Tuesdays with Media: Them Shoes

Have you ever heard a song that you like the first time you hear it, but some time later when you hear it again, it really speaks to you?  Such is the case with the song off the album Every Hour is a Dollar Gone by Patrick Sweany, "Them Shoes":

The music is guitar-driven and strongly on the blues side of rock, the tempo constantly goes from fast to slow and back again, and the vocals have more than a little pain being sung out with the lyrics.

Speaking of lyrics, they're highly metaphorical and their real meaning may not be clear the first time or two.  Such was the case with me, which is why I didn't "get" the song the few first times I heard it.  Here's one of the verses:

No one said it would be easy
Sometimes it is hard to do
It isn't like the TV
You see the cold hard truth
And the things you see in movies
Just don't come true
So here's a little feedback
You gotta wear your shoes

Sweany talks about how life is hard and you don't get a happy ending like in movies or on TV, but then he gives "a little feedback" and says to wear shoes?  Like I said, it's a metaphor.  What he's saying is that you have take life as it comes, whether good or bad, and accept it.  "Wear your shoes" means not hide from who you are or what you've become and to live your life.

But as creative as the music is and as touching as the lyrics are, this is a song where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Even with what I just detailed above, there's something else about the song that speaks to me and connects with my soul.  I rediscovered this song last week and have listened to it several times since, partly because it's catchy, but mostly because I'm moved by it.

Every Hour is a Dollar Gone is distributed by Nine Mile Records.