Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #158
Guest Post by Leon Langford + "Oxbow" by Waxahatchee - 06/09/21
Today we have our first Kanye song! And it’s from our guest poster, Leon Langford! Leon got a good one, too. We met via a mentor, Lena Waithe, and stayed in touch over the years. He just released a new novel: StarLion: Thieves of the Red Night, which he talks about a bit in his post. I just ordered it after we reconnected and plan to read it this summer. He’s one of the funniest memers/posters on my Facebook. And he’s super supportive of everyone in his orbit. Excited to have him. Take it away, my friend!
Gotta be honest.
This wasn’t the first song that came up when I was shuffling.
I shuffled for a bit, looking for the “right” song.
I shuffled. I made coffee. Came back. Shuffled some more.
But, weirdly enough, no matter how many times I shuffled or how many different playlists I jumped to, this song kept coming back to me.
I don’t believe in coincidences. I’ve always believed that things always worked together. This song and I have a certain history with each other and it parallels my past year.
I know you see me now right now
I know you see me now right now
Right now, right now, right now
I know you see me now right now
I got my suit and tie and I don't know if y'all know
Well, maybe y'all do, or maybe y'all don't
But I don't really care, it's how we on it all the time
So I'ma get my money, let's go
“See Me Now” is a bonus track off of Kanye West’s (best album) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. When the album (and the promo movie (directed by Kanye West)) came out, it hit me like a wave. Dark. Verbose. Confident. And a fusion of hope and heartbreak. The album was what I needed in a time; I didn’t even know I needed it.
I played the album out.
For real.
I often just put a single song on repeat and just write as it loops behind me.
This whole album was on repeat for months.
Then… 3 years later, on a whim, I found “See Me Now” on Youtube Music attached to a playlist – as if it had been added as a second thought. I remember at first thinking it was a joke.
You’re telling me for three years I missed a whole song on this album? I clicked play and I found what I felt was the core of this album, almost years later, almost on accident.
It’s about confidence, in the face of loss. It’s dark, but it’s about being your own light.
It’s a fusion of hope and heartbreak.
And to be real, that’s how I feel about this past year.
My n— is home
I guess I got everything, everything I want
But I don't, no matter how good it gets, it'll never be like before
No women in the crowd, screamin' and it's loud
Doin' things not allowed and I swear it's going down right now
I know one thing, my mama would be proud
And you see me lookin' up
Cause I know she's lookin' down right now
God, 2020 was a mess, right? A pandemic, a civil rights movement, and an election?
It’ll never be like before.
But, you’re here reading this and I’m here writing this, so we made it out the dark.
When the pandemic hit and I felt the walls closing in, it became increasingly clear that we were going to be inside for a while. And not only have that, but by summer it became clear that even though we were safe inside, we weren’t safe from the divisions that have long plagued us. Physically separated, politically divided, and morally -- we were oceans apart.
So, I did what I know how to do.
I wrote.
I wrote as I am now, with a song on repeat (“See Me Now”) and my fingers to the keys.
Because, when you can’t go anywhere, you need to find a home within yourself.
Now go get my throne cause I don't wanna stop
I just go in my zone and I'ma make it hot 'til it's time to go
When it's time to go, where you trying to go?
You better act like you can see me now
There was so much death, divisiveness, and destruction it was hard to absorb it all. But, we had to. So, I took that energy and tried to push it into something positive. Something productive. In my own tiny way, I took heartbreak and made it into hope.
And despite being inside – I wrote more than I ever did.
I just go in my zone and I'ma make it hot 'til it's time to go
When it's time to go, where you trying to go?
I wrote a novel (that just dropped).
I wrote a bad ass screenplay –
Which led to me finding new representation –
And at the end of the year, I sold a script.
When I think about this song and when I think about this last year, I came to realize that there is often light that comes out of dark, unexpected places. Just like how I found this song unexpectedly, just like how this album came out of pain – it also birthed confidence, hope, and -- art. And often when it’s darkest and coldest, it’s up to you keep that light aflame and let it grow.
I know everyone’s experience with 2020 was colored with different shades of darkness. Everyone has their own story to tell and as a storyteller, I sought to craft as many stories about light and darkness as I could.
After creating an album with emotional tracks like “Runaway” and “Blame Game” you can see how he just breaks open showing his glory. – Rap Genius
(As an added twist, while researching the song on Rap Genius, not only is the song only available on a select few streaming services, there is an extended outro with a line that really just solidifies how I think we all feel coming out the pandemic:
I’m back, baby, we back, baby)
My novel, StarLion: Thieves of the Red Night, though it’s for kids, is about trauma. It’s about teens that grow up in the shadow of a massive super villain attack, just like how we grew up in the shadows of 9/11, the Recession, and Covid-19. It’s about overcoming those past events to find that spark of light.
My script is about two boxers locked in a championship fight and we learn that both men are dealing with an all consuming threat to their legacies. The champion, whose neck injury won’t allow him to box anymore and an older man who knows this, is his last shot at the belt. Both of these men know that the darkness (their legacies) is closing in on them and despite it are fighting to keep hope alive.
We pushed through last year and made it to the other side. In the dark, I hope you found a bit of light. And in the heartbreak, I hope you too – found some hope, too.
I know you see me now right now
I know you see me now right now
Right now, right now, right now
I know you see me now right now
Ayeeee! As Leon always says :)
Love it, my friend.
I always forget this song, too. I think it was added later?
But you wrote about it so well.
It’s the celebration after the darkness.
The whatever is happening right now for many of the vaccinated us.
Can’t recommend listening to it enough just for the exuberant sound:
And there are countless other lines to mention.
Rap god, Greek mythology
And this life too crazy to think logically
Here's somethin' that you could use in analogy
My life is like a child's illusions become reality
Life, the world, the universe: it is just ‘too crazy to think logically’ all the time.
This is the blessing of Kanye and artists like Leon and I try to be.
To celebrate that illogic.
Leon’s book is also about in part ‘Greek mythology.'
Which feels like a synchronicity.
And the key to life sometimes does feel like living it like a child again.
Or as Picasso says:
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
There’s something also about this line. The humor of it:
I might walk in Nobu wit' no shoes
"He just walked in Nobu like it was Whole Foods
That n— crazy, I told you"
I think he means the Nobu in Malibu, and, if so, it totally deserves to be walked in with ‘no shoes.’
That’s, like, the only way I would actually go in there instead of the other actually beachy spots in Malibu.
And Leon already mentioned this Beyonce line in the song:
I know one thing, my mama would be proud
And you see me lookin' up
Cause I know she's lookin' down right now
But it should be repeated.
I partly identify with Kanye because it seems we both feel a bit responsible for our parent’s deaths. Kanye because he got his mom liposuction that went awry. And me because I didn’t give my dad a kidney.
Which I write about in the longest sentence book:
so I failed him like I sometimes imagine Kanye feels like he failed his mother by prioritizing cosmetic surgery over health, or how I prioritized other things in LA like eating good food instead of finding a cure for my dad,
Haha, there’s the Nobu again.
And yet I know my dad is somewhere dancing non-stop to the joy of whatever the feeling is after this experience on earth is like:
I know you see me now right now
I know you see me now right now
Looking down at me and Leon and Kanye making fun art together right now (right now).
On my end today, I got:
"Oxbow” by Waxachatchee
It’s been described as ‘a genre-confusing track about getting sober in Barcelona, serv[ing] as a thematic introduction to Saint Cloud’s discussion of addiction and codependency.’
Barna in white
Married the night
What dreams become concrete, they may feel trite
Makes a dull mind
Something about it reminded me of playing tennis with my new friend last night.
She was wearing ‘white,’ or mostly, it was ‘night,’ I’m still maybe ‘married'.
And the ‘dreams' became ‘concrete’ in person.
But they didn’t feel ‘trite.’
And they didn’t feel sighswoony either.
Just like a good friend times.
Well, I'll give it all to you for a while, that's fine
A speck in the oxbow, depressing by design
If I go along with it, am I lying to you?
I did have trouble falling asleep after reading a graphic novel she recommended by Mimi Pond which I also recommend: The Customer Is Always Wrong.
That kind of cry catharsis that to me leads to bipolar euphoria after.
There were moments of am I still crushing while riding that high and ‘If I go along with it, am I lying to you?’
But I think it’s really the ending chorus:
I want it all
I want it all
I want it all, oh
I want it all
I want it all
I want it all, oh
I want it all
I want it all
I want it all, oh
I just want all of life. All the experiences. All the people. All the all. In it.
I am just so happy post-awakening or whatever you want to call it: growth as Joey Power called it in his guest post.
I’m sitting at the day job and reading Layman P’Ang:
When the mind is at peace, the world too is at peace. Nothing real, nothing absent. Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
and now Dante:
“The love of God, unutterable and perfect, flows into a pure soul the way that light rushes into a transparent object. The more love that it finds, the more it gives itself; so that, as we grow clear and open, the more complete the joy of heaven is. And the more souls who resonate together, the greater the intensity of their love, and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.”
and now Bunan:
“Die while you’re alive and be absolutely dead. Then do whatever you want: it’s all good.”
All from The Enlightened Heart, edited by Stephen Mitchell
And listening to:
Recommended to me by a friend who I owe a call to (Hi Kenyon!)
And now Kanye’s “See Me Now” again.
And life? It’s all good.
Okay, that’s the one hundred and fifty-eighth Shuffle Synchronicities.