Saturday, November 14, 2020 - Nostalgia lives here: having a Matt Kearney “Nothing Left to Lose” (2006) kind of evening.
Having a Matt Kearny Nothing Left to Lose (2006) kind of evening. Nostalgia filled . . . slow and steady. I hadn’t heard of Kearney until 2009, when a friend from law school told me about the single from the album, “Nothing Left to Lose.” It was around this time of year, Halloween ‘09, if I remember it right. Kearney’s singing voice is solid. It gets him through most of the songs without issue. Then, maybe once during every two or three tracks, he’ll move into the talking-rap that’s reminiscent of Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda. And I’m taken right back!
There’s something about this span of the year –––– past Halloween but not quite having reached Thanksgiving; the holidays, the festivities, the lights. The weather cools and it’s apparent that something major awaits on the horizon. That’s one thing that’s great about “Nothing Left to Lose,” how the song captures that feeling: “Something's in the air tonight / The sky's alive with a burning light / You can mark my words something's about to break,” Kearney sings.
The close of this year’s already different. Slower, more subdued. No crowds and more quiet-time and solitude. Dinner was Happy Family on Tenth Avenue, takeout Chinese: sesame shrimp, an egg roll, brown rice, followed by a pot of Sleepytime tea.
I’m only halfway through Nothing Left to Lose. I’ve never listened to the full album before. There’s a gem of a track a little over halfway through, ten of fifteen, “All I Need.” I’ve listened to the song three times now. These are the first two lines: “Here it comes it's all blowing in tonight / I woke up this morning to a blood red sky,” Kearney sings. My heart.
Earlier I read that “All I Need” was featured in Grey’s Anatomy. I remember watching that show a few times in college. In certain circles it was all the rage. I remember not quite getting it. College is funny in that way. Feeling grown and mature, though not really knowing how much more there’s still left to learn and understand, about one’s self, and about the world.
Before stepping into Happy Family, I took a few photographs of Midtown, from West Forty-second Street. Those photographs appear below. Enjoy. Be safe. Be well.
