Another year over, and another year begins…  And yet, I feel the same.

I’ve felt old for years.  My body is merely catching up to my soul, the one that always believed it would die young.  I suppose that I’m still relatively young, and therefore, not yet proven wrong.

To celebrate my birthday this year, I’m seeing Matthew Good three times this week, including today.  He is in my top five artists of all time, so needless to say, this is a huge treat for me.  From now until the 19th, I’ll be spreading the Matthew love in this blog, because he is a vastly underappreciated lyrical genius, a modern day Roger Waters born and bred in Canada.

This song, like many of Matt’s, literally saved my life.  Just as I would endlessly loop Spark by Tori Amos and Consolation Day by Finger Eleven, so would this track loop and repeat.  I would sing along at 3am, a plaintive plea to unseen judging faces born of the chemical imbalances in my head:  “If I was wrong, would it be okay?” Years later, I would find out that Matthew Good and I share a similar struggle with these imbalances, would find myself responding to one of his more personal blogs with a plea to hang on, just as his music has helped me to do.  And he does hang on, continuing to tell his story without shame, encouraging others to stop stepping over the mentally ill and stop and truly see them instead.

We have similar beliefs and passion, in that regard.  I admire it.

This song is meant for dark moments at 3am, a moment of beauty…  Matthew will never do it live again, I’m certain, which pains me.  But there are so many other songs that touch me that he does perform, and I’ll get by.

Welcome, 29.  Let’s end this decade on a high note, perhaps?

Day Ninety-Six:  Change of Season – Matthew Good Band