My Top 1000 Songs #606: Holes

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Here's a second track off Mercury Rev's amazing 1998 Deserter's Songs. With "Holes," the band moves beyond its noisier post-punk roots and fully embraces gentle, more ambient yet proggy mood pieces, delivering a song that I've always found deeply spiritual and emotionally resonant. You've got the massive orchestral swells and eerie wails for drama, but at heart it's the lyrics that majestically sweep you up. They combine the absurd ("holes, dug by little moles, angry jealous spies, got telephones for eyes") with the ponderous ("all the smoke like streams that flow into your dreams, that big blue open sea, that can't be crossed, that can't be climbed, just born"), which somehow ushers you off to strange, unexpected places.  

BTW, I recently re-upped my mash-up of Deserter's Songs with the Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin, probably my most successfully-executed imaginary album to date... check it out before it disappears again!

Meanwhile, I adore this video someone put together, using "Holes" as backing for a short indie film... just perfectly captures the vibe.

Live 2015: