Reckoner
Take me with you
Dedicated to all human, all human beings

This is one of my top 10 favorite songs ever.  That’s a bold statement for me.  I don’t like to get too declarative with my musical rankings (clears throat), but this had me the first time I listened to it.  I fell hard for this song and knew I would rarely love another as much as this one.

It’s hard to put into words how much I love this song.  To me, it presents multiple dichotomies within a single song that give it substance and meaning few others do.  It stops me in my tracks and moves me at the same time.  It seems to speed up and slow down at the same time.  It sounds equally electronic and organic.  It is so simple, yet hauntingly beautiful.  And it shares something in common with many of my other favorite songs — it floods my mind with visual stimuli that’s indescribable.  My head bursts with scenes, moments, visions that ache to burst free.  They’re unstoppable.

I want to tap into my mind, Johnny Mnemonic-style, and download all of this imagery.  It’s like the experience of vivid dreams that repeat over time.  The settings are the same, the people are the same, even the plot is the same.  I recognize the dream, I see the similarities from previous dreams, I’m mesmerized by the unexplored feeling, yet I’m fascinated with the bizarre world that vaguely resembles our own.  Listening to “Reckoner” is the same experience — I’m thrown for a veritable loop.  It’s like being on drugs without being on drugs.  And it’s fucking awesome.

Someday (clears throat again), I’ll write a screenplay where there’s an entire scene of a guy listening to this song in a room full of other people.  From the moment the song starts, until the moment it ends, he will narrate what the song does to him and act as a tour guide for the “Reckoner” journey.  He’ll work himself up into such a lather that, by the end, he’s absolutely drained of emotion.  It’s too much for him and he needs a drink.  Everyone else in the room just stares at him, wondering how he can get so worked up over a song, yet also secretly becoming kind of jealous that a simple song can affect a person so deeply.  And…scene.

Don’t steal my idea.  I called it first.