September 20 - Rain in Soho

I feel unfair thinking of songs in this as The Real Shit, but every now and then a Mountain Goats song stuck with me hard and I can't stop going back to it. This song is a perfect encapsulation of the feeling if listening to miserable songs to escape your miserable town and it working for a bit but then leading to the crash of realising you are still fucking there.

One of the purposes of music is to feel. It doesn't initiate feelings so much as remind you that you are not the first person to feel this, and to let your own sadness or joy or anger or horniness resonate with other people. This song is a focal point of the feeling that nobody fucking understands, that nobody has felt things like this. And we have to feel that when we're young. Later, knowing that we're part of a tradition helps as a form of validation, but you need the feeling of fresh newness first.

And today's not listened to enough song is Ash by Murder By Death, which is what a Garth Ennis comic about the West would sound like if it was a folk rock band from Bloomington Indiana.