This isn't a review, but the Short Motherfucker said I should post it here anyway.
The Everglow. The Everglow has been with me for something like seven years now. Through the best times of my life and some of the worst. I remember when I first heard the song Suspension on some random MP3 website on the backwaters of the Internet, right after I got my first iPod (a silver iPod Mini.) Then, I got this gift card to Borders for my birthday, and figured I’d go buy the rest of the album there. (That Borders just closed last year. The one on Church St.) I remember when I put it into my old red and black boombox (it had a tape deck!) I thought the CD was really cool (made to look like a record) and I was really confused by the Prologue and Epilogue. Nevertheless, I sat there, entranced for the whole 1 hour and nine and a half minutes, following along with the liner notes.
Even as a kid, just starting to get into music, I could tell it was something special. I showed all my friends. My best friend, Zak, got just as into it as I did. (Well…maybe not quite. I don’t think I know anyone who is quite as in love with Mae as I am.) I bought a The Everglow themed iPod skin for my Mini. Zak and I called it my “chick magnet.” I must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. Maybe even twelve. Anyway.
I have no idea how many times I’ve listened to Suspension, but it’s definitely in the hundreds. Every time I hear something new. It’s so rich. It sounds corny as hell, but there is so much love put into that song. I don’t know how else to describe it.
In the worst times in my life, when I’m wandering campus at 3am, with no idea who I am, what I want or what to do, The Everglow was there. When I was in Bolivia, lovesick, homesick and scared, The Everglow was there. When I listened to it, I could feel completely okay. (I think I listened to The Ocean almost every single night of those three months. I know every single in and out of that song.)
In the best times of my life, driving through the backwoods of Vermont, hoping my parents don’t get mad at me for being home late, The Everglow was there, amplifying everything I was feeling. When I was working for my dad over the summer, to make enough money to buy my first laptop (iBook G4), I listened to Painless to save me from the monotony.
I still have the CD case and the CD in my room. The case is busted to hell and the liner notes are pretty torn up, but damned if I ever give them up willingly.
I even met Jacob and Dave one time at a show at Northern Lights in Clifton Park, New York. It was right before Singularity came out. I remember they played Sometimes I Can’t Make It Alone. But they also played The Ocean, I sang every fucking line. I still have the sweatshirt I bought at that show, though Jacob’s signature has long since faded. I got a picture with them, but it was on my dad’s old phone and he forgot to save it when he got a new one.
No matter how bad things get, I’ll always have The Everglow to save me.
And no matter how great things get, they’ll always be better with The Everglow.
I absolutely love this album. Dave, Jacob, Zach, Rob, Mark: Thank you. You guys created a masterpiece. I am in awe every single time I hear this album. It stands so far above anything else I’ve ever heard. Thank you for The Everglow.
TL;DR: Super sappy but utterly sincere post about how much I love The Everglow by Mae that probably no one will read all the way through.
