The Loop: The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving

The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving (2000)

When I was 20, I moved myself to New York for the summer for an internship at a record label. I tend to be an impulsive person, and while it was several months in the making, the week leading up to me moving felt like I was diving into something I really wasn't prepared for. I had never lived away from my family and friends and I'm not sure I fully comprehended what I meant to be gone for two full months like that. But I'm stubborn and stuck through and well, here I am (freezing) in New York today.

Before I left, I was trying to find a fully appropriate "I'm leaving!" song to feature on my MySpace profile (yup, cause that's what I should have been worried about.) I asked my friend Benn if he knew of anything and he suggested "Left and Leaving" by The Weakerthans. I quickly read through the lyrics and deemed it profile-song worthy, eventually playing from my page over and over and over without actually committing to the album.

Fast forward a few weeks and I see tickets on sale for The New Amsterdams playing with The Weakerthans at Webster Hall. It was my goal to run a summer marathon of shows and since I was a big fan of New Amsterdams and liked that one Weakerthans song, I bought tickets (like you have to do for EVERY show here. Oof) The week before the show I ended up getting really sick and that day I had to go to urgent care. The doctor prescribed me anti-biotics that made me ultra hyper sensitive to EVERYTHING and normally I'd take that as a cue to stay home, but I had already dropped 20 bones on this ticket so I ended up going.

It may have been the anti-biotics, but that set is still burned in my memory as one of my favorites. I didn't know the rest of their songs, but I felt every single note, all the way from John's acoustic opener of "One Great City!" I recognized "Aside" from a movie and watched as the audience lost their minds during "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue". I felt completely undistracted by the crowd and everything going on, my focus was their's.

I quickly came home and bought their records, eventually kicking myself for seeing their entire set and not being able to rock at full potential since I didn't know the songs. Despite falling in love with all of their music, I circled back to where I started with "Left and Leaving"

The Weakerthans in general are such a strange contradicition, being a heart-on-your-sleeve rock band fronted by the lead singer of the politically charged Propaghandi. It kept the balence though by simply drawing abstractions to love, not gender specific, which was refreshing since I typically had to change all the "she's" to "he's" whenever I wanted a love song to relate to me. This change of pace shows that music can be all across the map, as many of the tracks fully rock while many of them strip down to simple honesty.

While the album Reconstruction Site probably has more spins on my iTunes, Left and Leaving holds a place for me in that it truly is my New York City album. I struggled a lot that summer with my choice to move there and what it really meant and one simple line from that song validated everything I knew I had to do:

"Back with the streets I know will never take me anywhere but here."

This album struggled with home and what it meant to be home, and Sampson says most of it more eloquently than I've tried to do here.

In fact, I'm just going to let the song speak for itself. Lyrics first, then watch the video.

Left and Leaving
My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
Through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
Sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know will never take me anywhere but here.
The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand, the strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say, " I wanted it this way"
Wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.
All this time lingers, undefined.
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
A blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest, the best parts of lonely,
Duct-tape and soldered wires,
New words for old desires,
And every birthday card I threw away.
I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines that your relying to lead you home.