I haven’t seen Garden State, but I know there’s this scene where Natalie Portman (playing the token quirky girl) tells Zach Braff (playing himself) that he’s “gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life, I swear.” The song is New Slang by the Shins. Whether or not that particular song changes your life, who knows, but we’ve all listened to That Life-Changing Song, whatever it was, once or many times in our lives, haven’t we?

Music is one of my greatest sources of inspiration. My headphones are practically fused to my ears, which is probably bad in the long-term, but oh well. I love pop candy music and songs that punch you in the gut or make you mad or make you happy or make you sad and the ones that really do change your life. I love music, I love talking music and I LOVE the idea of sharing that one song that expanded your universe a little or a lot and made you so thankful you had a working pair of ears. I mean, it’s all so subjective ultimately, but there’s a warm and fuzzy feeling in saying, “Here is a song that means something to me. I think you will like it. I hope you do.”

So once a week, I think I will do this because I think it could be fun. Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a regular blog feature entitled THIS SONG MIGHT CHANGE YOUR LIFE, WHO REALLY KNOWS, BUT PROBABLY YOU SHOULD HEAR IT*.

And today that song is While We Were Hunting Rabbits by Matthew Good.

I promise Matt Good’s people aren’t paying me since this is the millionth time I’ve mentioned him in my blog in the last month. Anyway, While We Were Hunting Rabbits is the seventh track off of Matt’s first solo effort, Avalanche, and it’s probably my favourite song of his. Some songs become the song for certain moments in your life and they stay there. As you move on, you feel nostalgic about them and you remember how much they meant to you and maybe you you listen to them every now and again, but they’ll never feel as relevant or as grand as they did then. The interesting thing about Rabbits–for me at least–is that it’s a song that’s never lost that relevancy, it’s a song I keep going back to. It’s an epic, longing, demanding, bittersweet composition that reminds you of how infinitesimal you are and yet its lush orchestration and careful build–this song has one of the most amazing climaxes I have ever heard, seriously it makes my heart want to explode–is full of possibility and movement. The end result is something really big and bold and beautiful and cinematic. It sits right in the middle of your throat. If you want to make a real experience of it, listen to it in the car with the windows rolled down (preferably while driving a scenic rural route).

Lyrics snippet:

while we were hunting rabbits I came upon a clear
the sky its stars like fortune drilled me
until now I was a soldier, until now I dealt in fear
these years of cloak and dagger have left us disappeared
and I dance and I sing and I’m a monkey in a long line of kings
and we dance, we sing, we’re all monkeys in a long line, long line
I’m just a boat on the ocean, I’m just a ship lost at sea

Here is the video for While We Were Hunting Rabbits. The quality of the audio is slightly subpar but it’s worth listening to. The song (and album, which I highly recommend) is also available for purchase from iTunes. That’s a dollar for eight minutes of genius–sounds like a deal full of win to me!

While We Were Hunting Rabbits


And if you have a song that changed your life or that you really, really enjoyed, don’t hesitate to share it because I wanna know about it!

* title is obviously a work in progress