#21

This weeks contribution is from one of my dearest friends, I consider him family in every form - Also, it's important to mention that in no way are these twenty-five albums in any type of ranking. Number one is no greater than twenty-five, it's just a list, not a countdown to number one.

By Digler, 9 November 2009

It was the music. If it’s something that matters, doesn’t it always come down to the music? Both from small towns in Idaho and great families (and if you think Mike is from a small town, I grew up in the ‘suburbs’ of a town with a population of 770), both married to our high school sweethearts but too stubborn and too cool in that ridiculous we –were-high-school-basketball-rivals-and-he-was-a punk-kind of way to try and get to know each other even as we lived just a few blocks apart. Our wives had similar backgrounds but in that way that women seem to be able to do but men struggle with they were already way past the pettiness and had become, and remain, great friends. Finally, our wives had managed to get us all together and as Mike turned a critical eye towards my CD collection we realized we basically owned mirror collections, had similar backgrounds and came from families that had from an early age shaped our love for music. My father is a huge classic rock kind of guy – and now has a vintage Harley as if to put an exclamation on that fact. The kind of guy who when a song came on the radio would say, son that’s “Melissa” from The Allman Brothers Band, Eat a Peach album, released in 1972. So I grew up listening to albums, and that’s still what I look for, listen to and buy – and like Mike I think we have as many great albums being put out now as ever before – but you have to look for them and you have to want to find them. I’ve gone through various stages of music in my life and still appreciate a wide variety but if you drew a big old Venn diagram (sorry, I’m a PhD student) you’d see a little more classic rock and alternative on my side and a little more classic country on Mike’s side but there would be a huge overlap in the middle with the kinds of music this blog is all about. I’m glad Mike has finally put down into written word some of the conversations we’ve had over the years and I’m happy to be a part of it.

It’s almost been a decade since we bonded over music. Mike’s moved from Idaho to Brooklyn and back again. I’ve moved from Idaho to Boston… and that’s where I remain today – six years and counting. My wife and I have two girls and they’ve been born here and are being raised here. As I stated, I’m a PhD student, studying at a business school, in the education capital of the world. It has been an amazing experience as we’ve experienced life in a city as dynamic as Boston and learned to live so far away from family and friends. I’m teaching, working on a dissertation, and getting to know some extraordinary and brilliant people from all over the world. Some days, I feel like I belong, that I’m becoming an equal, that Boston is becoming home. But there are other times – when I see my daughters have to go to a public park for a chance to get their pants dirty and run wild, when someone wonders what you could do for fun in a tiny town in Idaho, or asks aloud how in the world I managed to end up getting a PhD in Boston – that I wonder what I’m doing here. It’s a tension between where I’ve come from, what I’m doing now and where I hope to be. There is some sadness there but also some hope. I’m an optimist and I usually have a smile on my face. In those moments, there is one artist, and one album in particular that resonates – Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years.

#21 Josh Ritter - The Animal Years

I could make an argument for every one of his albums to be on this list and it’s easy to follow his own trajectory from his self-titled album to The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter as he’s found his style and grown into his song-writing. But I think The Animal Years is Josh at a cross-road, one that many of us can relate to as we try to find out what we want to be and where we want to be it. Besides, he’s gone from Idaho to Boston and back again. Maybe one day I’ll do the same. He is a lyrical storyteller – probably the best we have today – and there is a sense that he has his voice on the edge. It’s right up to the boundaries of where he can take it and if you listen closely, like in “Lillian, Egypt” and “Good Man” you can tell he has a smile on his face. I’ve seen him in concert a couple of times and can verify this – his smile, energy and enthusiasm is contagious. There isn’t a week goes by that I don’t tell my wife, as Josh sings on “Good Man” “Babe we both had dry spells, hard times in bad lands, I’m a good man for ya, I’m a good man” He’s more serious on “Girl in the War” and “Thin Blue Flame” but even at his darkest you get a sense of optimism and lyrics that you’ll want to repeat to your dearest friends.

On “Idaho” he sings “My clothes are packed and I want to go Idaho oh Idaho” and when I hear that I’ve got my own bags packed, and I can see a cold, winter night in Idaho and an open road ahead of me. The album ends with the song “Here at the Right Time” with Josh singing “Tell me I got here at the right time. If I did it’s probably the first time. No second guesses or secret signs. Tell me I got here at the right time.” He’s hopeful and so am I.