With a huge music week…I’m kicking it off with an unlikely start.  Mainly because I have a guest poster and you can get the new album for a mere $3.99.  Presenting The X-Man or better known as E-Money.

Acompleteunknown asked me to do a guest post about one of my all time favorite bands Low.  A band who gave me goosebumps the first time I saw them in 1994 play as a duo (a female voice playing just a single snare drum along side a male voice playing a muted bass guitar) in a run down Minneapolis club.  The question to me, choose what I think Low’s 11 best songs are.

The To and Fro of Questions & Words.
The craft of word.  The craft of the question.  If Socrates gave Western Civilization anything, it certainly wasn’t answers.  It was the act of asking better questions.  Simpler, plainer, shorter questions. Usually done by whittling questions of questions of questions, until what you are left asking is a question about a base truth or a foundational point of clarity to seek real meaning.   In the Socrates Dialogs, this method of questioning takes the reader to asking the meaning of “single” words (i.e. Beauty, Art, Wisdom, Justice).

Low’s entire first Album, “I Could Live in Hope” is 11 songs titled each with a single word.

A Note.  A Beginning
In Robert Henri’s Art Spirit, he taught art students to focus on the beginnings.  To find the right beginning was critical.  For, if not started right, you cannot truly finish something; at least not well. Low obsesses on beginnings.  The drawing out of notes, chords, tones.  Each word, spoken or sung…..hangs in the air just a little longer.

At their very best, Low’s songs are just beginnings: beginning with a simple note or a plain open chord, repeated and repeated again.  As if questioning whether this could be the beginning of the song….. that is until you notice you’ve just reached the end.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By Low:

1.  Death of a Salesman (The Great Destroyer)

2.  Sea (I Could Live in Hope)

3.  Don’t Carry It All ( A Lifetime of Temporary Relief)

4.  A Little Argument With Myself (Trust)

5.  In the Drugs (Trust)

6.  Over the Ocean (One More Reason to Forget)

7.  Long Long Long (A Lifetime of Temporary Relief)

8.  Like A Forest (Things We Lost In The Fire)

9.  Murderer (Drums & Guns)

10.  Point of Disgust (Trust)

11.  Transmission (A Means To An End)

Buy Low’s new album, C’mon, now!!!  For only $3.99