Throwing Copper

This album was huge during the last semester of my senior year of high school. It was when me and my friends were getting our first taste of independence, finally able to drive around without our parents. Every track on this album is brilliant and strewn with so many gorgeous lyrics. White, Discussion and The Dam at Otter Creek were always my favourites and the entire album has held up so well. It's a classic, much like Nevermind by Nirvana, that with the first note will instantly transport me back to the passenger seat of Rachel or Lori or Katay or Kathleen's cars; Marlboro Red dangling from my fingertips out the window, as I watched the landscape of South Jersey through sunglasses and felt for the first time like a real person. Not someone's kid, or a freak, or a student with lousy grades, but a person with the ability to go places on my own, without asking permission. A real person alone in a car with a friend, not speaking, just traveling through space in a beat up second hand car while blasting songs like I, Alone and bopping our heads in rhythm.

(photo kidnapped from udiscovermusic)