726 drops you right into where guitarist Rick Mitarotonda is floating in life. A cold start. “Summer’s up in a haze / I’ve been holding on a little too tight / A little water to cool down”
Every year I pick a song for my summer anthem; last year it was “Levitating” by Dua Lipa (my friends still can’t believe that I picked that!) I play the summer song over and over; driving, surfing, riding my motorcycle, everywhere. Usually loud.
This year the song is 726 by Goose. I’ve been waiting for July 26 to roll around so I could honor the song’s title before writing about it.
A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a few buddies on Jackson Lake wake surfing. Spectacular in every way. My turn came up, so I put 726 on the stereo; loud. “What the hell is this? Some sort of chick music?” one of my friends shouted out, referring to the cool vibe of the song. He probably expected to see me surf to something from Ozzy’s archives. After seven minutes of surfing and one song, I ended my session and hopped back on the boat. “Wow, that was awesome, you were in the zone, somewhere else,” the same friend said. “Now I get it!”
The sound of this music transports us immediately into summer, and into our soul. It has an arc. A laid-back meter with an airy feeling, like summer. Yet it evokes a deep, sad feeling of drifting and passing. Just like summer passing (especially living in the mountains like I do, where we only get about 10 weeks of it).
The listless, hazy feeling of summer in 726 is really about drifting through a directionless period of life. The arc builds anticipation, then acknowledgment, and ends with release.
“Somebody’s waiting / Tired and laden.” Our spirit is the somebody, perhaps somebody we’ve suppressed. The somebody who’s worn out or ignored.
It is also always waiting to help us get back on track. “And all I’ve caught of a soul / Is knowing it’s on me.”
Everything we need is already inside of us, “hid out and shaking”, ready to be discovered. We only have ourselves to blame for not moving forward, even when we are “up on a haze.”
The bridge tells us to let go, “We all just need a little direction sometimes / ‘Cause no one’s holding these hands.” It’s on us to find it. But maybe we’re “holding on a little too tight” to see it.
“And I am swimming up on a tide / Well I’m tired of waiting / It’s already taken a little too long to get back up.” Directionless times can feel like we are being carried by the ocean, with an abyss beneath. The fear of not knowing where we are going, and maybe even sinking. Definitely not surfing! We need to trust the tide to eventually bring us back to shore, solid ground. Sometimes it takes a little too long for our liking, so we wait before taking action.
The action happens by following our spirit, not just our minds like most men are taught. It requires intention and the willingness to be led from within. “So show me the way in / I know that it’s blatant lord.” It’s already there; lean into vulnerability and honor the spirit beneath.
The vulnerability reveals the spirit with the clarity of a “diamond.” An awakening that feels like “cold, cold water.” It recognizes that the spirit and the ego are two entities that travel together: “Never showing us alone / We’ll go someday / To where I’ve known us all along.”
726 closes by releasing all the tension and loneliness it has built. We are never far from home — the home where our spirit lives. The fade-out is a three-minute instrumental, not a jam, but a melody for reflection and dropping in and being carried home.
On another topic, if you are someone who doesn’t like jam bands, Goose might be the jam band for you!
No Honest Miles drop this week; see you next week!
Nice breakdown of a song into personal meaning. Now something more challenging; let's see you do it with Steve miller’s “abra cadabra”