“Ashes to beauty, Rust in lust
Passion attempts, Misguided trust
Smoking your pack of trickery
Getting to love the little beast”

One of Mark’s recent posts discusses the rationale for memorising Scripture. John Piper reckons one of the reasons is to provide comfort and counsel to loved ones. It’s for this reason that lyrics to music are important to me. Not necessarily for how I can help others, but for what they mean to me.

Kristin Hersh will forever be my most loved lyricist. Afflicted by bipolar disorder since she was 14, her songs would visit her unannounced and fully-formed: one of the reasons that the early Throwing Muses work is so powerful. Their 1986 debut album includes Vicky’s Box, which contains the lyric “You may be dreaming / You may be bleeding / You may be in this box”. My absolute favourite collection of words of all time. And words that I recall at least every couple of days. Now look at the title of Charlotte’s song.

Four Walls taken from her new album Stromata released on her own Dinosaur Fight Records (also available on Veins) documents Charlotte’s attempt to help someone through depression over a rampant collection of breakbeats.