“Good Morning Fire Eater” by Copeland, Sunday, January 23, 2021

WAKE UP YOUR EYES. It's difficult to pick a track from this record. Although it was released in the fall of 2008, my first year off at college, it was really the dead of winter of 2009 that has burned this record into my memory. The winter of 2009 was particularly cold, even for East Tennessee. There were lots of grey days which had nothing particularly special but Easy Mac and fresh laundry. Saturday nights or Sundays some friends would drive into Chattanooga for dinner and then we’d just go back to the dorm to do our homework. Rather mundane stuff. This album was a soundtrack to those grey days. Songs like "Should You Return" was a song of hope that the spring would finally come. "The Grey Man" was a song about wallowing in the the uncertainty of things ever looking up. "Chin Up" was a melancholic song about the futility of trying too hard--though the song never actually makes you want to give up. 

I'M AFRAID YOU STOPPED TO LICK YOUR WOUNDS. Then the flu struck in the middle of sixteen credit hours. A high fever. I couldn't get out of bed a couple of days. A couple of missed classes and a bunch of homework to catch up on, a nagging cough that lasted for at least a month. Songs like "The Day I Lost My Voice" and some other songs from the second half of the album really resinate with that time. And yet, I don't hold any grudges to this album. I can still listen to it and fondly think of the time that I could be sick in bed, comforted by Aaron Marsh's voice and the guidance of Aaron Sprinkle.

THE KINDEST LOVE IS STILL BLEEDING FROM THE LAST SHOT. So, today's song is "Good Morning Fire Eater." It's a grey day in Korea in January and pretty uninteresting. The world is hopefully healing from a pandemic, although we still have a lingering cough. Not every day has to be interesting. We need the chilly days that we return to the covers. We need the days that we take extra comfort in our coffee or echinacea tea. It's nice to take a walk on a damp day so long as the rain doesn't catch you without an umbrella. 

THE DAY IS DONE AND EVERYONE'S GONE NOW. Finally, I will finish up the post with the music video. The video is so captivating. The first time I watched it, my roommate and suite-mate stopped their conversation and were entranced by it. Again, the theme of transcending the banal as the office workers put aside their work to go "fight the dragon." However, much like this song and this album, you have to be in the right mood for it. The third or fourth week of January will do. Also if you are college students with very little money for entertainment and your mind is numb from homework that will do. Enjoy!

https://genius.com/Copeland-good-morning-fire-eater-lyrics