Elegy for Elsabet – The Weakerthans
There was a time, just after this album came out, when i would take Left and Leaving with me everywhere. With me to school, parties, on car trips, over to friends’ houses – everywhere. Everywhere alone, and (i think more relevantly) everywhere i was in company. It wasn’t just me cramming another CD in my backpack, it was brought along as some signal, some piece of benevolence, some semblance that i could be into and hold actually good music.
Left and Leaving was the first thing i remember owning that i could share with people – cultured, knowing people (my friends, their friends) – that could reflect in me something appealing, intriguing and worthwhile. The first album seemed still trapped in punk rock, and hence its appeal and affect to others stilted. This seemed such a departure, but a departure into some exquisite heights. It was so literate, beautiful and sophisticated. Those things mattered at the beginning of the last decade, on makeoutclubs and livejournals.
Of course i never once let it leave my backpack. Me getting play on someone else’s stereo, filling someone else’s earspace, would take a lot more presumption, a lot more confidence, and a lot more presence than i’ve ever allowed myself to be blessed with. But i took it everywhere.
