Each day in December, I’ll be reflecting back on a song from the 2000’s. The decade saw the return of post-punk and the popularization of folk music, all while some of music’s biggest acts gained their indie footing. Thankfully, it’s a period that I can look back at fondly without cringing. #31DaysOf2000sSongs
In my senior year of high school, there was a place that I ran off to a handful of times with classmates of mine. It was called Rockwood Park, a scenic state park that was always closed well before the hour we sneaked in. We’d park off to the side of the road, late at night and scurry through a trail with beer and whisky in backpacks. Our destination was a clearing, a big meadow that overlooked the Hudson River. The reflection of the moon on the water was magical. It was like a sepia-tone photograph for us to remember these years before we all went our separate ways to college. The Cease to Begin album cover — and the aura of Band of Horses — remind me of those nights, particularly the song “No One’s Gonna Love You”.
The instrumentation, pacing and melody force a reflective mood on me every time I hear this track. It doesn’t matter how distracted or busy I may be, “No One’s Gonna Love You” slows me down and commands my attention. Ben Bridwell’s tenor vocals have this way of soaring through the air, creating room for the guitars to establish the mood underneath. One guitar riff runs steadily and insistently, while the other delicately trickles upwards and downwards. Like much of the Band of Horses catalog, the strength of “No One’s Gonna Love You” is the atmosphere it creates for the listener.
“We're reeling through an endless fall. We are the ever-living ghost of what once was.”