Don’t Worry – Middle Finger
It’s hard to be thankful, and the people who remind you to do it are either your parents or will try to share your insurance as soon as they’ve got you to smile approvingly.
“I’ll never be the Dalai Lama”, assures us the singer of Don’t Worry. And, once you realise that all that money spent on meditation classes doesn’t risk turning you into one either, you may just be able to sleep a lot easier with yourself.
Yes, we’ve made it a habit on this website to promote artists who dream, plot and strategise about tearing up the world. And we’ve certainly made it a point to promote people fashion their stage alter-egos as ubermenschen who live only for sex, drugs and loud music.
And while finding songs about how we should be thankful and aware of our own tiny place in the universe is not easy, those might be the ones that should be most praised. Don’t Worry’s “Middle Finger” is a conversation that the songwriter had with himself, brilliantly transformed into an indie song. It’s about coming to terms with one’s shortcomings, one’s bad luck and with one’s blessings. Blending all of those things together and not shedding a few tears won’t be the easiest thing. Don’t Worry has reached a level of acceptance. “Middle Finger” is a really special song.
Dew Claw – Escape Velocity
Listen, I’m just as excited about the prospect of Armageddon coming down as a 1980s Morrissey. And, yes, I get all the bad news beamed into my house, onto my phone, and in my morning coffee conversations. Yes, it’s bad.
But we might all just be a little too willing to flatter ourselves. Maybe that’s Dew Claw’s secret to optimism and to making plans for the future. Maybe they’ve found out that, really, it’s not as bad as everyone thinks.
Every generation, secretly, wants to be the very last one. I don’t know what it says about us as a race. But it certainly has helped create a lot of great art about impending doom. Old prophecies never came true. So, maybe, as long as we can, let’s just boogie.
Dew Claw’s “Escape Velocity” is a song about not wasting the opportunity to find people similar to yourself and work with them on the off-chance that Doomsday doesn’t actually arrive. It’s an optimistic attitude and a song to match, one inspired by the glorious odes to an eternal Spring Sun captured on music by bands like ELO.
Yeah, the world’s probably not ending tomorrow. If that’s true, you’re just going to look silly for having fretted so much. Take some advice from Dew Claw and use their music to free yourself for now.
