Albums of Our Lives
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Albums of Our Lives: Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele
Boys for Pele came out around the time I lost my virginity. This was a very sensitive time in my life, because I knowingly had bad sex with a more experienced partner, and my failure to give her any pleasure resulted in…
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Albums of Our Lives: Dead Moon’s Thirteen Off My Hook
I was 19 years old when I first witnessed the achingly beautiful sounds of Fred and Toody Cole and Andrew Loomis. They were called Dead Moon.
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Albums of Our Lives: the Mountain Goats’ The Coroner’s Gambit
make me young again / make me well When I listen to the Mountain Goats I always hear traveling—a ceaseless forward momentum.
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Songs of Our Lives: Simon & Garfunkel’s “America”
It’s Christmas morning, 2001 and I’m fifteen. I unwrap a record player, but am more immediately captivated by the record collection that comes with it.
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Albums of Our Lives: Joni Mitchell’s Blue
Bliss, melancholy—Blue is both at once, just as the holiday season is for me.
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Albums of Our Lives: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show Your Bones
1. Love Letter I experienced my first categorically bisexual three-way—a completely unexpected yet unforgettable coming-of-age story—when I was 15.
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Albums of Our Lives: The-Dream’s Love vs. Money
Of the many adjectives one would use to describe me—some might even be positive—sexy would not be one of them.
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Songs of Our Lives: Frida Hyvönen’s “Pony”
His loneliness lay around me like a fence. The promise was that once I solved the loneliness the fence would dissipate. But I couldn’t solve it.
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Albums of Our Lives: Nirvana’s Nevermind
“I miss you; I’m not gonna crack” I was 14 and following older kids through the woods.
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Albums of Our Lives: Arkadelphia’s Untitled and Never Released Album
He sounds so young on the recordings now. After all, he was young when he wrote most the songs.
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Albums of Our Lives: Gillian Welch’s Time (The Revelator)
I knew I was a pretender, too, knew it in all the ways a twenty-six-year-old can believe that she is broken and that nobody else can see how badly.
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Albums of Our Lives: Shooter Jennings’ Put the O Back in Country
Sometimes the boy you love introduces you to the man you fall in love with. The boy and the man are not the same person. This is not intentional.