Remember back in your high school biology class. Somewhere in the discussion about evolution, there were usually a few pages on Madagascar and Endemism that contained illustrations of animals, one from Madagascar and another from a non-Madagascan area. Your science teacher probably made a big deal about how while a massive percentage of Madagascar’s animals are unique to the island, they still ‘evolved’ to be remarkably similar to their off-island friends. Is this ringing a bell or did you sleep through that day?

My musical offering of this Thursday is a prime example of what I’m babbling about. One day toward the end of our trip, Zac, Dillan and I were out running an errand when Dillan tossed in a cd that his brother had made for him. Dillan, of course, skipped through most of the playlist to land on one specific song. Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” began playing through the speakers and by the end of the song, all three of us were commenting how much we loved it. Dillan had heard it through his brother; Zac discovered it through a random sampler cd. I had found in on a random music blog weeks before. No, this one isn’t on the radio. Hasn’t made the Top 40. It’s a unknown song that was on repeat for the rest of our time together. Somehow despite years apart, different upbringings, and polar opposite musical tastes, on that afternoon we drove back to Grandma’s jamming to a common soundtrack of our individual lives. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a thousand more times… that’s what music is about. Moments shared together. Common threads binding family, friends and strangers. It’s a simple musical Madagascar… miles apart but somehow so much the same.

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Bon Iver – “Skinny Love”

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order’s tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I’ll be with you
But it will be a different “kind”
I’ll be holding all the tickets
And you’ll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I’m breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?