Love Letter To A Record: to Whatever You Love, You Are by Dirty Three from Simon Okely of Slow Dancer

Dear ‘Whatever You Love, You Are’ by Dirty Three,

I was thinking about the time we first met. You were with Andrew at the time. He tried explaining how beautiful you were during the drive down to his parents’ beach shack. We were 16. We listened to his dad complain about “The Boatman’s Call” CD we insisted he play the whole drive down. I knew more about the world at that time than I do now – I’m almost certain of that.

Andrew was keen to have you all to himself. You belonged, and belong to no one. I remember the way the light came through the curtains that afternoon you revealed yourself to me. In that bedroom, on the bed, laying on the sandy sheets. I was submerged by the burn of the sun, and the still of the house during afternoon rest. And the headiness of you. I’d never experienced anything like you before. You had the figure of a wet dream vision. You were the ocean when we would swim, when it was unsafe to swim, when we would sit and watch, when we would light fires on the shore at night. You were mournful, but not depressed. You revelled in the hilarity and the beauty of how fucked up this whole thing is.
You seemed to understand a part of me I thought was embarrassing, ill-fitting, too shy, too sensitive, too melancholic. You didn’t care, you saw a wisdom in it. You were my first real teacher. You taught me how saying nothing can say everything. You taught me that my strength is my weakness. The bad notes are the good ones. There is a rhythm in everything. A story doesn’t need a beginning a middle and an end. It can be a mood. A mood can be far more compelling than any narrative.

I am older now but when I look into your eyes I still see you looking back at me exactly as you once did. You are timeless. You make me feel timeless. I am finite. I will end. You will outlive me. I’m not sure knowing you was better than not because leaving will be unfathomably hard knowing you get to stay, and I have to go.

But I feel my love for you is eternal.

So yeah, my today’s blog post is borrowed or I’m just sharing from the Aussie music website called Music Feeds from a series I really enjoy entitled Love Letter To A Record which is linked a just above the bandcamp player thingys. So yeah again, I’ve just had to include both artists’ music, the to 2000’s Dirty Three album and from Slow Dancer’s album from last year of this love letter as well. I really like this idea and over the next four days I’m picking out my fave four love letters and albums and re-posting them here on my blog. I hope whoever has a look or listen does enjoy both or one of these records?