5pm_weds | one-hundred and thirty-three

Amazing Glow
Pernice Brothers
Discover a Lovelier You
2005

Perhaps it is due to the "back to basics" theme (and my ensuing reconnection with Wilco), but I've found myself drawn to straightforward, male-fronted, alt-country/alt rock bands lately.

Wilco made me think of the Pernice Brothers and, incidentally, the only one of their songs I had on file, "Amazing Glow". I THINK I first heard the song on an early episode of Gilmore Girls...I do know that I bought it just before starting that first observation-based teaching stage. I listened to it on my way to the bus stop after my first excruciating (excruciating in the sense that I went from feeling quite comfortable in a school, to feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb) day at my placement. The song was so beautiful it set off a switch inside me--making it okay to let the breath I had been holding out and to start sobbing uncontrollably (hearing, "I changed my master plan [...] I try to stave off a new day from rising" that, maybe obviously, got me at the time).

This song still surprises me; when I listened to it the other day, I asked myself why I didn't own the Pernice Brothers's entire discography (I have since bought the remainder of this album and another on iTunes). There is something about the way "The genus names of all the flowers/That were feeding off her amazing glow" tumbles out of Joe Pernice's mouth that is so completely affecting. The word "glow" glows. I love the breeziness of this song; the coasting background harmonies; its absolute sincerity.