Cloudy this late-afternoon Sunday here in California’s Central Valley — a preview of winter.

And a change of pace with some music to serenade the anxiety building to Tuesday as so much shit from democracy to the actual, physical environs of our living spaces is on the line in the election. Shitty to have to keep thinking about it with so much nonsense and horror being spewed by Republicans in order to do nothing but create a cruel catch-all for things decent and kind.
Anyway, some tunes from my most-favorite era of music, the 1990s — and this coming from a massive Beatles fan and having lived through the British invasion of the 1960s — still, the 90s carried it all.
Maybe this ‘old‘ stuff will help you handle the stress — does/did me.

Anyway again, to start us off, Collective Soul’s “Shine:”

Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell me, what will I find?
What will I find?
Lay me on the ground
And fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me, what will I find?
What will I find?

An emotional kick — “Lightning Crashes” from Live:

I can feel it coming back again
Like a rolling thunder chasing the wind
Forces pulling from the center of the Earth again
I can feel it
I can feel it coming back again
Like a rolling thunder chasing the wind
Forces pulling from the center of the Earth again
I can feel it
I can feel it (I can feel it coming back again)
I can feel it (like a rolling thunder chasing the wind)

Next, one of my most-favorites from that period — “Motorcycle Drive By” by Third Eye Blind:

I go home to the coast
It starts to rain I paddle out on the water alone
Taste the salt and taste the pain
I’m not thinking of you again
Summer dies and swells rise
The sun goes down in my eyes
See this rolling wave
Darkly coming to take me home

Always a lift of wonder — Alanis Morissette’s acoustic version — “Hand In My Pocket:”

And what it all boils down to
Is that no one’s really got it figured out just yet
But I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano

Words are words and here it’s a poem set to music — Pearl Jam’s wonderful, “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town:”

I swear, I recognize your breath
Memories like fingerprints are slowly raising
Me, you wouldn’t recall for I’m not my former
It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf
I changed by not changing at all
Small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see
I just want to scream hello

And to pour on the foresight, 4 Non Blondes with the anthem, “What’s Up:”

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out, what’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
“What’s going on?”

Exactly. What the living-fuck is going on?
And to play us out, some written words of this coming Tuesday’s importance in the ship of life via Miss Emily Dickinson, in a type of ‘no ifs or buts‘ with, “If you were coming in the Fall”

If you were coming in the Fall,
I’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls—
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse—

If only Centuries, delayed,
I’d count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, til my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman’s Land,

If certain, when this life was out—
That yours and mine, should be
I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity—

But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—
That will not state— its sting.

Despite the fine idiom, once again here we are…

(Illustration out front: ‘Shelter in the Storm,” found here.)