My Favorite Album - Eta Boris's Contribution

Favorite album - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case.

Picking an album is hard. Neko Case is absolutely fantastic - she is probably my favorite vocalist working today. Her voice is spellbinding. Her writing is powerful and haunting and moving all without being too heady or overly complex. However, there is almost any album by Calexico. Or Mutiny on the Bay by the Dead Kennedys. Or Nevermind.

The reason I am picking Fox Confessor is that it played a significant role in two of the most important romantic relationships I've ever had.

The first was a three-year relationship, the longest I've ever had. By the third year, I think most relationships either begin to turn into something great and lasting, or are dying the slow death of malaise, frustration, and claustrophobia. We were the latter. We didn't fight. Nothing was obviously wrong, except nothing really felt right either. At about this time, I picked up this album. One of the songs, That Teenage Feeling has these lines:

And nothing comforts me the same
As my brave friend who says:
"I don't care if forever never comes
'Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling,"

This short song encapsulated every fear, every longing, every anxiety, everything I've grown to miss in a dying relationship with a wonderful person who simply wasn't meant for me. If there was a singular first crystal-clear moment of realization that things had to end, it was when I listened to this song's lyrics.

The second relationship came a few months later. I became involved with a woman from New Orleans. It was brief, but fiercely intense. Where the previous relationship simply faded into nothingness, this one ended with a crater so hurtful it took us almost two years to speak to each other.

At one point, she had sent me a mixed CD. That Teenage Feeling was on it. When I saw this title on the track listing, my heart, my breathing, my mind all stopped in shock of something so impossibly perfect and wonderful. This seemed so improbable I could imagine seeing it in a poorly written movie and chuckling about it. And yet.

So there it is. That's my story of Fox Confessor. 

Cheers,

Boris

Eta Boris is a scientist and dancer in Washington and possessor of a particularly Russian Soul. 

Click here for HaWinograd's Contribution
Click here for Le Malon's Contribution
Click here for Atomic Sam's Contribution

Click here for La Swaynos's Contribution
Click here for Boulezian's Contribution
Click here for HaZmora's Contribution
Click here for The McBee's Contribution
Click here for Le Drgon's Contribution
Click here for The Brannock's Contribution
Click here for The Danny's Contribution
Click here for The Drioux's contribution
Click here for El Reyes's contribution
Click here for My contribtuion