Hope of a Lifetime (The Milk Carton Kids)

February 17, 2013 5:27 PM

While I doubt that many of you get music tips from NPR, I have to admit that prior to their post "Heavy Rotation: 5 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing", I had been unaware of The Milk Carton Kids (an earlier NPR Tiny Desk Concert). If you listen to nothing else, I do hope you will give a listen to Hope of a Lifetime, which (at the risk of editorializing) I must say is one of the most beautiful songs (and lyrics) that I have heard in a very long time.

I'd like to dedicate the song to my entire family, who are grieving the death of our youngest daughter/sister/sister-in-law/wife/mother when a meth-fueled construction dump truck driver rear-ended her car sending it off of the interstate and ending the career of a superb Special Education teacher before it could even begin, this past June.

posted by spock (24 comments total)

I believe that these are the song's lyrics:

There's a light that's shining down
And a calm wind in the pine
For the fate of a fearsome travesty
Seems to have forgotten me
Seems to have forgotten me

If it hasn't learned by now
Where I've hid so very long
I'll come safely out into the silence fell
In the wake of its passing on,
In the wake of its passing on

A Spartan smile and westward stare
Hold a promise in the air
That's the way they used to find their own way home
By the stars, on their own
By the stars, on their own

While I pray for promised land
To replace all I have made
Darkness steals the light I bear
In the hope of a lifetime phase,
the hope of a lifetime phase

In the new found reverie
Of quiet peace I've found
Freedom comes from being unafraid
Of the heartache that can plague a man
The heartache that can plague a man

A Spartan smile and westward stare
Hold a promise in the air
That's the way they used to find their own way home
By the stars, on their own
By the stars, on their own





posted by spock at 5:27 PM on February 17, 2013

Some fancy and lovely picking. Beautiful.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:39 PM on February 17, 2013

While I doubt that many of you get music tips from NPR

It's probably a much bigger portion than you'd guess (or that people will admit to). The folks I know who are actively working in the music industry say that a placement of your song on NPR is invaluable, a career maker, worth more than anything except having a track chosen for a TV show or commercial.
posted by Miko at 5:45 PM on February 17, 2013 [5 favorites]

While I doubt that many of you get music tips from NPR

On Metafilter? Probably most of them.

This is a really nice song. I give them a year before they get a Mumford makeover and suffer the fate of Kings of Leon.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:47 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

And man I'm getting sleepy just READING these descriptions: Cayucas embodies the sound I grew to love living on the West Coast; the combination of the sand, the '60s, surfing, Dodson turned to her songwriting as a kind of therapy, but when she was done, she decided to go public — with both the song and her story — in the hope that others might find it therapeutic. Well, the closest Mullins gets to that is the baritone ukulele (which is pretty close, actually), but several songs on her latest album, Wedding, feature her singing and accompanying herself on the mbira, a thumb piano from Zimbabwe.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:52 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I love "All Songs Considered" and yes... I get quite a few of my music tips from NPR
posted by jgaiser at 6:01 PM on February 17, 2013

Wow, that is really nice, spock. Thanks for the pointer.
posted by Malor at 6:14 PM on February 17, 2013

(oh and, yes, I pay attention to NPR for music recommendations, absolutely.)
posted by Malor at 6:15 PM on February 17, 2013

The best NPR music tip I ever got was the Friends of Dean Martinez.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 6:41 PM on February 17, 2013

I have bought music used as NPR bumpers. I also get a nerdy little thrill when I hear something and realize I have that album someplace.
posted by jquinby at 6:51 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I enjoy NPR's programming and music, not to mention their news...Terribly sorry for the loss...beautiful beautiful song.
posted by gypseefire at 7:08 PM on February 17, 2013

I didn't consider how much of the music I listen to for pleasure came from NPR reviews until I flipped through my music just now: St Vincent, The Bad Plus, really cool bowed-piano stuff from Stephen Scott. One of my very favorites came secondhand, through my wife, in The New Pornographers.

I suppose I should go donate another forty bucks now.
posted by The Potate at 8:50 PM on February 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I often hear edits of songs used as bed music on NPR that I recognize only after cocking my ear the right way. Lately, the local station has been using an edit of Slint's "Breadcrumb Trail" while they read the weather and the "coming up next" and "you our listeners" yakking. It took me a few times to pick out where I knew the song from... "Oh yeaaaah, Slint!"
posted by not_on_display at 9:34 PM on February 17, 2013

Not a huge fan of NPRs music programming. I think this just about sums it up. Pretty song though!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:06 PM on February 17, 2013

Seemed like for a while you couldn't swing a dead cat on NPR without hearing Calexico.

Not that I have a dead cat to swing and I really like Calexico.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:09 PM on February 17, 2013

Not that Bob Boilen isn't a cool guy with a lot of wise ideas about music. Or anyone else over there. They're just not good at talking about it. Like everything else on NPR the discussion is programmed for, well, an NPR audience.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:09 PM on February 17, 2013 [2 favorites]

And that Chance The Rapper song is fantastic, so maybe I should eat my words in my hat.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:22 PM on February 17, 2013

Mod note: Replaced shortened url with full url in "Hope..." link; carry on.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:16 PM on February 17, 2013

Sorry for your loss, spock. That's horrible.

NPR has a lot of great songs, much of it similar in sound and quality to this song you chose. For example, they're big on a Portland band I like, Y La Bamba.
posted by msalt at 12:23 AM on February 18, 2013

NPR has never steered me wrong. I like their music app.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:36 AM on February 18, 2013

music for a found harmonium!
posted by kaibutsu at 7:09 AM on February 18, 2013

Eponysterical
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 7:31 AM on February 18, 2013

They give a taste of it in the NPR Tiny Desk, but The Milk Carton Kids are hilarious live. (In that understated, totally deadpan way). Worth watching (or hearing, at least) the the full video of their first concert in Michigan.

Also worth noting, their first two albums are free to download (from their site). I'd recommend Michigan for the broken-hearted, Girls Gather Round for the home-sick, and I Still Want A Little More, if you still want a little more.
posted by Flaffigan at 5:17 PM on February 18, 2013

Thanks for posting this. I've been looking for new music to get excited about and this is it.
posted by southern_sky at 5:41 PM on February 18, 2013