More to come this afternoon, but first a brief explanation of my intentions:
The hope was to slow-walk an album out to you this year. It was inspired by the perfect concision of Every Picture Tells A Story. Though musically, a different mood. I hoped allowing time for each song would add up to a different life in this quickness for the work.
It was a crazy notion.
I hope you’ll listen now as it was intended, in sequence, each song into the next.
And here you’ll find The Future Was Beautiful video playlist on YouTube
However you listen, I hope you will.
Your shares and saves and playlist inclusions (for the songs you love) would be appreciated.
It’s almost mischief night. Tomorrow is Halloween. It’s raining here. It’s pretty though. I’ve always liked melancholy weather. Serious and cool. I like to think of these skies as silver rather than gray. When the light starts to dim the tree trunks and branches turn black. But you can still see the leaves all glowing with their orange and red, some even darker with a kind of deeper, bruised purpled brown.
There’s nothing I can say about Leonard Cohen that hasn’t been said. I never thought of him as an acquired taste. As much as I like a toe tapper, I prefer that irresistible sensation of something like wisdom. I came upon Cohen’s work via the vinyl collection by my parents’ record player. Those giant speakers. The hum when you turned it on. The sound of a needle dragging over earth.
“Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” was the first one that grabbed hold of me. It put me in my place. It made me feel as though I was a word in a sentence.
I recorded “Steer Your Way” just after Cohen died. I was asked to do it for a tribute. I wouldn’t have leaned so quickly had I not been pushed. There were so many songs that came to mind to do. I could list them, but it would delay the what and why it became obvious that “Steer Your Way” would be my choice.
To live in a system where destinations are the glimmering prize while life itself is a series of great escapes, well, there comes a weight. It’s almost as if what we’ve designed and welcomed is at odds with our nature, our hearts, our experience. And maybe that’s the point. This song is a prayer. Maybe? I hesitate to even pretend to express what he meant. He had earned his points of view. He’s many floors above me.
So I’ll just say, “Steer Your Way” is the best song I’ve ever taken the honor to sing. It has acted as a kind of bandage for me as we move through this era, this age of dissonance. I wish everyone could feel these words the way I do. The fullness of them. I’m sure some of you do. I only sang it once. It’s humbling to read the past and the present and the future via such poetic concision while trying not to get the wind punched out of you.
I mean,
“As he died to make men holy, Let us die to make things cheap”
That’s not cynicism. That’s what it is. That’s where we are. And the lyric implores you to steer your way away from that, knowing that you probably won’t, because you never did. And still, it hopes you will. That’s some Dylan Thomas light right there, do not go gentle into that thing that keeps dogging you.
Fight.
Keep fighting.
What a gift.
I did the best I could with it. David Henry played the cello. And Olly Knights of Turin Brakes sang the beautiful melodies and backing vocals toward the end.
Special thanks to Rand Foster and Brian Brinkerhoff. My version of “Steer Your Way” will also appear on The Future Was Beautiful.
The Future Was Beautiful releases (again) on most digital and streaming sites this Friday, November 1st. As I’ve already said, I hope you’ll revisit the songs as intended, in sequence. One into the other. This is my way of making a slower case, and hopefully a fuller inhabiting of these songs. It may feel redundant. But I mean well.
The Future Was Beautiful and Are You the Matador?...
This Friday I’m releasing the 2 EPs I shared earlier this year as one collection. It’s called “The Future Was Beautiful”. These songs were gathered this year to be listened to this way, in sequence. It's my quiet offering to try and help ease some of these divisions. We’re at a dangerous intersection.
I wanted to revisit a couple songs in the hope that context will mean something to some of you. Songs are layered. Music, melody, luck, intentions and ultimately, reception. I’ve learned a lot about grace from releasing songs.
But here, I want to talk specifically about the words. This first one is for “Are You the Matador?”:
Part humor and sense of wonder regarding the theater of the absurd. Part indictment of those that would trick and manipulate for personal gain without concern for wide repercussions.
Life is beautiful and hard. I’m often reminded of these beautiful Springsteen lines from “Living Proof” when I look at the things we do, big and small, together and alone, politician or lover:
“I crawled deep into some kind of darkness
Lookin' to burn out every trace of who I'd been
You do some sad, sad things baby
When it's your you you're tryin' to lose
You do some sad and hurtful things
I've seen living proof“
There’s a tyrant in all of us. We must be careful with our questions, and what we fear. They can turn us into monsters. As far as I can tell, kindness and integrity and inclusion is the only way forward.
“Are You the Matador?” doesn’t come out and say it. It trusts that you understand how delicate “freedom” is. How dependent it is on our right (meaning rooted and clear) minds. Together and alone.
That’s what it’s about.
I’ll do a couple more of these before Friday. I hope you take a moment with them, and if you feel inclined, please feel free to share them. At the moment “The Future Was Beautiful” will only be available on some streaming sites so that you can experience the songs in the sequence they are intended to be heard in. My goal isn’t to make you pay twice for the same songs. I hope that’s understood. I hope that makes sense.
Best Always,
Matthew Ryan
P.S. It’s called “The Future Was Beautiful” because it can be again.
Here’s the link to “Are You the Matador?” on the YouTube machine: https://youtu.be/L5eMgg9I01M
This toe-tapper, “Avalanche of Stars”, gets its own digital world-wide release on the streaming sites tomorrow because I decided at the last second to add it to Fallen Ash & Embers.
Your Saves, Shares, Playlist inclusions and a follow would be wonderful since that’s how the streaming machines’ algorithms know if a song is moving humans and his helps other humans with similar taste to find it.
That’s Kate York and Mack Starks singing with me. I love how the tender hope in Kate’s voice makes these words feel. What’s being described here are the moments “after”. A kind of sequence of vignettes. Each of us carries weather. Each of us. And it’s in intimacies and collision and hope and distance and quiet, those are the places where we find from moment to moment a kind of peace with our internal constitutions in relation to others. And ourselves.
That’s not even nearly the whole of what could be said. We’re such strange and beautiful creatures...
Here's the beautiful cover art that Joe Maiocco designed for it!
The simple art video is below, but here's the direct Youtube link to Avalanche of Stars:
I always hope to surprise you guys with more than you’re expecting. So...
We’ve added a fourth song and wanted those of you that purchase music directly from artists to have it first before it releases via all the other platforms worldwide later this week. It’s meant as a show of gratitude because your welcoming of music means the world to us. Your purchasing of music keeps the engines humming, keeps our community thriving. That means you and us. All of us.
Thank you.
Always.
And thanks to Joe Maiocco for the beautiful designs again. And of course to all my brothers and sisters in creativity that helped to create this music. I hope these songs become beautiful companions for you.
