Sundress and a meadow

So I'm listening to this song by Sun Kil Moon (led by the former frontman of Red House Painters, Mark Kozelek), called "Carry Me Ohio," and decided it felt like being in a meadow on a spring day, watching a girl in a sundress twirling with her arms up towards the sky, wistful, waiting for something to change. And I decided my imagery (and the song) was nice enough to share with you.

Songs That Make Me Happy

One of the early benefits of the Happiness Journal has been my realization of how much music can affect my mood. Virtually every time I feel exuberant, a particular song has been the immediate cue. Certainly there are important, underlying causes, be they chemical or sociological or what have you, but it's fascinating to know that music is the final switch that can turn on a spell of contentedness.

Here are my top happy-inducing songs of the last couple weeks:

The National, "Fake Empire"

Stars, "Ageless Beauty (the Most Serene Republic remix)"

LCD Soundsystem, "Someone Great"

Dianogah, "Indie Rock Spock Ears"

A couple of interesting and related points:

• Unhappiness spells are rarely triggered by music. This isn't a finding from the last few weeks, because I've been pretty pleased with the world lately, but just thinking back on it, whenever I'm feeling down, it hasn't been triggered by music. In fact, usually during down periods I don't even feel like listening to music at all.

• The effect of these songs are strong for a short while, ranging from a day to about a week, but they inevitably fade and become just another song. Even so, I'm excited about the idea of creating a Happy Mix, with all the happy-inducing songs of a certain period, to see the effect of listening to them all at once (albeit after the majority of their magic has worn off). Will it be a concentrated blast of sonic pleasure?

• Since we're digitizing our world, the mathematical properties of every song (tempo, etc.) will one day be easily available in some giant, searchable database. (Think of the Music Genome Project.) And since my economics degree taught me (forced me?) to believe in the power of numbers and, especially, representative sampling, eventually I'll have a large enough sample of happy-inducing songs to hone in on the likely musical properties of other potentially happy-inducing songs. I guess it's the same idea as the one behind those new recommendation radio sites like Last.FM and Pandora, but with a more specific purpose.

The National

It's time once again to return to my occasional attempt to convert the world to National worship. The new album, "Boxer," is transcendent. There are very, very few bands that impress me album after album; most fade over time, a waning that is usually inversely correlated with popularity. Maybe the National just haven't reached the requisite level of popularity for them to start sucking. If that's why they keep getting better and better (or at least keep staying as good as they have been in the past--I doubt anything can surpass Alligator), I hope they stay penniless and dark. I hope lead vocalist Matt Berninger's girlfriends high-heel-stomp his hypertrophied heart.

One beautiful thing about the National is that they excel at producing the optimal number of love-at-first-sound songs, that draw you in on first listen, and songs that take a little more work, that reward repeated listening and eventually replace the love-at-first-sound songs that inevitably dull.

So anyway, listen to "Boxer," the new album*, and especially "Fake Empire," one of those love-at-first-sound songs that will leave your socks foot-less (i.e. after knocking you out of them).


In other news, congratulations to Cormac McCarthy on joining Oprah's Book Club! Has the club ever before included marauding cannibals, who keep their victims alive so they can keep legs and limbs fresh longer, and nuclear Armageddon?

Lastly, my old boss at the World Bank asked me to apply for an open position in DC. I'm considering it, but not sure whether I'm ready to uproot my life again so soon. I'm also not sure whether I want to work at the World Bank for the next two years. Oh, the choices! When will they stop? When I'm dead. Which is also when I'll sleep.

*The album's not out until May. Yes, I feel a little bad about pirating it, but note that I have already purchased tickets to an NYC show in May, might buy tickets to a second show, and will probably still buy the album when it comes out. So know that I've given them plenty of money.