An Addiction Is Born

It's going to sound ridiculous, I guess, but in the last couple of weeks I've become obsessed with the Avett Brothers. I'm serious - obsessed. I woke up in the morning with one of their songs on my mind, and throughout the day I would find myself longing to hear their music. I "rewarded" myself for finishing grading some set of papers by allowing myself to watch one of their performance videos on YouTube. Seriously, it's ridiculous.

My son is the one who introduced me to the band last summer while we were on our trip to California. He had a couple of playlists that we used as a compromise when he got sick of the songs that my husband and I had on the car's stereo. I liked them ok, but I never really paid much attention until I started grading papers for the end of this semester. I've found that having music playing low in the background helps me focus and be more productive. In the past, I've used Pandora's Film Scores radio as the standard, but honestly, one can only listen to the music from Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight Rises so many times over the course of a couple of days. So I plugged in the Avett Brothers as an alternative. And now I'm addicted.

Part of the reason, I think, is because some of their songs hit exactly the mood I'm in for writing the last portion of my second novel, and in fact, voice some of the themes I've been trying to pull together in the book. Like this one, which is an eerily accurate summary of the first half of the book.

I also have reasons that don't have anything to do with my writing. One of my friends posted this link on Facebook, which is a pretty damning critique of the road country music is taking these days. Those songs come off looking mighty shallow when compared to this one:

Finally, in one of my "grading reward" sessions, I found this little gem, which I thought was going to be a cover of a good old gospel song. It is that, and much more.

Seriously, how can you not love the guy after watching that video? Fortunately for me, my son gave me two of the Avett Brothers' albums for Christmas, so I can now listen wherever I go instead of having to be tied to YouTube. You win the gift-giving contest this year, Roger!