Wee Hours
a soundtrack to the sunrise
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I am 21 years old and I am finally ready to admit it. I, David Lefkowitz, am a morning person.
All my life I've had trouble getting to sleep, sometimes laying wide awake in bed for up to 4-6 hours before falling asleep sometime around 3 AM. Bouts of insomnia of this severity became less and less frequent as I got older, but falling asleep was still a nightly struggle. Despite all this, I could never quite manage to sleep past 9 o'clock. Something inside me just clicks on at about 8:30 AM and refuses to let me rest. I had become a regular coffee-drinker by 16, and I learned to deal with it.
By the time spring of 2019 rolled around, however, I was fed up. It was the spring of my freshman year, I was 19, and I still couldn't sleep. Despite my best efforts (I was going to bed at around 11 every night!) I still couldn't manage to drift off before about 2 AM. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Never having been a regimented person in any fashion, I regardless set a recurring daily alarm for 7:30 and resolved to go to the gym in the mornings. Never having been much of a gym-goer, I found myself woefully unprepared for such an undertaking, especially in the wardrobe department. This is how my friend happened to come across me that morning, bleary-eyed and sheepishly working out in khaki cargo shorts and a Bob Dylan t-shirt.
Still, the routine (and, perhaps, the bottle of melatonin my mother mailed me) yielded results. For the first time in my life, I could go to bed and actually fall asleep. The routine stuck, and my poor freshman roommate was startled awake by Eddie Vedder's "Hard Sun" every morning, promptly at 7:30 (lucky for him, I've never been a snooze-button type of person).
Sophomore year pushed the wake-up earlier, and lockdown even earlier. For nearly a year now I've been a devoted adherent to a 6:30 AM wake-up. Occasionally I have to get up earlier (work had me waking up at 4:30 a few times a week last month) and sometimes I'll sleep in (I pushed it back to 7:30 on New Year's Day). Still, more mornings than not, my alarm will sound off promptly at 6:30 - no longer Eddie Vedder, but a stock Apple piano ditty - and I'll roll out of bed, stretch, and shuffle downstairs for a cup of coffee.
I'll resist the urge to start waxing poetic about the quiet stillness of the very early morning; I may be a morning person, but I refuse to be that guy. I'll just say this: at a time when we're all so overloaded with information, communication, and a sort of general existential panic, there is a real comfort in being awake and knowing that pretty much everyone else you know is asleep. You're truly alone, if only for an hour or so each morning. Maybe it's just me, but that’s where I find the most peace.
The music I choose to listen to while sipping my coffee and watching the sunrise, then, needs to fit the situation. I love loud music, but this is not the time (there was one morning before work, 5:11 AM, where I was overcome with the desire to listen to Robyn's "Dancing on My Own," but that's neither here nor there). Jazz is great, but discretion is key. Miles Ahead, Chet Baker Sings, that sort of thing. Late-era Coltrane is a no-go before 9 AM. Stick to the 50s, Blue Train era stuff. I'll allow A Love Supreme, but only if I'm feeling particularly bold. Plenty of my all-time favorites fit the bill - Nick Drake, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen - but Dylan can be a little grating before sunrise. Elizabeth Cotten and Adrianne Lenker are both wonderful ways to start your day.
Some mornings, though, I choose silence. I like watching the sun come up, letting myself slip into the silent landscape of the early morning. I'm too sleepy to be concerned with anything in particular, not yet awake enough to know what's going on. I'm just a part of the scenery, slowly coming alive at pace with the world outside. Soon the birds will be singing, the fog will be clearing, and I'll hear somebody else's feet start shuffling down the stairs. In the meantime, though, it's amazing how quiet this world can really be.
In One Ear
A brief check-in as to what I've been listening to these lately:
In Pursuit of the 27th Man -Horace Silver
I'm still relatively new to the jazz-listening game, and still very much a novice of a fan. I now know enough, however, to at least put a name to my favorite sub-genre: "Hard Bop." Since this realization, I have trusted Spotify's discretion in helping me figure out exactly what that means. Among the albums I've dug up (a number of them absolutely fantastic), this has become a frequent listen. Beyond the cover (which I, for reasons obvious to frequent readers, absolutely love), the funky, piano driven tracks and stellar horn performance have been making my reading that much more enjoyable as of late, and would undoubtedly provide the perfect soundtrack to whatever you might be up to these days.
The Missing Liberty Tapes- Paul Brady
What can I say, I'm a sucker for Irish music. Folk singer Paul Brady's accent is spectacular, but so is everything else about his performances from this 2001 live album. "Arthur McBride and the Sergeant" drew me in, but it was "The Lakes of Pontchartrain" that really hooked me. Between Brady's ringing guitar and lounder-ringing voice, it's albums like these that make me miss live music the most.
“僕は一寸” - Haruomi Hosono
I have no idea what this song is called. I have no idea what any of the lyrics mean, for that matter, except for one point where he says "country music" in English. Regardless, I love this song. Give it a listen, it's somewhere between the Band and John Prine, and I can only assume the lyrical content is just as delightful as its sound.
"Cello Song" (Cover) - Tobias Wilden
This Week's Mixtape
Each edition of Nightswimming will come complete with a companion mixtape. Some of the songs relate to this week's newsletter, others not at all. As with any mixtape, listening in order is recommended, but if you don't have Spotify Premium or - heaven forbid - you just prefer to shuffle, then don't worry. The songs are still great, and nothing's set to self destruct.
or click here.