The Poetry of Life's "Almanac"

“Almanac” by The Acorn is a soulful song that carries the listener along the rhythm of the drums and holds them in the warm voice of Rolf Klausener. He sings about someone who wants to explore the world and have a life worth living, but something is holding them back.

There's a season in your eyes
and a fever on your breath
you're anchored to the tide
and the rhythm in your chest

He can see that the person yearns to go out into the world, but they are stuck. His words show that this person is living their life with every day as consistent as the one before. Tides change, and they pull us in new directions, but this person is anchored and cannot be taken with the flow of life. Our heart beats change speed according to how we feel. When it races, it has the power to move us. But this person is held back by the rhythm of their chest, rather than sent forward.

Whatever it is that’s preventing them from really living, we will all at sometime in our lives wish for something more. Something will try to keep us from grasping what we want, whether it be self-doubt, fear, love, hate, or some other emotion that has too much power over us. I know this feeling. The feeling of seeing the world at my fingertips but not being able to just go out there and take it.

I read the rings and count the city lights
you sing a static sonnet on the dial
you could talk a walk, through the mines
or you could spend all your days
just waiting for the night

When the singer’s voice drifts through my speakers, he’s talking to me. He’s asking me why I’m not out there already, why I’m letting my life plateau until something great comes along and just happens. He’s questioning me. I’m questioning myself. The song is poetry in the way that it makes me feel and think about how I live.

the stones that skip, the dust that turns to fire
I see it all reflected in your eyes

In these lines, he sees in all wishful adventurers what they themselves sometimes miss. An almanac is a book published every year about the movements of the tides, the sun, and the moon. This “Almanac” is a record of life, and a reflection on its movements.