Brightest Young Things

Walking by a cabdriver digging his cab out of a drift on Saturday, I gave him a pitying look and he gave me a grin back. "I'm sorry man..." I told him. "Yeah, eet's fun... I love eet!" he crowed, swinging his shovel over his shoulder like a spear and marching back into his house.

What's the name of that emotion that reads like joy but smells like sadness when everything comes crashing down but in a way that isn't your fault? It's almost a gratefulness--like getting the day off school when you're about to win an award or go to the dance with your dream girl--when all your plans and hopes are dashed by pure, dumb, unthinking faultless nature.

Sometimes as a kid I'd look out the window and find a cloud that looked like a mushroom and think: "THANK GOD." But then I'd remember I stole that idea from an early 90s episode of Fame the TV Show. Just like I stole the title of this post from twitter. Sorry, teacher, Fenrir the Sun-Swallowing Wolf ate my homework.

Here are some songs about the end of times, and how lovely and empty it would be, and how much fun we'd have you and me, read the signs.

The End Is Near    --    The Fiery Furnaces
End of the World    --    Stanley Brinks
Armagideon Time    --    Willie Williams
Apocalypse Weather    --    Christopher Öström
The End of the World Because You Don't Love Me Anymore    --    The Gladetes
Wichita Lineman    --    The New Apocalypse
Armageddon    --    Coco Rosie
Concerning the End of the World (Eterna Redux)    --    The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers
Ballad Of A Bitter End    --    The Poems
A Portrait of Your Post-Apocalyptic Son    --    Love is Chemicals
Over the Edge    --    The Go Find
The End of it All    --    John Tejada
A Song About The End    --    The Delta Mirror
It's An Island    --    Nethers
End Result    --    Jeffrey Lewis
The End of Things    --    Bachelorette
Where No Endings End    --    Keren Ann
The End of the World    --    Julie London