpowered.

All mind of mine could rage against,

yet I still fall back, snatched by this 

impulse to do what I hate. 

Mortified am I, taken towards

the dark of the spark that ignites

and I weaken; and I'm outside myself;

I am some body without a will or a

sanity for the sanctity I once longed for.

Voiceless, I am not who I am. I am silent 

within the me that is not myself.

This is the mortification of me:

beginning and ending with you - 

you unknown, body-less one who 

enraptures me with life empty of 

life. So I crawl out of my muck and

feel stuck once again in this cycle that 

stifles every piece of my mind. Am I

to be enslaved to this white washed

cave that leaves me alone in the cold

waiting for love to come back to my 

heart feeling filthy? I want to be free. 

I want to stop asking for freedom. I want to be 

past this so I can declare victory. 

Yet here I lay, fetal and afraid of what

I've done and who I am. 

This is the mortification of me:

that who I am is not what I've done -

that what I've done is not enough to 

out-stain the blood that covered 

everything and every me. 

So I open again, a bird just as broken and 

yet just as mended as I've ever been. 

Through the ashes, I climb again

to that joy that I've known long enough 

that every corrupt passing passes behind.

I may be mortified, but it was He who died

so that I may rise, as I must, from the dust

and live with a gust of wind ever-flowing,

always knowing: I am won.

QOTD: Oscar Wilde - Hope

"We are all in the gutter, 

but some of us are looking 

at the stars."

Oscar Wilde