8/24

i'm thankful for the music of børns, who d loves and introduced me to. i'm thankful for how high his voice goes on the first song she got me into of his, "electric love," which climbs into its chorus like a futuristic roller coaster. i'm thankful for the second song, "past lives," with its floating vocoder self-duet. i'm thankful that last night when we were sitting in the living room after dinner she played his most recent album, blue madonna, on speakers. i'm thankful that his music makes me think a lot about queen—the mixture of theatricality and sweetness. i'm thankful for several of the tracks, but most of all so far for "bye-bye darling," equal parts stately (the marching procession of the piano chords, the rich synths bleeding gold) and sassy (the cadence of the vocals, the trills and filigrees, "to flip you and crease you and lay underneath you, fall asleep too"). i'm thankful that there's a false ending and then a coda appears out of the silence, a cherry on top.