LOST MY TOUCH

i don't know, i'm a word man, i read a lot, i enjoy a good line, i appreciate a nice bit of narrative, something that comes at you from a different angle and carry's you along on a journey. destination never matters does it? it's the journey. 

that's what they say down in esotericville and new age book shops.

here's a song that i feel really encapsulates this, 'lost my touch' firstly what a song title, it immediately conjures up a melancholia, somethings missing, somethings not there from the picture, and what exactly is 'my touch' i guess you have to take the journey to find out more. 

and as that opening chord rings out the train leaves the station on it's super slow but steady rhythm, we get steve's voice but it comes from somewhere else, not quite there with us, he is the driver and we are passengers, there's separation. we look out the window absorbing the view but he fills in the gaps in the landscape.

i don't know if it's self indulgent to write about it as a subjective experience, you can hear the song yourself get your own meaning, but i guess all church songs to a empathetic listener have a subjective quality and this one goes very deep for me.

plus here we can share, it's safe to do that in 'drums and bells' it's our connection and we understand because here we try to define it, song by song.

i really don't know where this song takes me, it's filled with such richness, such incredible powerlessness other than to take ones self away from the equation.

from that strange operatic female voice and that jews harp twanging away somewhere in the mix, the piano notes and that chiming filmic bit from a ghost story / love story that ends bad for everyone. the guitars are almost absent but they they leap at you from oblique shadows, strange shapes haunting and fading away, nothing here is familiar, nothing is really what it seems. 

the first vocal lines almost sound like the divine comedy / tragedy re written for the modern age, science fiction nihilism with metaphorical trip through some sort of failed relationship, bitter words, resoundingly absolute in the fact whatever was, is finished. it's a song of walking away, resigned to the fact there is no return journey, and it will never be re experienced.

'it's like halloween time' steve informs us.

the next verse, reveals the ghost in the machine marty's chords strike away like some sort of heartbeat pumping us onwards, the atmosphere begins to shift, base notes pulse through the air and then more of the picture is filled further with steve repeating the mantra, 'i don't owe you anything.'

and then the train crashes, the landscape pours through the windows, the journey is coming to an end, the destination comes to us as we hear 'his name was ray' and the following verse takes all we have experienced and compresses it into a black void. 

i adore this song, it has a bravery about it, a strength, something that just cannot be broken or diminished, the idea that we all have the choice to exit at any station on our journey but we still have to ride the train to the end of the line.

this song, wow, it's not really a song, it's a key.