Antlers - Putting The Dog To Sleep

I always found David Bowie's "Space Oddity" a bit too literal, too earnest, to be a truly great song. The popping sound effects and the Bowie harmonizing with Bowie refrain just became dated. It only got worse during the best scene in Mr. Deeds.

Enter the Antlers with "Putting The Dog To Sleep". OK, so the track may have little to do with space travel, save its first forty seconds of warbling organ, and the rhythmic star exploding KLANG of electric guitar throughout. But it sure feels like being stuck in a capsule out in space. The lone cosmonaut hurdling towards Saturn in 2141, going crazy from isolation, watching old home movies of kids who have now grown old, begging the screen to let him go back to Earth, to see somebody, anybody, to be given the chance to crawl back, but then regaining purpose. Unlike the boys at mission control, incessantly shouting "can you hear me Major Tom?," this protagonist is shouting back at Earth, "I'm not going to die alone," but still, does anybody hear him?

Bon Iver - Creature Fear

Some songs were just made to be played on rainy Sunday mornings. Not a Saturday morning - it's too easy to enjoy a song on a Saturday morning. And certainly not on Monday morning - nothing sounds good on Monday morning. Period.

Bon Iver's Creature Fear, especially the slick version they performed for their Daytrotter Session, bleeds Sunday. It wakes up slow, with a plaintive and bluesy guitar solo which would never have seen the light of day on the studio version. This version feels untucked and loosened. It doesn't care if you got in early and are waking up late.