8+

"It's Natural To Be Afraid" by Explosions In The Sky which clocks in at 13:27

This is a game. A game which I will win, because I just invented it. Just now. I'll explain the rules. We'll call them rules simply because this is a game, and all games need rules the way people need to believe in powerful beings who live in the sky, but they're not actual rules though. They are more like guidelines. Therefore, feel free to bend them anywhich way you'd like. For this is truly a game of solitaire and we all know the only losers of games of solitaire are the idiots who don't cheat. Want to watch me play? "Rules" first.

The rules:
- the player must first select a song, ideally a rather long song.
- the player must then proceed to write a story that recounts something that actually happened that somehow relates to the selected song, or happened while the player was listening to said song.
- during the telling of this story the player must attempt to work into the story the title of the song, the title of the album on which the song can be found, and the name of the band.
- it is strictly against the rules to reference any of the above in a manner that explicitly states that you're talking about music.
- the more you're able to naturally work in the song, album, and band name, the more points you will be rewarded.

Ready? Begin.

So, there we were. Driving. At night. Late at night. The middle of whotheshitknowswhere west Texas. Nothing around anywhere. No buildings, no gas stations, no motels. No signs of life other than the random other cars we'd pass every 15 minutes or so. Another world entirely. Being honest, now after the fact, we were afraid. I kept thinking to myself, "it's fine...it's natural to be afraid." I didn't tell the others though.

We had left Austin earlier that night on our way to New Mexico. When we left there was the biggest, most beautiful, sunset we'd ever seen. Just sitting in the sky for what seemed like hours. The sky was illuminated by all kinds of reds and yellows and oranges, almost as if there had been a series of slow motion explosions in the sky and these colors were the aftermath. Anyway, the plan was to drive for a few hours, cover a bit of distance, and then stop in Fort Stockton. None of us had ever been to Fort Stockton, but it seemed like a big enough dot on the map. Plus, at one point, it was clearly a fort of some kind. While this fort might not be able to protect us from actual explosions in the sky it did indeed sound like a perfect place to stop. A safe haven out there in the middle of nowhere. This land where people seemed to have yet to discover.

By the time we got to Fort Stockton it was late. Around 1am or so. We pulled up to the first motel we saw and immediately found out that they had no vacancies. No worries, we'd just try the other 8 motels at this exit. One after another and they all had the same problem. Too many people. "I hate people," someone in the back muttered aloud at one point. We all hated them then. It was late, we were road weary, and all of the people sleeping in motels in Fort Stockton that night were forcing us to soldier on. Into the unknown. At 1am. When would our next potential motel show up? We had no idea. After we got back on the desolate highway it occurred to us that we were also going to need to stop for gas sometime soon. A small amount of fear again crept into the minivan. It's natural to be afraid.

It was nearly 2:30am when we finally found an exit with a gas station. The two passengers in the back of the van were asleep, the driver and myself had been relishing the creepiness of our current situation. I'd made an "On the go" playlist on my iPod that consisted of distinctly creepy songs and we both got a bit excited as we pulled up to this seemingly abandoned gas station. There was a white pickup truck there at first. Not getting gas, just there. It pulled away as we pulled up. Surely they were doing something there at this gas station at 2:30am, hopefully not something they didn't want anyone else to see. With no other human beings around for many many miles, in the black night of west Texas, who would notice if some psycho in a white pickup truck killed an entire minivan full of three musicians and a filmmaker? It's natural to be afraid. The two people in the front of the van were actually enjoying being afraid.

The driver and I got out of the van at the gas station and were immediately hit with powerful wind. The kind of wind that's deafening. Loud, forceful wind. In the dead of night, at this clearly closed gas station, unable to see anything but pumps and darkness, we stood and took it all in. We ran around like children, the wind moving our bodies a few feet to the side at times, the darkness just outside the lights of the pumps taunting us. Begging us to come closer. Might that pickup truck return? We were enjoying being afraid.

Just then someone awoke from the back of the van and stepped out into our world.

"Where the hell are we?" he groggily questioned.

"No idea, isn't it amazing?!" we responded.

"No. Where are the people? I don't hate them anymore. All of a sudden I miss everyone."

Buy All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone HERE on Amazon.

**above photo from HERE**

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Guns N' Roses - "Locomotive"
Guns N' Roses - "Estranged"
Guns N' Roses - "Coma"
Guns N' Roses - "November Rain"
Sleep - "Jerusalem (Pt. 4)"
The Velvet Underground - "The Gift"
Elton John - "Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding"
Jenő Jandó - "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.