once, josh bought me a piano for my birthday. he did an amazing job surprising me with it. the morning it arrived, i had even randomly left the room when it was delivered, and so upon walking back to the living room i suddenly saw a piano where previously there had been nothing.

i was kind of lonely in portland, so having my own piano in my own apartment felt like having an old friend move in with me. i was still new to portland, and freshly transported from urban life, so having a piano in my apartment was an unbelievable treat. i went to work and practiced diligently, and found a sheet music store where i indulged in things like a Chopin book, some lesser known Debussy, and later - Erik Satie. i wasn't very familiar with Satie, but as i recall someone at my workplace had a few songs on our shared server, so i was determined to learn them.

there were two apartments above me, and unbeknownst to me they enjoyed listening to my piano playing. this was good to know, because i didn't particularly hit it off with the woman directly above me when i'd first moved in (she thought my Broadcast album was too loud - at 8pm - and stomped on her floor my very first night).

what were these songs - the gymnopedies? i learned 1 and 2 very well. they weren't very technically difficult, i was trying mainly to work on expression and essence, really reading the instructive words on the sheet music. trying to make the melody sing. many friends were Satie fans, and i likened him to be an old-school dream pop fiend. (And Debussy, early shoe gazing).

if i had a piano today, would i have the same drive to emote and play with heart?

Shout! is another underrated early-era song. Much of it is in a major key, sounds kind of distant and positive - but it's bordered by a mildly dissonant header and footer. It makes for a nice complement. Who knows what they are talking about. "Break away tonight / I wanna hold your hand / We gotta get it right / We've got to understand" Vince seems to talk about those early lyrics being throwaway.

I didn't quite realize how that dissonance affected the mood until I watched a live performance online recently. A tritone was the focal point for the first minute or so. Overshadowed by the triad harmonies, which are almost cheesy.

I remember buying the 12" for this - from Wow records? New Life "b/w" Shout. I did like the b-side back then but it felt a little empty. It's an echoey, cavernous song with lots of space. And then it goes on forever at the end, and lightens up with this cheery keyboard melody.

embarrassingly for me, it is not usually about the lyrics. a song gets me with its melody, its chord progression, its impeccable choice of instrumentation. maybe not something to be so embarrassed about. after all, throughout college i had this whole thesis brewing in my head about how words are a mere articulation, oftentimes a limitation, of true feelings that can be expressed rawly in other ways. vocalizations, music, art, film. this is why shoegaze can do so much for me. that burying of lyrics creates something expressive in and of itself. maybe an introversion, a voice trapped far within a clumsy body.

it feels like there's some notion or stigma that not having amazing lyrics, or not loving a band for its profundity, makes you less intelligent. is that a thing? or am i just projecting? some kind of guilt for being this way. and not that i don't love lyrics too. i love writing them, and i love people knowing what i'm writing about. so many songwriters want to leave interpretation open - but i don't! and then there are things like martin gore's lyrics. cheesy, often. but - there's something behind that all. even in somebody he jokes about how he can get away with being so sappy. sort of hilarious? indeed. the cheesy aspect of depeche mode is inherent to who they are, and it's OK, it's built into their image, and they got grandfathered into stardom and some people hate it, but i love it.