I’m tired. I stayed up too late last night, rolled out of bed too early this morning, and now face a torrent of memories from 25 years ago this very day as I write, when I was 36. Diane and I were soon to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary; we lived in suburban Philly in a second-floor, two-bedroom apartment in a quadruplex that was located at the end of a dead-end street—two blocks from a train station, five minutes to the turnpike, and some 30 minutes from TV GUIDE’s Radnor office, where I worked, though the commute always took longer during rush hour. I woke that Tuesday at 7am and, well, everyone has a routine. Mine included feeding the cat, hopping in the shower, downing coffee, surfing the ‘net, listening to music, sometimes writing something for my website, and leaving for work at 8:45.
I always started the commute with all-news KYW-1060 as my traveling companion—the traffic reports were a necessity—before switching to WXPN or, perhaps, slipping a CDR into my green Dodge Neon’s CD player. Before I backed up into the street, however, the anchor conveyed a bulletin from New York: what was thought to be a small plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Weird, huh?
Everyone alive and of a sentient age remembers the remainder of that day.
What any of that has to do with this, the sophomore set from North Carolina folk-flavored singer-songwriter Twilark? For good and ill, music engulfs far more than the artist’s intent. It engulfs the listener’s life experiences, too, with each of us bringing something different to the table. The first time I heard Twilark, aka Canon Pence, I heard echoes of sorrow from long and not-so-long ago. He possesses a high and lilting voice, the kind that floats forth as if from the edge or ether of sleep; it encapsulates the wisps and remnants of memory, of loss, of sad days. It takes me back to that fateful September morn in 2001. It reminds me of the days and weeks that followed my father’s passing in 2009, my mother-in-law’s death in 2019, and my mom’s passing in 2022, of losing friends and acquaintances too soon. Sadness tinges everything.
The opening track, “Tired to Sleep,” finds Pence grappling with an unspecified loss, though it’s likely a post-relationship lament: “Without you, I don’t know what to do/Without you, I feel lost/I never wanted to need anyone or anything/And most of all, I didn’t want to need you….” The next track, “The Deeper I Fall,” finds him grappling with insomnia derived from said loss, while “True to Their Name” finds a fleeting meeting re-affirming his faith in humanity. The songs that follow continue in the same vein, with Pence contemplating endings, beginnings, and the realities that accent what some call an epidemic of loneliness. “No Perfect Choice,” for instance, poses a pertinent question: “Can a day be both bare and plenty?/Can a life be both full and empty?/Is the emptiness inside/Or all around you?/Is the loneliness a sign?/Or is it part of you?”
I’ve played the album a fair bit this past week, as I was afforded a preview copy. It’s stark and mournful, for sure, but also philosophical and cathartic. It’s a set of songs that works best late in the night or early in the morning, and—for those of us who like to ruminate about this thing we call life, is well worth a listen.
The Old Grey Cat 