Dear Santa… my kind of seasonal song…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 19
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Today’s Playlist – Dear Santa (The Reindeer Jaymes Live Version)
Author’s Note: Lest you think that I am off my rocker for posting a Christmas song, here’s this gentle reminder – Christmas is literally just a little over 5 months away – YIKES!
Okay, so here’s the whole reason Jay’s a family thing at my house. And I mean that sincerely – from the hubby through our daughter and down to our granddaughter (yeah, I have one of those). In fact, depending on the day, it’s a battle to sort out who is the biggest Jay fan in the house – Keely (the granddaughter) or me. We vie for the title all the time. It’s sort of a thing we do.
The hubby got me the Deluxe Package from Jay’s site for my b-day. Keely was a little jelly over it so guess what, I’m getting her a T-Shirt and probably some other Jay items just so she doesn’t feel left out. This is sort of a big thing (not just because we’re sort of celebrating my B-day) but because it is officially Keely’s first real concert. She’s over the moon on it. We both are, really (see what I mean about the going back and forth on who is the bigger fan?).
So, Dear Santa, yeah, that was what sealed it for Keely. She’s sort of a darkly imbued soul – very Tim Burtonesque if you know what I mean. When she was little her imaginary friends were Dean the Monster and Ben the Werewolf. No typical child, she.
We once watched Frank Langella’s Dracula on AppleTV and she sat through the whole thing – she was four – and at the end there wasn’t any freak out over the horror elements in the story. No, she just thought it a very sad story. In her words, “He (Drac) just wanted someone to love him and they would let that lady do it.”
Yeah, that was her takeaway from Gothic Horror – it’s a sad romance thing. So, Keely and Jay’s work – match made in the darkest parts of heaven. As a pre-teen (or tween) she is already cultivating that whole teen angst thing about no one understanding her (though she thinks I do). She already has it on her list that she MUST find a gay boy on campus when she gets to high school because her high school experience won’t be complete unless she has a GBFF. I’m good with that. She knows very well that gay boys have to be good at staying alive in a hostile world. She intends to garner some of that gaydar for herself. Way she figures it, if I made it through my high school with jocks and cheerbitches and the like, then this whole gay boy warning radar system might just work for her too. Besides, she can chat about boys with him and go out shopping. What more could a girl ask for?
But yeah, as with most tweens/teens, Keely is already going through that separation phase in her life. She’s keen to keep grandpa close though. Probably because I have accurately informed her and prophetically predicted events in her life before they happened. It wasn’t too hard. Her problems just aren’t that complex at this stage in life. When boys officially enter the picture, well, that will definitely up the ante a bit. I have an eye out for that point in time.
So, Dear Santa – Keely loves this song. It is number two on her fave Jay songs – nothing has usurped the number one spot (Death Waltz) though. That is the ultimate song on her playlist. The first one she memorized of Jay’s songs. Followed by Dear Santa. Whenever we’re in the car driving around, and Jay’s invariably on the stereo, I get Rob Me Blind and Denmark and she immediately hits up Death Waltz and Dear Santa – those are always the first four songs on the stereo whenever she and I hit the road. Sometimes her selections are first, sometimes mine. La La La is usually the follow-up just because we both love the change up in the musical interpretations in that song. When we can’t decide who gets to play their fave Jay songs first – then La La La wins by default.
I’m good with that – it’s a thing we do.
Here is yet another reason why I am indebted to Jay and his work. It’s helped keep me rooted to my granddaughter as she starts to enter her formative years. Years that I know won’t be easy. I’ve already been having the ‘talks’ about boys and what we go through in those wildly hormonally charged days. She already knows boys are nuts. I’ve convinced her of that. She can’t take them at their word when all their thinking about is sex. She isn’t ready to have that ‘talk’ yet. But she knows that boys go there. She gets that part of it. Way I figure it, between me and said GBFF in her not too distant future, I think we’ll get her through to the other side and her adulthood just fine.
So my Dear Santa wish list? I just want her on the other side of her tumultuous teen years, safe and sound and hopefully happy. But she’s a dark one – a darkling as I call her. So if not entirely happy, then at the very least – safe and sound.
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
Why can’t we have it all?
31 Days of Brannan – Day 9
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Today’s Playlist: Can’t Have It All
Author’s Note: Okay, so I wrote this one yesterday but like the dork I can be – I thought I pressed PUBLISH but instead only saved it as a draft. So here it is, a day late but as they say…
I’ve been contemplating the words to this song for some time now. It’s a concept that is not foreign to any of us – gay, straight, whatever race, creed or color. We want the best in life that it has to offer. Jay’s words in this song are universal in their reach and appeal. We’ve all been there at one time or another –
applying moisturizer in the microwave window
for the tenth time, he should have call me an hour ago
would he be here with flowers if i loved in Arizona?
they say there’s no love left in the big cities, it’s kinda true
i guess you’ll find me coming soon to the small town near you
i’ll sell my guitar so i can buy myself a tractor
fuck this, this can’t be my life
i moisturized ten times tonight
why can’t i sit down and write,
bring this question to light?Chorus:
do you want a lover, or do you want a life?
one hand or the other, the butter or the bread knife?
do you choose winter, spring, summer, or fall?
it’s driving me crazy that i can’t have it all
The pondering of what if’s. Nothing could be more hellish or cyclic and demoralizing than pondering those romantically laden ‘what-if’s’ – am I right?
Yet, because we strive for that moment of recognition, the ‘I see you…’ from some we find attractive or desirable, if only to validate that we matter somehow in this crazy fucked up world. The constant swimming upstream when everyone else, who already have that special someone get to coast along with the flow of life headed in the opposite direction. If anything so we can put down the struggle to connect with another human being in a meaningful and fulfilling way.
I particularly like Jay’s turnabout moment in the ‘fuck this, this can’t be my life, I moisturized ten times tonight…’ – humorous and yet so revealing in how we all feel at that poignant moment when we feel we just can’t bear it any more. Then that specter called defeat looms over our shoulder and whispers how much simpler it’d be if we just gave up the struggle. If we just pursued some life endeavor that would cloud the loss in us. That would sweep it under the rug of being aggressive in some other fulfilling part of our psyche. Overwhelm the hole in our heart with other pursuits.
Then Jay poses the questions that hang in the balance – ‘Do you want a lover, or do you want a life?’ A simple, if complicated, question to ponder. Ultimately he is pressing the whole concept of why do we have to ponder one over the other at all. But he presses on with the inner debate –
if these walls could talk, they’d probably cry out for mercy
’till i’m outlined in chalk, i’ll be romantically thirsty
so i drink and i drink from the proverbial time sink
fuck this, this can’t be my life
tears flowing in full force tonight
why can’t i sit down and write,
bring this question to light?Chorus:
do you want a lover, or do you want a life?
one hand or the other, the butter or the bread knife?
do you choose winter, spring, summer, or fall?
it’s driving me crazy that i can’t have it all
So now we’re at the emotive moment where we’re ready to throw in the towel. We’re over it – though our hearts scream and plead with us to keep up the search, to know that he’s out there, probably just as lost and lonely and we just haven’t turned the right corner, or bumped into them accidentally at the grocery store. You know, one of those movie land moments you see in all the rom-coms? But it is in the bridge that Brannan’s distinctive brand of pathos cuts and reveals the question we all have in ourselves. No matter how confident we may be in our lives, what we feel we’re worth, there is inherently some part of us deep within that constantly ponders – will someone find me special, find me worthy of their love and devotion?
Bridge:
do we hold the future, or does it come in peace?
and if it’s in my hands, are you sure it should be in brittle hands like these?
life, love, and the pursuit of, all the things they promised me
can i have all of the above? are the best things in life truly free?
These are heady moments when contemplating the value the love of another can bring to our lives. I’m lucky. I’ve got the man in my life that has blessed me with 20 years of his life by my side. Solid, unwavering and resolute that we’ll face everything together – up unto our last breaths. And if there’s a beyond… well, I’m sure we’d find each other then. Somehow.
Which brings us to the same round of questioning as before but with a defiant turn with the last line –
do you want a lover, or do you want a life?
one hand or the other, the butter or the bread knife?
do you choose winter, spring, summer, or fall?
it’s driving me crazy that i can’t have it all
And therein lies the rub: we should be able to have it all.
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
A Place to Call Home…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 8
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Today’s Playlist – Home
This song never fails to tear me up. Whether Jay’s intent was to bring up the visual of runaway or displaced youth, trying like hell to eke out an existence in this sometimes harsh world or not, but that is what came up for me when I first heard it.
It’s something that’s been on my mind as of late. Being an older guy, I’ve been wanting to give back to the younger generations. Displaced youth, especially my glbt brothers and sisters who’ve lost their only home because their families couldn’t see beyond their own short-sighted prejudice against their own flesh, blood and bone and what they had hoped would be unconditional love and support only to be completely abandoned. Their worth plummets and they have to quickly grow up and figure out how to make their own way in the world.
Youth often doesn’t think big picture, or envision the long term effects of recent and often rash decisions. Extrapolation isn’t often in their vernacular – let alone an element of their reasoning/logic.
Fatal habits, broken dreams
Waking up isn’t all it seems
We held on to what we couldn’t see
I carried you, you carried meCamped out in Hollywood roasting letters from your father
We proved survival of the why bother[CHORUS:]
We were young and excited
We were lost and alone
We were free, but misguided
And we had no place to call home
These opening lines took me there. The what if moment of my own life. Now, mind you, I didn’t experience any of that. My parents loved and supported me unconditionally – often even when they didn’t understand me. So I had no such worries that plagued my burgeoning gayboy existence. I was unfettered to explore what being a young gay man meant to me (thankfully beyond the hell that was high school).
But it just as easily could have been my life. Thrown to the wind with no degree of support or knowing I had any place to call home other than the small square foot of space I happened to occupy at any given time.
In the first verse and chorus of Home my takeaway was that this was exactly what could’ve been for me. Jay’s vocals completely support this. There is an understated power lingering as an undercurrent of how Jay slowly reveals the harsh reality he paints. Boys trying to find their own way – finding happiness and pleasures when and where they could to make life at least bearable.
Same old story, different song
Most people get the lyrics wrong
Verse by verse we rode a raging bull
Stomach empty, balls fullLate nights in Hollywood banging guitars and boys
Swingsets and cigarettes were our joys[CHORUS]
We were young and excited
We were lost and alone
We were free, but misguided
And we had no place to call home
I do love the imagery he calls up here in the song – as bittersweet as it is. The manner with which these misguided boys strive to exist and support one another, the freedom they strive to claim for themselves but still harnessed to the harsh reality of what this sort of existence brings is both heart rending as it is poignant.
Then the bridge comes – confirming the pathos that has only up to now bubbling under the surface. Jay’s carefully chosen prose is both impactful as it is cutting. It is the last line that when it comes, and I’ve sung this song in the car with him many times, never fails to bring a tear to my eyes, most go unshed but only because I blinked them all back. But the pain – both implied and imagined with those words – the raw and vulnerable emotions behind them – say everything to me about displaced youth and the inhumanity of it all. I’ve bolded it for easy reference.
Why don’t the Gidoens leave condoms in the drawer?
Bibles don’t save many people anymore
We took up quarters in the bathroom, there were dollars on the floor
I looked at you, you said to me, “Jay, we’re worth more”We were young and excited
We were lost and alone
We were free, but misguided
And we’d found a place to call home
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
Under the Covers with Jay…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 7
(A bit later than I wanted – technical issues)
Today’s Playlist – Landslide and Super Bass
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Errata – So I had technical issues of a major sort with my web hosting site. I couldn’t get it to respond or wouldn’t even serve up additional pages or the WP admin site. I was beside myself. Luckily the support team responded rather quickly and acknowledged that the server was having issues. They corrected it but it was well past my bed time to post.
SO, this is the post I was going to put up yesterday. So we’ll get two for today to make up for the technical fubar.
Jay is rather well known by his fans for his careful selection of cover material. All artists do it from time to time – putting their spin on classic tunes we all know and love. When Jay does it they truly do gain a new life of sorts. Not that they take away from the classics, it’s not that at all. Jay’s respectful enough to leave the lingering sentimentality of the song to caress your ear and remind you of times long past. Things that you thought were buried but with his dulcet tones they come swimming back.
Such was the case for me when he covered Landslide. Like many of my generation (I was around when Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks were exploding on the scene back in the 70’s), FM and Nicks were monumental in the soundtrack from my life back then. Nicks in particular reminds me of my friend Crystal. She was into wicca back in the day and hell, that rumor swirled around Nicks like the fringed shawl she would use on stage. She was a very magical act to behold. I listened to all of the classic bands back then – Heart, Queen, Boston, Journey, Styx, The Mac and Stevie. But Stevie was special in my mind. Probably because Crystal’s whole outlook on her music drove that for me.
We were in high school, dealing with all of the social cliques and unwritten but oft remembered laws that govern that microscopic enclave we called academia. For me, being gay and fairly obvious about it in the late seventies and early eighties was no easy thing to burden. Crystal was my get away. I was over her house quite a bit in those days. We did what most teens did… we played songs and we sang our hearts out – probably because we were both in choir (how gay can you get for a high school boy, right?).
Rhiannon, Go Your Own Way, Dreams, they were all on our playlists in our head in those days of vinyl. And kids, let me tell you NO digital file can compare with an analog recording – forget what the marketers and the tech geeks say – vinyl rules.
Anywho, so when Jay released this little cover on his youtube channel, I was over the moon to hear it. His rendering of the song is quite emotive for me – recalling those days so long ago and the naiveté that permeated my teen years. My senior year was another story altogether – but I’ll leave that for another time.
So Jay – yeah, thanks for taking me back, though I am fully cognizant that that wasn’t your goal, it was the unintended effect on my part. I got sentimental for those days. Recalling that boy so long ago and the heady, romantic ideals I had about what being with a boy would be like.
But a lot of your songs do that for me. They take me back. Just as emotive as those sentimental favorites. Probably why Rob Me Blind (along with your entire catalog) is constantly playing in the car. They are my new classics, my new sentimental favorites.
And I sing them with no less sentimentality than Landslide or Dreams. Denmark and Rob Me Blind have just as prominent a place as those songs did from my past. Rob Me is my new soundtrack for this stage of my life. And I couldn’t be happier…
And now for something completely different… SUPER BASS
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Just my giggle moment from Jay. I love that he can go there and take us along for the ride.
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Sidebar: I bought my Deluxe Package from Jay Brannan’s store for the tour he’s embarking on now. The cost of the deluxe package is $40 and you get quite a bit for it. There are other packages as well. But that isn’t why I did it. I did it because I truly feel indebted to this man of words and music. I am enriched by his musical musings and experiences. I am emboldened to discover that I am not alone in my dreams and fears. And for that I will always support him and do what I can to spread the word.
The deluxe tour package from Jay Brannan’s merchandise store – get this or many other offerings from his site.
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
Everywhere There’s Statues…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 4
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Today’s Playlist – Everywhere There’s Statues
Happy Fourth of July to all the US peeps out there!
There are three songs I am looking forward to (well hoping, actually) that Jay performs on this tour.
They are:
- Rob Me Blind (for sentimental reasons – see first day’s post)
- Denmark (for pretty much the same reasons as number one)
- Everywhere There’s Statues (today’s selection)
As we Yanks in the US celebrate the country’s founding, I was drawn to this song in particular. Jay muses with many things in this song, playing with common threads that no matter where you are in the world brings the question of what constitutes freedom front and center.
I love the imagery in this song. It is so poetic and riveting in both scope and appeal. It’s a mental floss moment in songwriting:
It’s like looking for hay in a stack of hypodermics
Shooting up grey through the cracks in the yellow brick road
And everywhere there’s statues with their arms open wide
Surrounded by fences that you, that you can’t get inside
That’s brilliant bloody writing, that is. Simplistic in nature yet evoking sentimental imagery that we can all commonly share. Four lines that have a great impact — questioning how we truly view the world and how we sadly often trade security for liberty in this day of casual terrorism. I can’t help thinking as we watch FIFA going on and the image of Cristo Redentor at the top of Mount Corcovado in Rio De Janeiro. Arms open wide (just as Jay calls to question) but there are so many oppressed peoples of the favelas there that will never find a path to a better life.
Heady words and a heady prospect. I often liken it to trying to explain the lofty goals as humans we set for ourselves only to fall well short of the mark. If we had to explain that to beings not from our world, an alien race per se, what would they see in our bold and charismatically infused words? Would they see the strive for that universal acceptance and utopian ideal? Or would they see us for the charlatans that many of us are? All words with very little bite to them?
The verse in the song that I love to sing along with kind of sums it up for me –
Sub-normal people do supernatural things
In a world full of demons with white feathered wings
I feel like I’m open hearted, but it’s a broken range we’re on
I know I’m not the only one asking where have all the cowboys gone
Can’t one of these cowboys come rescue me?
I need a little bit of rope n ride to keep me on my feet(to chorus)
I even allude to these lines of Jay’s in my first novel (coming soon) in that my world deals with the concept of Angels – the potential angelic ideal in all of us, and how sadly we often can’t bring ourselves to care enough to do something. Oh, we can acknowledge the horror, the inhumanity of it all, but how many of us are called to action to do something?
But it is Jay’s bridge in the song that carries the greatest emotional and reasoned impact in the song – for me, it elevates it and gives it its true power.
Face down on the hardwood floor
In one more empty corridor
I’m all alone in these halls
All is fair in love and war
If I can’t find an open door
Then I’ll start taking out walls
I’m face down on the hardwood floor
And not a soul with which to be
If this craving’s one to ignore
Then someone tell me what the fuck a soul is for
You go, Jay. I fucking love it when he kicks me in the emotive and mental parts all at the same time. This song is brilliant and works on so many levels. None the least of which is the orchestrated version on Rob Me Blind. I love the string arrangement in it. Very elegant touch in the final chorus – heightening the production value immensely from this little musical segue. Lovely arrangements, simply moving.
While Jay doesn’t travel with a band, because it would probably be a logistical nightmare for him as he does 99% of his work all by himself, I know I will have to supply the stirring string arrangement myself if he performs this one live. It’s how I’ll hear it in my head. This is bang on one of my absolute favorites songs of his.
I am a fan of his because his music makes me question, leads me to ponder, gives me a good mental flossing and prods me along to reevaluate how I see things. It’s like putting on glasses where things were simply so out of focus but you just plodded along anyway until you put them on and suddenly you realize the details in life you may have been missing all along.
Brilliant, brilliant work!
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Sidebar: I bought my Deluxe Package from Jay Brannan’s store for the tour he’s embarking on now. The cost of the deluxe package is $40 and you get quite a bit for it. There are other packages as well. But that isn’t why I did it. I did it because I truly feel indebted to this man of words and music. I am enriched by his musical musings and experiences. I am emboldened to discover that I am not alone in my dreams and fears. And for that I will always support him and do what I can to spread the word.
The deluxe tour package from Jay Brannan’s merchandise store – get this or many other offerings from his site.
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com