Countdown to Pete Yorn’s ArrangingTime :: Day 3 of 11

Day three! Day three! Day three! Another day closer to the March 11 release of the anxiously awaited ArrangingTime. We are still chomping at the bit over here at lyriquediscorde, an sating our musical needs with this refresher course on why we fell for Pete’s music in the first place.

It’s time to go back to the albums and talk about Pete’s second solo release, Day I Forgot, released in 2003. This one includes my all-time favorite song of Pete’s on it – track three, Crystal Village – and is a stunner of a listen, from start-to-finish.

Before we dig in I want to remind you that if you haven’t pre-ordered the album yet, if you click here and are among the next 200 VINYL orders your album will be signed. There’s still time! Go now go!

Day I Forgot (2003)

Some thoughts:

I have a hard time picking a favorite album of Pete’s, choosing just one is near-impossible, and the albums I tend to cling to, and re-play, change depending on my mood, on what I’m writing/creating, sometimes the time of year, and the things going on in my life at the time. Day I Forgot though, is one I grabbed to possibly the most often, at least over the last few years, and definitely in recent times.

There is something so just right about the songs on this album, the flow from song-to-song, and the stories and emotional landscape that is navigated throughout. It is the perfect on-the-road/road trip album. It is that quintessential set of songs to make-out to, to fall in love to, or, on the flip-side, to get over a broken heart to.

I’ve done all of those things to this album. More than once.

Its also is one of those albums to turn up to LOUD, with a car full of good friends, roll down the windows, letting the music funnel out into the city streets of Hollywood, or Santa Monica, and sing-sing-sing-a-long.

Like with Musicforthemorningafter, Day I Forgot is full of those story-told-songs that give us glimpses in, but not everything. There are characters in these songs, tales told, moments captured, and even a “burrito” shared. Some of the songs deal with relationships, some with family, some with friends, and many with “self“. Some of these songs have a coming-of-age or a coming-to-terms feel to them (and no, you don’t just come-of-age as a teenager).

But those are the stories I get out of the songs, not necessarily the intended stories.

Musically, the album is full of hooks and stellar guitar work (at times jangly and poppy, at times rough and raw, and at other moments — especially in Burrito — powerful and “rock”-infused.

My Top 5:

5. All at Once

This one gets to me way, way under my skin. It reminds me of my childhood, and the things I lived through, and survived. This is a story, a complex, dark, painful, yet strong song. There is survival here, understanding and a sense of making peace with something that may still hurt.

Of course, that is all my take on the song. My personal reaction and perception, not necessarily what the song intends.

There is so much story here, though. So much. And the lyrics are powerful, and so phenomenal to me. The vocals, too – from the start to the chorus to the end – throw quite the emotional punch. Bravo.

“I was too young to understand.”

4. Come Back Home

This is one of Pete’s golden pop songs. Its catchy as hell, jangly-guitars, emotionally resonating lyrics, that touch of Americana that peppers songs like Free Fallin’ (Petty) and Born to Run (Springsteen), mixed with that 90’s indie-rock/pop vibe the likes of The Lemonheads and Grant Lee Buffalo.

This is one of my favorites to play on road trips, long Los Angeles traffic commutes, and when I need a jolt of feel better and remember where you come from. It is also one of the perfect pick myself up an start over songs I know – and I’ve turned to it for just that.

“And you know you’re hard enough.
And you find you’re strong enough.
And you feel you’re strong enough.”

3. Turn of the Century

So much unrequited love in this to me. There’s more to it though. I want to now about the work house and the silence, I want to know these two people’s story, their setting, their time in the world, their dreams. The title suggests that this is a story from long ago, but it also seems so of the now/so relevant.

This is such a beautiful song. Another of my all-time favorites of Pete. One that makes me cry sometimes.

“So I wondered
when this day will end.
Yeah, I wondered
if we’d speak again.
Yeah, I wonder.”

2. Burrito

Fun, silly on the surface,but much more of a complex song underneath. There is something youthful here, twenty-something stoner mentality, waiting for a call at the 7-11 payphone, hanging with friends in the parking lot, and just maybe falling in love with that one – who may just be a friend at that time – who is in your life-peripheral.

I’m often reminded of that post-party scene in the film Say Anything, when Lloyd and Diane stop at the mini-mart (it was 7-11, wasn’t it?) and they have one of those great “first conversations”, the kind you don’t forget easily.

There is more than a burrito going on in this song, to me.

“If you want a burrito,
you can have another bite of mine.“

1. Crystal Village

One of my favorite love songs, even though this is more of an unrequited/one-that-got-away kind of love song (or at least it lyrically feels like it to me). This song connects on a very personal level to me and is one of those songs in my “favorite song life-catalog” that means a lot of big things to me. Sometimes songs transcend themselves and are incorporated into our own stories; this is one of those songs for me.

I love the line, “you were there, and it was good in the beginning.”

Who hasn’t felt that at least once?

“You would never have the time,
I would love to change your mind –
You were there,
and it was good in the beginning.”