Rejoicing in the Hands by Devendra Banhart
I've never been an enemy of the rain, or the gray overcast clouds that seem to forever hang around Washington. But it does take its toll on the mind -- it mutes, it suppresses, it depresses. When I rode the bus home today I had planned to take a break from my 365 project, and to discuss some songs that were so beautifully transformed by other artists that they ruined the original (if you need a classic example, just consider Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah"). I came home, threw off my heavy jacket, put on some headphones, and was unsuspectingly swept away from this grayness by Devendra Banhart's Rejoicing in the Hands. There is an undercurrent to nearly every song of casual, easy joy -- a type of honest bliss, lacking in excessiveness or falsity.
Interestingly, Devendra Banhart perfectly describes his own album himself:
it's like finding home
in an old folk song
that you've never ever heard
still you know every word
and for sure you can sing along
in an old folk song
that you've never ever heard
still you know every word
and for sure you can sing along
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