Chris DeLine

I can recall but a few truly positive memories from last summer; one that floats to the top of the muck is seeing Aesop Rock at Soundset 2008. Strictly as a performance, it might not top his set at First Avenue that I’d seen the previous year, but it had a feeling that was a bit unexplainable. With clouds looming and tornado sirens going off in the distance (throughout the entire afternoon), Aes’ set was the line I had set where the day would end, if only to avoid the rain and its cousins. Going through a set heavy with songs from None Shall Pass, it eventually came time to deliver a set-standard that seemed oh-so-fitting at the time: “Daylight.”

With or without the memory of the Soundset performance, the song itself is one of my all-time favorites. “Daylight” has not only one of my absolute favorite verses, “Life’s not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman, you only call her a bitch ’cause she won’t let you get that pussy. Maybe she didn’t feel y’all shares any similar interests, or maybe you’re just an asshole who couldn’t sweet-talk a princess,” but one of my favorite choruses as well, “All I ever wanted was to pick apart the day, put the pieces back together my way.” There are few songs that I’ve heard—when I truly zone in and find myself in the moment—that take me on such an emotional roller coaster ride as this; and when given the environment—such as that of one with potentially devastating weather lurking—the song has a way of creating its only space in time for a person. That’s was the time, and my brain remains the space.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]