"I Am For You" by Waking Ashland, Tuesday, January 10, 2023

 

Waking Ashland was a band signed first to Tooth & Nail Records then Immortal Records. The band release two records, Composure in 2005 and The Well in 2007 before disbanding. Lead singer Jonathan Jones went on to form the band We Shot the Moon with two members from Sherwood, Dan Koch and Joe Greenetz, who also played in Waking Ashland. As for Waking Ashland, Composure was a sleeper hit on Tooth & Nail Records similar to Watashi Wa's music. The two bands both relied on calmer, often organic sounds that failed to garner the audience to compete with the harder bands the label steered toward in the mid-'00s. 

TO PROVE WE'RE SOMETHING, BUT WE'RE STARVING. Another comparison between Waking Ashland and Watashi Wa is that both bands went on to form other bands, moving from Tooth & Nail Records to the now defunct, often calmer emo label The Militia Group. In Watashi Wa's case, the band formed first Eager Seas and then Lakes. Interestingly Tooth & Nail became the home of one of The Militia Group's most successful indie bands despite them not being the pop-punk or hardcore sound that most succeeded on Tooth & Nail Records. That band was Copeland, and perhaps it was underdog releases by Watashi Wa and Wasking Ashland that had softened the ears of the label for Copeland to release their 2008 masterpiece, You Are My Sunshine. Perhaps it was the forgotten indie record of singable melodies and piano rock on tracks like "Shades of Grey" or the propensity on songs like "Rumors" or the colorful perennial favorite  "October Skies" that prepared Tooth & Nail for Copeland.  This of course is in no way to diminish the accomplishments or talents of Copeland, but it is interesting to see how it took Copeland to bring the scene to soft music, though they weren't the only ones playing it.

DON'T GIVE UP, JUST KEEP SEEKING. "I Am For You," has a musical comparison with the next track "Rumors," and perhaps they are lyrically related. Whereas "I Am For You" has a driving piano melody, "Rumors" starts out with a frantic piano line. "I Am For You" is a kind of dying of passion, like Romeo and Juliet overcame their familial conflict, but in defeating the conflict they lost the spark in their marriage. "Rumors," on the other hand, is all spark and conflict too. The songs in similar keys and similar musical textures seem to tell two conflicts in a romance: "your heart is frozen over" and "I've heard all of rumors; they all were true." The joys and sorrows of relationships come in ebbs and flows. It's unrealistic to be euphoric all the time. Not every day is main stage at Lollapalooza; some days are just about sitting on the tour bus. What causes our hearts to lose desire? Maybe we think that we can do better--that maybe we are entitled to better. I think I deserve arugula, but it turns out that I'm really just day old iceberg. I'm glad 2018 is over. 

Read the lyrics on Genius.