Lately I've been moving to the past a lot for my tunes. I don't know why - perhaps there's something softer there, something more whimsical and innocent. There's a whole heap of albums I either haven't listened to in years, or have heard about but never listened to. It constantly suprises me how there's tunes in the depths of time that I'm yet to discover.

Sometimes, looking backwards is a good thing.

Sometimes it's more about letting go and whilst we can remember the past, it's a continuing trauma to allow it to weigh us down.

I've been listening to JJ Cale's Troubadour a lot - particularly on the road. 'After Midnight' is one of my favourite songs ever - there's something really seductive about it. That's not on this album though. Let's try 'Travellin' Light' and pull three songs together for a theme of sorts for @ablaze's #threetunetuesday.

But none of these songs are really about the literal journeys along dusty highways, but the symbolic ones - the places we go in our imagination, and how we need to shed our emotional baggage to live more lightly.

In light of The Minimalist theme for last week about attachment to past emotions and experiences, this collection of songs reinforces the need to let go, and how painful it can be to hold on, or in Cales case, the joy and wonder of letting the imagination fly into liminal and more easy going spaces.

^{Travelin' light is the only way to fly
Travelin' light, just you and I
One-way ticket to ecstasy
Way on down, follow me
Travelin' light, we can go beyond
Travelin' light, we can catch the wind
Travelin' light, let your mind pretend
We can go to paradise
Maybe once, maybe twice
Travelin' light, is the only way to fly
We can go to paradise
Maybe once, maybe twice
Travelin' light, is the only way to fly}

Like the song suggests, our imagination is the lightest way to fly.

Years ago, travelling to Western Australia, someone gave me the Tindersticks on tape. I always found them a little depressing, but there was something about his resonant voice that was captivating. Of all their songs though, this one has travelled through time with me to pop up as an ear worm now and then. The two voices work beautifully together, an anatomy of a broken relationship, and how some memories are painful to travel with: 'Well it comes with the hurt and the guilt, and the memories - if I had to take them with me I would never get from my bed'.

^{There are places I don't remember
There are times and days, they mean nothing to me
I've been looking through some of them old pictures
They don't serve to jog my memory
I'm not waking in the morning, staring at the walls these days
I'm not getting out the boxes, spread all over the floor
I've been looking through some of them old pictures
Those faces they mean nothing to me no more
Chorus:
I travel light
You travel light
Everything I've done
You say you can justify, mmm you travel light
I can't pick them out, I can't put them in these sad old bags
Some things you have to lose along the way
Times are hard, I'll only pick them out, wish I was going back
Times are good, you'll be glad you ran away
(chorus)
Do you remember, how much you loved me?
You say you have no room in that thick old head
Well it comes with the hurt and the guilt, and the memories
If I had to take them with me I would never get from my bed
There's a crack in the roof where the rain pours through
That's the place you always decide to sit
Yeah I know I'm there for hours, the water running down (my) (your)face
Do you really think you keep it all that well hid?
No but I travel light
You don't travel light
Everything I've done
It's just a lie, you don't travel light}

Third in the 'travelling light' playlist is Leonard Cohen. There's an irony in the Tindersticks song and this one where the speaker isn't travelling light at all - they are weighed down with the past: '"I used to play one mean guitar" and "I'm just a fool, a dreamer who forgot to dream of the me and you." "my once bright love, my fallen star". Yet both vow to move on and travel light - here, Cohen's repetition of "I'm traveling light" signifies both metaphorically and literally that he's moving on with minimal baggage. One can only move on lightly, as if you're weighed down by the past, you still exist there. To travel light is to find a lightness of being. It's a transitional journey from regret, heartbreak and pain to something else - as Tindersticks suggest, if you have to take that baggage with you, you'd never actually get out of bed.

What baggage weighs you down? What memories do you need to leave behind?

With Love,

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