Who's gonna watch you die?

The stretch of I-65 from Lafayette to New Albany is a barren wasteland (Indy included) when it comes to radio, as such I relish when I’m south of mile marker 68 and can listen to both NPR and WFPK being broadcast from Louisville. I’ve been listening to a lot of NPR lately because the time passes a lot faster when you’re thinking about something. It also stays away from being completely polarizing like other talk shows, and broadcasts the BBC. I mean, British accents are just so fun. Anyway, how did I even get here. Oh yea. Driving and listening to NPR. Last night I was driving and listening to NPR and they were playing some of the award winners from the Third Coast Festival / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition (if the competition had a longer name, I think it would get more recognition). Apparently, entrants in the competition are the best radio documentaries from across the globe. The Gold Award winner was this BBC Documentary from a series called Don’t Hang Up. The premise of the show is these radio guys in a studio called public phones across the globe and would talk to whoever answered. They talked to a drunk 14-year in rural England, a transgender hitchhiker in New Zealand, and a security guard in the Everglades. It was highly entertaining. Plus, their accents were fun.

While Don't Hang Up was highly entertaining, the piece that had me thinking the most was an Honorable Mention Winner entitled The Ground We Lived On. The piece was about a woman and her dying father. They started taping their conversations near the end of his life when he knew that he wasn't coming back from the cancer that was killing him. The story was so touching because of its intimacy and the creators courage to not hold any of those touching moments back. It immediately made of think of the Death Cab for Cutie song titled What Sarah Said. I think that Benjamin Gibbard write some of the best lyrics in the business, and this particular song is about waiting for this girl Sarah to die. (As each descending peak of the LCD takes you a little bit farther away from me..........how good is THAT for lyric? I'll tell you, off the chart good.) Anyway, great song. Great album (Plans). I think both the documentary and song make the same point though. Although death can be scary and painful and sad, that is what love is all about. No one needs you more than when they are dying, and thats when the REAL moments are shared. The ones you'll remember. Either because you can't let them go, or because you don't want to.

Song Recommendation - What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie