July 23 - Black Pear Tree

An unexpected voice on this one. I haven't heard Kaki King before, and that's fairly obviously an oversight and one I'll have to correct.

This, to me, is a song about the wrong kind of peace. The sort that's a respite between moments of pain, not an end to pain. Of knowing that the pain is still there even if you aren't able to feel it at this second.

Back in 2012 I pulled a muscle in my back. Pulled it badly, and in such a way that I couldn't comfortably sit, stand, or lie. I was a crablike thing with no comfort possible, sleep had not come in the longest time. In the end my wife had to take a cab to an emergency clinic to get me diclofenac,, which they would only give her two of despite it being an NSAID and not any form of narcotic. And while she was gone getting that for me I had a moment in the dark (this was 2AM I think, these things are always 2AM) where I wasn't actually in pain. But I knew as surely as I knew my own name that if I were to move anything in any direction the pain would be back. And that knowledge hurt worse than my back did.

Anyway, to me this is a song about that knowledge.

Also, here's a song where Kaki King goes absolutely apeshit on an acoustic guitar