Life Shaking Music We are Going Nightswimming

We all have memories to songs that can not be explained. But when we can explain them it makes a bit of sense. But there is also a lot that goes unexplained.

I am a huge R.E.M. fan and I would always buy their music the day it came out. I still remember the day I was introduced to R.E.M. I was in grad school at William and Mary and quirky bird named Amy deposited in my pocket a cassette tape of both the Murmurs" and "Reckoning" cds. It was like a drug deal . But I loved that music more than anything. In retrospective that little cd influenced my musical taste from that day forward.

Somewhere along the line the CD "Automatic for the People" came out. It was a stretch of my life where I was busy raising kids and I bought the cd the day it came out as usual but I never really had a chance to listen to it. Really listen to it.

Somewhere along the line the song sunk in. I have no idea where. Seriously I listened to that CD occasionally over the years and I liked it but no particular track stuck out.

Then I saw it played live. Mike Mills on the piano and Stipe on vocals. it was at a half filled Clark County amphitheater. Wilco opened that night. WTF. But that performance literally brought me to tears. It was one of the most beautiful songs I have ever seen done in concert. I had tears running down my cheecks.

My fiance and I were deciding what song to dance to at our wedding. I suggested Nightswimming. I do not believe that Jenna had ever heard the song before. It had no particular meaning to our relationship. But its the prettiest song on the planet.

So an a picture perfect spring day the opening piano bars to NightSwimming once again brought tears to my eyes. It may have been the 5 of the happiest minutes in my life dancing to Nightswimming with my new wife.

Nightswimming, remembering that night.
September's coming soon.
I'm pining for the moon.
And what if there were two
Side by side in orbit
Around the fairest sun?
That bright, tight forever drum
Could not describe nightswimming.