Leaving the dismal news cycle alone for a bit this Sunday morning, and fastening our anxiety-anxious view to some music I’d listened to or mulled over this past week and on how appropriate the sound for the nowadays.

Off one of the best albums of the 1990s, “August and Everything After,” a couple of tracks with a nuisance for our current asshole predicament — the first, “Mr. Jones,” a plea for living:

And a poetic crazy love, “Round Here,” and for the community of like-minded folks:

Step out the front door like a ghost
Into the fog where no one notices
The contrast of white on white

And in between the moon and you
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right

In the context of climate change, this Modest Mouse tune, “Missed The Boat,” has some forbearing for today:

Tiny curtain’s open
And we heard the tiny clap of little hands
A tiny man would tell a little joke
And get a tiny laugh from all the folks
Sittin’, driftin’ around in bubbles, and
Thinkin’ it was us that carried them
When we finally got it figured out
That we had truly missed the boat

Next couple of songs going back a space — I’d been thinking of Billy Joel for some reason this past week and reflected upon his first album with the title track, “Piano Man.” and the sadness of it all:

And off that same album, “Captain Jack” and the darkness:

Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push, and you’ll be smilin’

Finally, one of my all-time favorite versions of “Here Comes The Rain Again,” and Annie Lennox emotionally unplugged:

And here we are, once again…

(Illustration out front found here).