I bought the Mighty Joe Moon album in 1994 at a small Tower Records in Costa Mesa. I’d heard “Mockingbirds” the afternoon before playing out of a worn-out car stereo with one working speaker. It would go on to be one of my favorite albums of the year, and the song that would become my favorite was “Honey Don’t Think”. There is something so vulnerable in the lyrics. Full of the combination of surprise and fear of love. The elation that comes with it shadowed only by the thought of losing. That feeling that you don’t quite understand what the other person sees in you, but, my god, you don’t want them to stop. A feeling I can relate to right now.
Some days I feel like I’m not put together in the same way as everyone else. All the things that have come before are weaved into my skin. Some things have been so rough that its hard not to feel damaged. But, my heart is strong, as is my hopeless sense of hope. I believe in love. I just hope that whatever you see in me doesn’t go away too soon. I hope it doesn’t go away at all.
“Honey Don’t Think” by Grant Lee Buffalo
from the album, Mighty Joe Moon (1994)
Song of the Day
“Something wrong in my stars.
Could you look at my chart,
and help me healing these scars?
Could you learn to read minds?
In the case of mine do you read in the dark?”
I’ve always considered Mighty Joe Young, Grant Lee Buffalo’s second album, as my first encounter with Grant Lee Phillips. That said, I do think I heard “Jupiter and Teardrop” (from their first album, Fuzzy) on a mixtape a friend made before I’d left on a road trip to San Francisco. Regardless, it’s Mighty Joe Young that I remember as my first time with Grant Lee’s songwriting and his folk/rock/alt-country sound.
Later that year, or maybe it was the first of the next, I saw The Cranberries play at the now gone Universal Amphitheater. Grant Lee Buffalo opened. They were incredible. Hearing “Honey Don’t Think” live is part of my musical memory bank, for sure.
