Chad VanGaalen//TMNT Mask

I’m not one for being “friends” with people you don’t actually know over the internet. That said, I do have one internet friend, Megan from California!!!!, and I honestly can’t even remember how I “met” her, but she’s totally the fucking jam and she has the best taste ever (ie. we agree about what’s good when it comes to media and we’re good sharers!). I bring her up because I wouldn’t be posting this track if not for her discerning tastes and propensity to send me Last.fm recommendations.

I checked out this song a few days ago and now I’m totally hooked on Chad VanGaalen. I love everything about it these songs; the lyrical emotional currency (not far from Sufjan, but a little less sappy), the strange vocal quality (not far from Neil Young, but a little more contemporary), the writing (lots of dynamics) and the sound sets (weird…different).

This song is about needing to escape from something shitty in life and finding, even in the most potentially natural setting (the river), caches of modern detritus and waste (like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mask for which the track is named). Furthermore, it’s about the realization that whatever momentary peace is found, even in a grotesque oasis, it’s just that--momentary. Life keeps moving, or as Mr. VanGaalen so astutely observes, “not really moving, just waiting.”



TMNT Mask.mp3

I’m wishing I could stay here forever
But the river won’t stay that long, it’s moving on.
I’m a shopping cart stuck on an island,
Stranded in the middle getting higher and thirsty
And not really moving just waiting for this water to rise up again
And pull me along.