When I feel alone, yeah I always wanna bring you near ‘Cause you bring a smile right here You chase away my darkest hours When we go walking, sunlight’s all around you It’s all around you
And did I mention? You always bring me Bring me back with your pure intention Baby, come and get with me There’s something that I gotta do Baby, when you’re here with me There’s nothing that we cannot do (There’s nothing that we cannot do)
‘Love Sensation’ is the best kind of let’s-get-lost love song – the perfect antidote to any lagging winter weariness, and a prime set-up for a summer of love. It’s excitement and anticipation and joy wrapped up in an easy beat – a beckoning to the dance-floor, and beyond. It fizzes with the sparkle of summer.
Love’s the reason why It’s a drug that I can’t stop taking Baby, let’s get high Tripping up to the sky I’m your love sensation, good vibration Love sensation I’m your love sensation, good vibration Love sensation
There’s nothing that we cannot do, there’s nothing that we cannot do There’s nothing that we cannot do, there’s nothing that we cannot do
Such a devilish trick, a diabolical command, cloaked in a precious sentiment: be longing. As if the universe wants us all in a constant state of unfulfillment. Wanting and waiting, wishing and willing. Cruel, the way the world sometimes flings us into such a state.
Be Longing.
A state of perpetual yearning.
I don’t know who I’m supposed to be It’s like I’m always fighting gravity I hear something calling But I feel myself falling down, down, down
I want to belong to someone Someone who can take my heart home A home where I don’t always feel alone I wanna belong to someone Someone who is always near me Someone who really hears me Someone who can save me from me I wanna belong to someone
For so long, too long really, I’ve been seeking to belong to something, anything, as if that was the way to find meaning and connection in life. I thought that truly belonging would fill the empty ache I sometimes felt, even at the most full and happy moments of my life. There was always a disconnect, a remove, a distance from everyone and everything. I tried, like a chameleon, to become what I thought might belong, and more importantly what might be beloved. Another tricky word – the impossible instruction to be loved. If we could, we all would.
To be part of something real To be half of a whole To be truly connected To surrender control I need a family that’s gonna stand up for me ‘Cause for so long I’ve been lost and looking for the light
Is there someone out there Waiting to be found? Come and reach out for me I’m tired of wandering around I’ve been searching for something more Something worth living for
At some point, and not too long ago, I finally realized that belonging didn’t mean that you mattered – it just meant that you were able to fit in – and what was ever so great about fitting in? My life has mostly been about doing my own thing, no matter how strange or weird or bizarre it seemed to others – and standing behind whatever I did because I loved it. Being apart, being different, being unlike anyone or anything around me – this was where I belonged. And there it was. Belonging. A simple longing to be.
I want a love That can slow down time That lasts forever That never dies
My dream-goal fantasy has already been originally described here. I don’t think it’s asking for too much. Just a space to successfully grow some citrus. What could be easier? There is so much available sun for the taking – seems a shame to let it all go to waste without the sweet perfume of citrus blooms as a by-product. I don’t even need the fruit – only the perfumed blossoms. That would be enough.
When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me “Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree” “Don’t put your faith in love, my boy” my father said to me “I fear you’ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree”
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat
One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie A girl so sweet that when she smiled, the stars rose in the sky We passed that summer lost in love, beneath the lemon tree The music of her laughter hid my father’s words from me
There’s a lesson in this song, a deeper one than should really be conveyed in a Saturday night post. Listen to the melody. Forget the words, give up on learning a lesson tonight.
One day she left without a word, she took away the sun And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done She left me for another, it’s a common tale but true A sadder man, but wiser now, I sing these words to you
Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat
They exude the personality and heart to defiantly be exactly who they are without apology or excuse, and they live life on their own terms. Artistically it makes for a fascinating and combustible combination, but the people who love them do so because of their authentic grit and determination to stay true to themselves.
Add Charley Overbey to the collection of those who stand by their artistic visions, noble beliefs, and relentless quest to be unique and authentic in a world obsessed with making us all the same. Overbey easily earns this Dazzler of the Day honor for his body of musical work – he’s been performing since the 90’s, melding blues and country with some honky-tonk and punk into a genre all his own. His latest album ‘In Good Company’ has received raves (and is currently on repeat in my car because it’s the greatest driving music). Opening with the driving ‘Punk Rock Spy’ in which Overbey lays out his hard-won wisdom and acceptance of his winding lot in life, it sets the scene for a revelatory musical journey that finds the artist reckoning with all that has come before, and all that’s yet to arrive.
Of equal interest to those with a discerning fashion eye, Overbey is a designer of some magnificent hats over at Lone Hawk Hats – a self-taught milliner who crafts custom hats using vintage shells and environmentally-safe materials. They are true works of art – one-of-a-kind pieces from a time when quality and care came before quantity and mass-consumption. It aligns perfectly with Charlie’s vision of life – fashion and music going hand-in-hand in the search for authentic meaning and expression. (My friend Josie already has two of his hats, and she might just convince me to finally indulge in that teal green hat I’ve been seeking for the past decade.)
After some painful years, Madonna is poised to return to the pop culture firmament with this delicious introductory slice of her upcoming ‘Confessions II’ album – long-awaited follow-up to 2005’s ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor‘, and her first album of new material sine 2019’s ‘Madame X’. The teaser film featuring tantalizing snippets of music from the first half of the album was just released, and you need to see it below. In addition to some of the most arresting visuals we’ve seen from Madonna in recent years, the music sounds like the perfect accompaniment to a club night out – something this world needs now more than ever, even if it’s largely gone away.
The countdown to the album’s release date July 3, 2026 is officially ticking away, and I cannot wait…
At the edge of the ocean, or at the edge of the land, an art museum sits looking out over a bluff. A garden is situated between the art and the sea, a placement that feels heartwarmingly apt: the garden as a bridge between art and nature. There is a bench for sitting while watching the ocean, but I’m more interested in what’s underneath it all. A patch of creeping thyme is beginning to cover a round rock. The little fuzzy thyme leaves and tiny pink flowers soften the rock’s edges, blurring the border between stone and soil.
This bit of creeping thyme reminds of the power and sway that flowers and beauty can hold over such stalwart things as rock and stone. They defeat by being pretty, gently surrounding a cold gray stone with fuzzy arms of warmth and loveliness. They embrace the immobile and unmoving rock with their love – given without expectation or the hope of love returned. The creep of thyme made beautiful, as in this creep of a song.
Thyme will spend the summer covering this rock, closing around its still stony heart. It offers softness and kindness – shade when it’s sunny and warmth when it’s windy. It is blanket and brother, caretaker and comforter, embrace and enchantress. It only cares to cocoon and love – its adoration feeds upon its own juxtaposition of hot and cold, hard and soft, interest and indifference.
A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes I screamed aloud as it tore through them And now it’s left me blind…
The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart
Flashes of light and gaseous alchemy, elements comprising life and energy, the stars seem so simple but they contain multitudes – meaning, magic, majesty – and though they seem to watch us from afar, we do not see where some might be now – so long does it take for their sparkle to reach our sight. The twinkles we see tonight were emitted long ago, depending on how distant they are, and the bending of time, the traversing of great distance, and the destiny apparently embedded in the sky might all play a part in how our lives will play out.
I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map And knew that somehow I could find my way back Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too So I stayed in the darkness with you
The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark (you left me in the dark) No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart
It’s a little too early for a tender song called ‘Nightswimming’ – that comes later, when we’re nearer to September. For now, another R.E.M. beauty – ‘At My Most Beautiful’ which almost matches the tenderness of ‘Nightswimming’.
I’ve found a way to make you I’ve found a way A way to make you smile
I read bad poetry Into your machine I save your messages Just to hear your voice You always listen carefully To awkward rhymes You always say your name Like I wouldn’t know it’s you At your most beautiful
Once upon a Boston autumn, I listened to this song right around the time I started dating a sweet boy. We would last for almost two years, and I’d move halfway across the country for him, only to come back heartbroken and alone before we had the chance to share another spring together. We were so young, so hopeful, so unrocked by the world at that point. Still, we weren’t meant to be, and we couldn’t keep it together. He was brave enough to say so; I was brave enough to accept it without a brutal fight. This song brings me back to our beginning – a little slice of happiness and heaven.
I remember sitting on the bed in my Boston place as the sun came in through the bay window. Fall was at hand, but it held on to the warmth of summer, the way cities sometimes hold that season’s heat well into October. Suzie was visiting and we sat on the bed catching up. Nervous to tell her about him, the way I would always be when introducing my boyfriends to her, my giddiness overrode the nerves and I remember smiling like a fool the entire time. The first inklings of love are unmistakable, and so adorably fun; I just wanted to share the feeling, to shout it and declare it and let the whole world know. It was easy to fall in love then, at least for me; my friends were much wiser – safer, too – but I didn’t care. Recklessly, ruinously, ridiculously, I would fall over and over and over again. And it was always worth it – if only for a season or two.
At my most beautiful I count your eyelashes secretly With every one, whisper, “I love you” I let you sleep I know your closed eye watching me Listening I thought I saw a smile
Lately I’ve been looking at long-ago romances and revisioning the hurt I felt at the end of any number of relationships. The endings usually left me sad and bereft, and in sadness there was bitterness. That’s not how I want to remember those love affairs, and so I’m shifting my view of them, choosing instead to remember how wonderful they were in their respective sections of my life. Hence the sweet song of this post, and the revelations – literal and metaphorical – of now and then.
I’ve found a way to make you I’ve found a way A way to make you smile
Returning from Maine, the road turned from rainy to sunny.
Summer whispered on the scattered days when the temperature reached into the 80’s.
In some cities there is already the bane of a heatwave, driving the warmth into the concrete, into the labyrinthine subway stations, into the headache-inducing unbearable afternoons where the only relief is in a cold shower, in lying very still as a fan does its damnedest to no real avail.
How far will it take us, how hot will it get, and how will we get there from here? Impossible to make out the twists and turns to come, even if the end – the destination – is in the beginning, in those earliest days of spring, when houses of glass and green gave the only glimpses of hope on those nights still so cold.
Bane of our lawn’s existence, I still have a soft spot in my heart for these little violets that still manage to break through in the spring despite all the treatments. When I was little, behind our family home was a little stretch of woods, and behind the black iron gate of the pool, a swath of these violets had naturalized and provided an enchanting carpet that was lit up with purple and white violet blooms each spring.
The variegated white and purple variety was far more ubiquitous, but I always coveted the more rare pure violet blooms like the one seen here.
That I’m weighed down by your beautiful Collapsing underneath your perfect Drowning in your wonderful And I’m letting you sink in It’s, it’s almost unbearable I’m suffering inside your magic Love you something terrible And I’m letting you sink in And I’m letting you sink in
Hidden among this spring’s collection of lilac-themed posts, a song surfaces, breaking through the din of the food hall at Moynihan Train Hall as I find myself departing New York after a Mother’s Day weekend on Broadway with Mom. It’s been decades since she first brought us to New York to see ‘Peter Pan’ when I was just a kid, and though our roles have flipped somewhat (with me planning and steering us around the city as best I can) it’s still fun to see shows with the woman who instilled a love of theater from an early age.
When I was a kid I built a kingdom There in my bed Filled it with wisdom And all of my friends They were like superheroes We’d go outside and play in the garden I’d shown my eyes and give ’em a warning And they’d run and hide while I counted down to zero And forever I know I won’t stop dreaming, won’t let go
A few years later, when I was in middle school, Suzie and Missy joined us for a trip to New York, where we saw ‘Jerome Robbins’ Broadway’. A little older, and on the verge of knowing everything as teenagers, we thought we were shit as much as we thought we were the shit. Simultaneously uncertain and entirely sure of ourselves, we walked around the city like we were untouchable (except for the lady who patted me on the head and said my hair was so softy and shiny).
I know we’re older Carrying the world upon our shoulders But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope I know I know, I know I know we can be giants Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants We can be giants, Oh, we can be giants We can be giants Yeah, I know I know, I know I know We can be giants
A couple of years after that, Suzie and I and our Moms were back in New York for a pair of shows that remain favorites: ‘Lost In Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. Full-frontal male nudity with our mothers was not on my bucket list, but we checked that box that trip. Suzie and I were growing up (a floppy dick bouncing around on stage does that to a person…) and in our friendship I found a certain strength and stability that I didn’t sense with anyone else.
When I was a kid I was a dreamer My room wasn’t big, my house wasn’t either But I had enough love to fill up a city And all of those nights I watched the stars They lit up the sky, filled up my heart I won’t let go
By the time I was in college, Norma Desmond and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ had taken hold of my psyche, and Mom and I were back on Broadway seeing Glenn Close in her Tony-winning turn. The next year we saw ‘Master Class’ with Zoe Caldwell as Maria Callas – diva-dom was still calling to me in delusional grandeur, and it would be a little while until I could take myself out of the scenes to enjoy from afar; I always felt things too keenly, too deeply, for my own good, and for my own safety. But growing up changes that, no matter when it happens.
I know we’re older Carrying the world upon our shoulders But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants
Spring nights are the salvation of the sleepless. I don’t mind being awake when the nights stay warm early into the morning, or when a warm front arrives in the evening and everything feels suddenly tropical. Here’s one for the insomniacs and sleep-deprived, those who find themselves unable to sleep because their minds are too bright with something else. It’s Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of ‘Black Coffee’, a bluesy little song to help anyone through the night.
Black coffee Love’s a hand me down brew I’ll never know a Sunday In this weekday room
Their’s something noirish in the underside of this music, lying just beneath the surface, insidious like the disappearing tail of a cigarette’s smoky trail. A diabolical piece of music that seeps into the darkest corner of the night – shadow of shadow of shadow…
I’m talking to the shadows 1 o’clock to 4 And Lord, how slow the moments go When all I do is pour
Black coffee Since the blues caught my eye I’m hanging out on Monday My Sunday dreams to dry
Scary music, not the silly stuff of Halloween, something more sinister, slinking through the spring like a snake, slip-slip-lisp-slip snake-talk…
Now a man is born to go a lovin’ A woman’s born to weep and fret To stay at home and tend her oven And drown her past regrets In coffee and cigarettes
A cup of cold coffee sits on the table in the cold light of morning. Gray and muted, a different kind of noirish, and a more menacing one, because the morning is always the more menacing.
Right when I’d written off this year’s crop of lilac blooms as a bust, the backyard trees burst into bloom thanks to a heavy soaking of rain a few days ago. In the early morning, I went out to take a few photos, and it turned out to be the only part of the day that didn’t have rain. The lilacs seemed to know this, bowing their heads and biding their time until their long and lengthy thirst-quenching drink arrived to fill the rest of the day. While we needed the rain, I longed for riding into the sun…
Telling stories has always fascinated me, as much for the sharing of knowledge and understanding and something that might resonant with another person, as for the relief and lifting of a burden in the act of telling and sharing. Difficulty shared is difficulty halved, or some such shit. Certain songwriters share a love of sharing stories through their music. Mitski is one such artist, and this song says so much in just a few chords and lines. I love the way it opens up on so many levels, how it could mean so many different things.
I won’t leave you ’cause I still love you So it’s up to you if you choose to go In the meantime, sleeping by my side Our two cats, making sure I’ll be alright
As spring deepens, as the weather turns (please God maybe just a little warmer?) and as this space becomes more of an escape and an escapade in a world gone completely bonkers, I like the idea of trying out different stories, tales to take the burden off living this life. Fictional flights of fancy with some gems and jewels of the human condition to keep it all grounded, tethered to the heart of our emotions. Let me entertain you…
You say, “It’s so hard” But it feels simple to me It feels so simple to me So I’ve been trying to stop trying To be like someone you’d still like Maybe if I could, you already would
‘Cause I still love you, so I won’t leave you Guess it’s up to you if you choose to go In the meantime, rescues at my side Our two cats, both asleep by me tonight
When an artist combines music, beauty, and the natural world, it’s an alchemy that often results in the crowning of a Dazzler of the Day – which is why Ben Cosgrove is today’s Dazzler. A composer, pianist, and performance artist, Cosgrove creates and makes music that speaks to the landscape, geography, and the environment – weaving these worlds into an artistic creation that brings tender expression to how humans relate to the environment around them. Check out his website here for additional genius.
