They say that introverts spend a lot of time looking at their shoes. But if you’re the type of introvert that I am, you probably spend more time looking at the sky.
The sky is, when you really think about it, pretty amazing. Not only is it all that stands between us and deadly radiation, but it’s always different. It’s like having a painting right above your head that changes by the minute. The status of the sky probably affects our mood without our noticing.
Here are nine of my favourites skies:
- Green skies right before a big storm
- Blue skies with big feathery cirrus clouds
- Post-sunset skies with a colour gradient that fades from black to navy to orange
- Windy skies with fast-moving clouds that make you feel like you, and not the clouds, are in motion
- Crystal-blue skies on a very cold but cloudless day
- Any sky seen through a canopy of leaves
- Sunrises when everyone else in the house is asleep
- Mostly-cloudy skies in the late afternoon that let through a single, biblical-style column of sunlight
- Sunset skies from a plane, when you can tell that the ground below you is already in darkness, but the sun is still visible from up where you are
Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids are, if I had to guess, fans of the sky. Ryan has said in an interview that this song was written on a day off in Asheville, North Carolina, and was inspired by that region’s distinctive skies:
“I wanted to invoke a sight that you only see in the American South, a specific sort of fiery twilight sky that only exists in that one season and in Asheville.”
Google would seem to agree; do an image search for “Asheville, NC” and most of what you’ll find are twilight shots.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The two voices aren’t recorded as if one is the lead and one is the backup; panned slightly left and right, but at about the same volume, they share the sonic space equally.
2. The harmonies give a sunny lift to the darkness of the lyrics.
3. Between verses, the vaguely Latin-style guitar solos rise and fall like a leaf in a breeze.
Recommended listening activity:
Looking up.