The wonder of Phil.

How does Phil Elverum do it? How does he know? The picture below is the stamps on the package in which he sent his album Lost Wisdom to me:


The lower right-hand stamp is a picture of Acadia National Park.

Could Phil have somehow known that the first time I ever really listened closely to one of his songs was when I first played a mix CD that was very special to me at the time, and on that mix CD the first song was “I Want Wind to Blow,” and I started playing this mix CD in my car as I crossed the bridge onto the island where the picture on this stamp was taken?

Did he know that his music was the soundtrack to half my late-night drives around Mt. Desert Island?

That, on the strength of his album with Jason Anderson (New England) and the stuff he recorded for Mirah, I decided to order Don't Wake Me Up? And that I fell right into that album and still have a special love for it?

And that not too long afterwards I got It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water and The Glow, pt. 2? And that I would sing his songs to myself as I sat on the rocky beach or as I walked through the mountains, in mist or in sunshine or in rain?

And that I, too, could not get through September without a battle?

And that quickly forgetting was also the way that I lived my life, but then I too tried to leave home and live as if I'd died, and often sat on dark rocks doing nothing?

And that his songs about the lakes and waters and mountains in the Pacific Northwest, which would never really fit the North Carolina coast, really sounded right in Maine? And his music always brings to mind the kind of thing that is on the Maine stamp?

Did Phil know?

Also, Lost Wisdom is a beautiful album.