Alright, today's weather was pretty awesome, the sky constantly threatening to rain with semi-dark clouds looming, but ultimately giving way to clearer skies. The breeze felt good, it wasn't humid at all (like it usually is), nor was the sun scorching. Solid weather.
On to the music for today, having heard this song on the latest episode of Gossip Girl "The Debarted", I felt it deserved a post unto its own. So hauntingly beautiful, evoking a sort of epiphany in me when I heard it. Curiously, I was wondering which band could the song be from, which led me to Explosions in the Sky (but they're more rock-oriented) and the more I thought, the more I was certain that it must be those musicians that make tracks which land on CDs featuring serene tranquil songs. BUT to my utter surprise, it was M83. I was honestly quite taken aback, the M83 who gave us Couleurs, Kim & Jessie, Graveyard Girl and Don't Save Us From The Flames plus so much more, came up with Too Late. But I was so wrong, I haven't really listened to their older stuff, from like their debut self-titled album or even the subsequent album, so upon closer listen, they are indeed capable of making such excellent emotive music.
I have to thank Gossip Girl for showing me this side of M83 which I totally didn't know of, and applaud the person in charge of selecting accompanying music for using the song so appropriately (and also the good music in general). The entire episode builds up, more or less, to this very moment, the crest of the whole episode - so emotionally charged and intense, depicting Chuck as vulnerable, suddenly stripped of all his defenses. This is a stark contrast to the ex-frivolous, now mature and strong Chuck we know who seems like he doesn't need anyone. Beginning with him walking through the plain and drab corridors of the hospital (this is where the song starts) to visit Serena who got into an accident, he passes the room in which his father had his dying breaths. He flashes back to that time that he walked into the room, seeing his father's lifeless body, and he can't take it - leaving the hospital, running away. This leads to the present moment Chuck, recounting that his father used to think he was weak, and Chuck agrees, that at the very moment that was needed of him to be strong, he was weak by running away. Thereafter, Blair says that Chuck used to be unable to handle feelings, but he's no longer that way. Now, he carries people, he carries her, and lastly that he's becoming a man that his father (Bart Bass) never was.
The emotions it stirred up in me was tremendous, but that's still an understatement. The song is so powerful and extremely well-crafted. It starts with a piano intro which is so affecting. The piano which is also played throughout, becomes the soul of the song. Setting the entire mood of the song, it draws you into this surreal world, where you could be staring at the sky but only that it's not the sky, it's the vast emptiness that is space; asteroids streaking across infinity or even a planet becoming a supernova. Synths sparsely punctuate the song to good effect, and each time I think I'm reaching out to grab what is the song, it becomes wisps of nothingness - ethereal at best, almost as if there was nothing there. The song fills this void in you, yet at the same time serves to remind you of the emptiness within you, at times even amplifying it, and throughout the song vacillates between both. Oxymoronic, but that's how I feel.
Despite all this, I'm still not doing justice to the song - only listening to it will suffice.
M83 - Too Late
Note: Vote for best album of 2009 here.
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