Dog's Eye View

I forgot how much I love this band. To most people, I think, they were mostly a one-hit wonder with the song, "Everything Falls Apart," and for awhile, that's what they were to me. Until my friend BlueShine came along. This was back in the Spring of 2000, when I spent most of my time at the Chris Cornell Fan Forum after the release of his "Euphoria Morning." When I wasn't posting at the forum, I was talking to people from the forum on chat. One night, Blue and I were talking about Counting Crows, who I'd just recently fallen in love with and she mentioned Dog's Eye View. It turns out that Adam Duritz from the Crows sings on one of their songs, and she piqued my curiosity.

Then the first time I met Blue, at a highway oasis outside Chicago while on a road trip with some friends from college, she gave me Dog's Eye View's album Daisy, and because she really loves their first album, Happy Nowhere, she also gave me something she'd written about it, giving me a few sentences about each song and snippets of lyrics. It's been almost ten years since then and I still think it is one of the coolest things anyone has ever given me, and of course I still have it. It was like this road map of how the album affected and touched her, filled with little stories, and LYRICS. It was just so awesome, to see music through someone else's eyes, before I had my own attachments or perceptions.

It still took me a bit of time to really start listening, but when I did, wow, did I ever listen! Tonight I was listening to them for the first time in a long time, and I thought I might give my own little roadmap.

DAISY

The first song, "Trouble With Love," is filled with all these wise, knowing, kinda cynical contradictions about love. Like this:

"If you say you need me
I will surely run away
But if you swear that you don't care
Then I'll stay until you do
And then I'll leave

I hate to admit it
But you know it's true
Others tell you differently but they're lying to you
Unless it's me
And then I've truly changed..."

I mean it's kind of fucked up, but it's also really real about what people do, and there is a real self-awareness in it that I really love. Some other favorites from this song:

"Love is blind baby, I did something stupid
If I ever find that little turd, I'm gonna kill cupid"

"1,2,3 let me count the ways
4,5,6 let me count the days
Since I thought about you
7,8,9 let me count the years
Lookin' for a heart to break tonight
I hope it's mine, I hope it's mine, I hope it's mine."

I always liked this song, but I remember one night in particular, I was terribly heartbroken, in a shattering sort of way (that had beauty to it too), I was kind of numb and being really funny b/c that's what I do when things are too much, and I played this song even though it's sort of light compared to what I was feeling at the time. I remember the room I was in was dark, and no one else was around and I just needed to sing something, something that had anything to do with love and how it can suck, and so this song was my refuge.

Another song on Daisy that has some history is "Falling in Place" - I used to send this song to a friend of mine on a somewhat regular basis, and I also meant it for myself in a way, because it just seemed like the music medicine she needed at the time. God that was so many years ago. I always left out the chorus, b/c it's a little too happy-lovey, and didn't seem quite as profound as the verses. So here it is, the way I used to post it to her:

"I put my toes on the floor this morning
Just like every other
For some reason today I was not scared
Through myself at the mercy of the wind
I don't know where I'm going
But I know where I've been and I am bored
I think there must be more

I spent 21 years in mourning
For someone I've never been
It's funny how everybody only sees
What they wanna see
Danger comes in all shapes and sizes
I'm tired of looking for it
If you spend your life avoiding surprises
Are you really living or just giving in?

Don't wanna wake up one day and realize
What I was dreaming of
Was right in front of my shut eyes
Don't want to spend my life
Afraid of saying hello
For fear of saying goodbye"

Powerful stuff. I think it's something that's hard NOT to relate to!

"Last Letter Home" is the song that Adam Duritz from Counting Crows sings on. I love the music to this song. It has a melancholy yet melodic feel. I also tend to like songs that refer to letters, b/c I'm a letter writer myself, and I think there is something really romantic and nostalgic and old-worldy and poetic and dreamerly about letters. So that theme in this song just pulls at my heart.

My favorite line is:

"Hopeless
Hope less and do more, say less and feel more this time."

I like how hopeless is kinda turned around. I also think that second line is something good to live by, and something it's easy to tell yourself, repeatedly, in situations that are stuck. It can be like a mantra.

But my favorite is the last song, Umbrella (funny, when I was trying to find the words to this song, I kept finding the Rihanna song instead, yikes). It's another sadder song, and I love, love, love the chorus, which is just one line that is just so perfect. This song also has the album title in it.

Did you like
Flowers I sent?
You could've called to thank me
Well, you could've called
When I tried to kiss you
On Brooklyn Avenue
But you got in your car
Before I could move

And I've been falling like the rain
But you've got your umbrella in my way

Fists and fingers
Tongues and teeths
I want to see you, I'm tired of my dreams
Nights of wishing I could open my mouth
When I finally did speak
You were nowhere to be found

Yeah I've been falling like the rain
But you've got your umbrella in my way

I had the sun in my hands
I had the sun in my hands
I had the sun, you said you liked the rain
Well I got it all in my hands
I had it all in my hands
but I gave it all away

Did I scare you off
By being honest?
How come we never see the end till it's right there upon us?
If you want, I can go away
But like the rain, I'll come again some other day

I've been falling like the rain
But you've got your umbrella in my way again

One of these days I'm gonna show up in the sunshine
Be a little sunshower
Fall upon you, make you rise up
Like a flower
You can be my little daisy
Be my daisy