Original Release Date: 16 September 2008 (Cherrytree Records)
Download “5 Years Time” (mp3)
Download “2 Bodies 1 Heart” (mp3)
As I walked to the first class of my second semester, International Sign Language 101, I had my ear buds in place. I was lost in my own world. In the five minutes it took to walk across campus, I began listening to the newest obsession on my iPod – Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down by Noah and the Whale.
The album opens with the wavering tone of a harmonium and the fade in of a distant sounding, face paced acoustic guitar riff. After a few finger snaps in beat, the atmospheric introductory music cuts away and Charlie Fink’s voice and guitar are front and center. “2 Atoms in a Molecule” begins with Fink retelling a dream of love. He imagines he and his lover “were inseparably entwined/ Like a piece of rope made out of two pieces of vine.” The full band kicks in and the singer awakes from his dream. He is alone. He laments about the pangs of love. And he asks, “If love is just a game, then how come it’s no fun?/ If love is juts a game, how come I’ve never won?”
I listened to these lyrical lines of lamentation about love and entered the classroom. I removed each ear bud and took a seat near the back of the room, where I usually sat on the first day of class. About two minutes before class began, in walked this woman with shoulder-length, coiled, raven hair. But this beautiful stranger was not the average unknown acquaintance. My crush for her began during my third week on campus.
I had noticed her in the dining hall. A couple times a week, we both ate a few meals at the same time. The first time I saw her, she appeared as an unattainable, attractive woman. From afar, I fantasized about her, but never had the courage to actually speak to her.
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