... every genre's got a secret weapon [Ray Lamontagne] ...

The act of listening to music is no easy nut to crack, and when we try to break it down into categories/approaches we usually end up with overly simplistic definitions that don't do a very good job of representing what the act of listening usually consists of. For all of our attempts to separate the intellectual/analytical/engaged approach from the personal/subjective/reactive approach, we make no real advances on the real event of listening.

I'd like to think that my own listening habits combine a healthy mix of those extremes, usually in an individual sitting. As I sit and listen to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, I turn one ear toward my instinctive emotional response - the 'ooh!' and 'ah!' ear - while I try, with the other, to follow the various themes and variations and developments that unfold. No fixed perspective here, no sirree. Still, privately I champion the more engaged side of listening (which doesn't have to be intellectual, or even strictly musical).

Yet I find that every genre, for me, has a secret weapon, a one-two combo sure to leave me flat on the mat. The intellectual in me is wary of these secret weapons, as they expose the fact of my preferences and turn my anti-habit and anti-comfort tirades against me. One of those combos is the simple singer-songwriter formula of Sparse Setting + Fragile Voice. If that Sparse Setting features the added bonus of coming off as Lush... well, it's all over. The below clip of Ray Lamontagne's "Be Here Now" is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about:



It doesn't hurt that the lyrics come off as a series of brief meditations or aphorisms (I know I shouldn't, but I'll even use the word 'koan' here). The arrangement never seems tied down but instead floats. No big payoff, no line dance to send it all home... it just is.

A little part of me enjoys acknowledging these secret weapons. After all, we have no reason to be scared of preference unless it threatens to become an obstacle to approaching the figurative Outside. And they confirm a continuous and cumulative experience that informs our present state, or, even further, the affirm it. And who doesn't like a bit of affirmation now and then?