MOG

sometimes music just shows up in your life precisely when you need it.

it's been two and a half years since i lived in australia. seven and a half since i first moved there. (seven years seems so long now.) eight years since i first heard powderfinger. on a little mixtape made for me and sent thousands of miles across the ocean. 'odyssey number five' hadn't been created yet, so they were all tracks from 'internationalist'. above all other songs on that mixtape, i loved them the most.

nearly three years later, 'odyssey' did come out, when i lived in that little island country. and not long after that i was fortunate enough to see them live i was suffering from the beginning stages of a horrible stomach flu that very night and ended up having to leave right before the encore because i couldn't take the pain any longer. we sat near the roadside, waiting for a taxi, me doubled over in the gutter, and we hear from across the gardens - a cover of "ziggy stardust". what i wouldn't give to go back and be right in front of the stage again for that.

but that's not really what this post is about. it's about how i haven't owned a copy of 'odyssey' for a few years now, and while i never forgot about powderfinger, i was never really fussed about it either. then at work i stumbled across a copy. and immediately put it in. and then rented it. and have been listening to it the past 12 hours on a weird loop.

it might have taken six years, but i finally get every word and every note of this album now. not only do i get it, but it is me. if i had to tell the current events in my life (six months past and six months ahead) and put it to song, this album would be it. i can feel each note get under my fingertips and into my skin and twist around my veins. i can feel my heart stop and stutter to the beat of the drums and butterflies in my skull dip and twirl with bernard's voice.

it's a part of me now. forever.