I can understand Brazil getting knocked out of the world cup. In fact, it's only fair, they will host the next world cup and will have an incredible chance to claim revenge and reclaim their samba style. But to knock the Black Stars out of the world cup like that. . . really? They could have just lost and everyone would have been sad and it would have been the end of the story, but instead they had to earn themselves a goal with absolutely no time left on the clock, watch a Uruguayan player throw it off the line, then miss the penalty kick, then miss a pk in the shootout, then find redemption with a miss by the Uruguayans, and then miss the very next shot. It's almost like the soccer gods watched one too many disney movies as little infant deities and vowed to one day squash the hopes and dreams of an entire continent within the span of 15 minutes.
Anyway, the point is that today's incidents prove unequivocally that life sucks a lot at times. Sometimes when you come to that realization, and are honest with yourself about how depressing the rest of your life is probably going to be, listening to really happy music just isn't appealing. You want a chance to wallow in your gloom and hear something that will help you mourn. Today's Song of the Day is a song just for that purpose, it is Brad Mehldau's take on the Sound of Music's "Favorite Things". The arrangement is a piano solo and opens with an incredible falling base line that keeps dipping lower and lower and lower while Mehldau's right hand dances loosely on some higher notes. The chords in the song are thick and create a deep and genuine feel to the song; a feel that is further developed by the tense communication between Meldhau's his hands, his left maintaining a constant dark pulse and his right moving slightly more actively in the higher registers. It's genius, it's moving, and it's a perfect listen if you are sitting in your house mourning the exit of your favorite national soccer team.
Brad Mehldau, for those of you who don't know is a young and accomplished jazz pianist with an uncanny ability to transform songs outside the jazz idiom into entirely new and unique jazz creations. I have posted some links to more of his songs below the video in case you would like to hear more, his covers include everything from Nick Drake to Paul Simon to Radiohead.
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