The War Against Silence

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The War Against Silence

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The War Against Silence was a weekly music-review column, and then a weekly column about music, and then a weekly column that was often inspired by music. It was written by glenn mcdonald, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, through a decade of devices and dreams and sleepless Wednesday nights. It was against many things, beginning with but not necessarily including silence, and in favor of many more, including some of the things it was once against and eventually its own end.

It may or may not occasionally be updated in its demise.

Titles

1-0 402

150 432

18 Stations 408

2000 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 316d

2000 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 316c

2000 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 316b

2001 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 368b

2001 Pazz & Jop genre correlation analysis 368c

2002 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 420b

2003 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 472b

2004 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 501b

2005 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 506b

2006 Jackin' Pop / Pazz & Jop album clusters 508g

2006 Jackin' Pop / Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 508f

2006 Jackin' Pop / Pazz & Jop merged results 508h

2006 Jackin' Pop / Pazz & Jop voter similarity 508i

2006 Jackin' Pop album clusters 508c

2006 Jackin' Pop critical alignment ratings 508b

2006 Pazz & Jop album clusters 508e

2006 Pazz & Jop critical alignment ratings 508d

2007 Idolator / Village Voice album-poll collation 509b

2008 Pazz & Jop album-poll autopsy 510b

2009 Pazz & Jop 511b

2010 Pazz & Jop 512b

2011 Pazz & Jop 513b

2012 Pazz & Jop 514b

26 Prayers to St. Peter 440

[Something] in Words 371

a grammar note 365b

a historical note 498d

a logistical note 504b

a logistical note 500b

a publishing note 346b

a scheduling note 383b

a style note 430b

a transliteration 363b

After Enemies 496b

All Advice Is Ways of Saying 'Let It Go' 87

All Hands on Deck at Dawn 100

All Joy Wants Eternity 96

All of the Hubris Clenched in Our Fist Won't Punch Our Way Out of Here 72

All of Us Versus All That Paper 297

All Our Lives, Rolled Into One 126

All the Empty Things Disguised as Me 379

All the Modern Things Have Always Existed 79

All the Places That Aren't the Same Yet 452

All the Wasted Motion Fate Allows 102

All You Want to Hear Is Yes 366

Always One Worth Waiting For 327

An Inch Closer to a Kiss 241

Ana Ng and I Are Getting Old 228

And As Long As She's Got Noise, She's Fine 54

And Learn to Wear My Skin 318

And Then Everyone Else Has to Fall in Line 272

And Undo What Heredity's Done to You 426

Angel of Death 155

Angels Never Show, The 352

Another Set of Keys 128

Are We Going to Be This Way Forever? 350

As I Draw My Latest Breath 259

As I Waited for You to Wake Up 278

As the World Twists 7

As Though You Can Outrun Your Own Story 319

Ascending Fiercely Into Sleep 143

Astronomy Will Have to Be Revised 258

Avow / Relent 163

Awake When We Should Be Sleeping 470

Behaving Like Cavemen 52

Believe in Something That Matters More Than Anything You Don't 491

Best Part of the Day, The 209

Best Rock Band in the World, The 397

Black Sheets of Crud 373

Blood Dries with Desire, The 18

Borrowed Grace 394

Bounce a Soul for Pedigree 220

Boy Most Likely and the Girl Most Lovely, The 229

Brave the Heart of an Irish Sun 64

Break Up With Your Boyfriend 132

Breathless and Inconsolable 206

But He Must Put a Number to It 505

Can't Contain the Joy 70

Car That Drives on Empty Eyes, A 69

Caress the World 364

Chalk Hearts 293

Characteristically 300

Chess for the Blind 90

Children, Lovers and Artists, You Have to Leave St. Louis 226

College of Kisses, A 358

Comfort and Exorcism 363

Confession, A 218b

Consoled by Tomorrow 312

Crayons and Panthers 37

Damage Is Never Done, The 430

Darkness Will Not Become This Child 433

Darkness, My Old Friend 338

Days for Days 385

Dearest Tori, 173

Defenseless Until the Pencil Stops 57

Devoted Sighs 194

Difference Between Knowing, The 481

Different for People 425

Dilated Stare of Obsession and Dreaming, The 26

Disappointment Maps 342

Disengaged and Almost Worthless Endeavor, A 73

Displacing Logic 125

Distance Between Far Away and Unlikely, The 457

Distraction I Can't Sleep Off, A 311

Do You Think There's Someone Out in Space for You? 184

Does She Cast Such a Shadow Because She Hasn't Been Followed Yet? 270

Don't Dream It's Over 448

Don't Forget to Win First Place 49

Drawn by Mortal Hands 44

Dream Sweetly of Kissing 378

Dreaming of America 171

Dreams Better Than This 218

Driving With One Hand on the CD Changer 95

Drums Were Recorded First, The 217

Echoes of the Big Music 6

Eleven Songs for the Day After the Year After 398

Empty Glasses 326

Enough for Tonight 422

Even Cuter Than on Their CD 30

Every Hour That Heaven Sends 240

Every Key Works Differently 121

Everybody Dies Frustrated and Sad and That Is Beautiful 122

Everything We've Ever Dreamed 463

Everything You Ever Might Have Wanted 313

Excalibur As a Guitar 464

Excuses for Our Natures to Change 510

Excuses, Then the Outcomes, Then the Cause, The 88

Expensive Breathing 177

Fading at the Frontiers 431

Fallen Cathedral Architects 235

Fanfare Spark, The 367

Far 146

Faraway Lands 471

Fighting Is Over, The 427

Fin de Siècle Gets Up From Its Desk, The 182

Finest Girl in Prague, The 94

First and Second Thoughts 467

Flip the Dial and That's Which Side You're On 40

Folly and Caution 349

Food for the Truth Famine 12

Fools Before Wise Men 389

Football Is Going Home 387

Forgotten Son(g)s 36

Forty Guns and I Wouldn't Shut Up 129

From the Moment We First Met 339

From the Ocean to the Square 419

Frozen in These Records 203

Gaikoku e Kaeru Uta 396

Gangs Assemble in the Old Arcade 41

Gascoigne 91 (Romario, Harkes) 176

Generations 472

Getting Smaller 290

Gideon Is In the Drawer 383

Give Me the New World 490

Glued to the Past 51

God Never Liked People That Much 191

Gods in My Eyes, The 475

Good Animals 214

Gorgeous and Fully Equipped 47

Gracelessly Incontinent Stalagmites 124

Great Joy in the World's Past 117

Greater Joys 461

Heart Bent on Confusion, A 116

Heart in You Can't Throw the Fight, The 165

Heart Is a Language, The 418

Heart Opens Wide Like It's Never Seen Love, The 38

Hearts Larger Than Our Heads 201

Heaven on Earth 221

Held Up with Anticipation 23

Here in Oblivion 483

Heroes of This Country, The 193

Hiding Your Heart From the Roaring Giant 202

History Puts a Saint in Every Dream 351

How Can Skin So Thin Keep All That Blood In? 131

How Far Is the Nearest Place to Kneel? 34

How Investments Win Out 271

How It Went So Fast 414

How Low Can Your Fuse Glow and Warm You 189

How September Came for Sinatra 245

How to Get Lost in a Room 275

Hundred Love Letters and Some of Them True, A 183

Hymns to Longer Days 118

I Beat the Sun, But Not By Very Much 286

I Don't Need a Remedy 277

I Have Counted Every One 25

I Hope I'm Not Enjoying This Wrong 303

I Kiss Holes for the Bullets 22

I Know That You're Tired 112

I Leave a Kiss on Your Answering Machine 68

I Lose Some of Me in All These Places 147

I Love You All the Same 197

I Point at the Things That I Wish to Command 59

I Promised Myself I Wouldn't Think of You Today 254

I Should Use a Different Alphabet 71

I Steal These Words and These Phrases from My Life 33

I Tell You I'm Sick of Oasis Just as Much as You 159

I Will Love Every Minute of My Life 15

I Write in My Diary Only What I Want You to Read 192

I'd Trade Anything to Feel As Good As I Used To 91

I'll Dream If You Will Sing 107

I'm Trying Not to Wonder Where You Are 292

I've Seen Your Sorrow in My Dreams 248

If Daylight Breaks We'll Fix It 264

If I Could Fill Your Heart Just Once 296

If You Open Your Mouth 477

If You Want It, Here It Is 17

If Your Heart Is Puffy 489

Impatient With the Process 267

Inside Some Stranger's Stomach 164

Instructions for Dancing 246

Iridescent and Strange 63

Is It Your Hope That Keeps You Warm? 250

Isles of Mind, The 324

It Can't Rain All the Time 139

It's All Right to Feel This Good Again 43

Its Strings Gathered From Torments 84

Justified in Your Arms 356

Keep Your Heart Close 423

Keeping My Hope Alive 11

Kiss in Front of Strangers, A 346

Kiss Me Once Before Your Summer Fades 145

Kiss Only the Important Ones 50

Lads, I Have Here The Seventeenth Most Wanted Man in Scotland 178

Lake Of, The 86

Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter, The 255

Late Summer Grace 395

Lay Down (With) Your Armor 511

Left in This Grown-Up World 230

Let the Strength of Peace Run Through This Land 499

Let the Sunshine Crash Into Our Souls 212

Life Threats 451

Lift Me From This Place 130

Lift Yourself Up 302

Like Disney Land, Except There's Way More Nudity 110

Linnea Quinones' Eyes 231

Lit By Corrupted Blood 196

Living Alone Is All I've Ever Done Well 244

Longing and Glad 115

Longing I'll Never Dispel, A 152

Longing to See You Smile 251

Lord of Overstock 62

Lorien Lights, The 465

Lose Some Sleep and Say You Tried 305

Love and Wrath 348

Love Bites You in the Ass 282

Love in These Arms 506

Madness That Comes in a Chorus of Bells, The 97

Magnet Heart 167

Main Mission 365

Make It Home 442

Maybe in Time They'll See Us as the Ones Who Didn't Miss the Point 211

Memoir in the Margins of Other People's Books, A 224

Memories I Will Never Find 456

Mom Tries to Explain "Supply Side" 175

Monologue for Pressing Ears and Poisoned Skulls, A 285

More Water Than Land 369

Most Important Feeling in the World, The 298

Most Remarkable Thing About Standing in Doorways, The 325

Motive to Our Sadness, A 512

Music Never Says "I Have a Boyfriend" 210

My Comrades Lost in Battle 215

My Decade of Progress 376

My Faith Is Greater Than My Fear 247

My Heart Keeps Time 428

My Heart Skips Around When I Hear the Sound 153

My Lover Is in the Voice 149

My Nights Are Occupied with Lighting These Damned Lamps 31

Naked, Pagan Glory, A 233

Nani ka hoka no mono 411

Neither Is the Mission Close to Over 253

Never By Our Hearts 291

Never Forget Who You Are 190

New York and the Winter Wind 412

No Divine Intervention 476

No One Calls But to Weigh In Against Us 273

No Other Place 354

No Peace for Land 406

No Rest at All in Freedom 74

No Rest Lest I Miss One Single Kiss 216

No Revolutions 439

No Safety in Old Glories 172

No Two Universes Are Ever Entirely Congruent 374

Nobody Has That Much Time 16

Nobody's Leaving This World Tonight 513

Not a Real Green Dress 187

Not a Work of Art or Anything 10

Not Quite Sleeping, But Still Dreaming 89

Not Seventeen 336

Not Seventeen 479

Notes to Tape to the Heavy Machines 310

Nothing But a Glass Wall Between Us 134

Nurtured Life Reciprocates a Truth 289

Obnoxious to Anyone But Her 299

Odes for Cruelty 458

One Eye Filled With Tears 294

One for Each Season of Life 362

One Hour of Faith 392

One More Word From You About Jersey 487

One-Minute Dance Medley (a song puzzle) 498b

One-Minute Dance Medley (results and answers) 498c

Only Remedy, The 429

Or Are You Going to Turn On Me? 242

Other Architect's Smile, The 341

Others Stray But I Won't 357

Otoko no Hito no Koe 437

Our Agency Considers You a Risk 205

Our Intentions Entwined 444

Our Little Moment in Forty-Whatever Minutes 137

Our Storms Are Numbered 405

Our Way to the Mercy Bridge 333

Out Here Listening 135

Overwhelmed 239

Pain Means That You Have to Change Something 114

Panic Light 238

Paper White 370

Patience, Belief, Hornets 185

Peace in Our Overtime 501

People I've Dreamed of Being Can Go Back to Sleep, The 260

Pheromone Microphones 466

Pictures of Your Ex-Girlfriend 400

Pieces You've Never Seen 32

Place That Has to Be Believed to Be Seen, A 304

Places Gold Cannot Navigate 99

Play at Sustaining and This Is Where We Are Thrown 343

Play Me Records, Get Me Home Safe 213

Pleasure and Education 462

Pluralist Babies 323

Pocket Knife for Long Nights, A 161

Poisoned and Mortal Wound of the Civilised World, The 19

Poisoner, the World Karaoke Champion and the King of the World, The 166

Popcorn for Geronimo 123

Popular Musics and Aftershocks 39

Pout That Could Sink a Thousand Ships, A 83

Power Bigger than the Pain, A 21

Power Mirrors 308

Prepare Your Heart Not to Stop (Too Soon) 446

Presence of People, The 56

Process and Dismissal 359

Promises in Anarchy 496

Proud and Booming Industry, A 13

Pseudonym and Euonym 468

Punk 2

Purge Me With Hyssop 105

Q&A 58

Radio, and It's So Hard to Reach You 76

Reaching the Foundations Doesn't Mean Hitting the Ceiling 144

Reading Me Under the Table 162

Realms of Gold 322

Reason the Night Is Long Is Very Simple, The 243

Refuge in Another Form 106

Release Her 375

Relics of Our History 109

Remembrance Day 67

Repeated Blows to My Feathered Little Head 154

Resource That Explosions Waste, The 279

Rest of Your Life, The 459

Retreat Singing 390

Right Here Where We Stand 514

Ringing in My Heart, The 108

Same Sense of Wanting, The 424

Same Stars That Killed You Will Bring You Life, The 141

Santa Ana in Nova Scotia 469

Sea of Painted Faces and the Waiting Arms of the World, A 384

Second Hand, The 306

Selective Resurrection 434

Sell Your Soul, Not Your Stereo 151

Sen no Suiyoubi no Yoru 438

Series of Waveforms as Perfectly Corrupt as Life Itself, A 274

Shades of Black 5

Shania's Walk 410

She Actually Believes in Haircuts 80

She Must Be Worth Losing If It Is Worth Something 61

Shelter for the Cut and Burned, A 78

Shoot Less With More Care 158

Sides of the Large-Becoming World 421

Sister Nightfall, Sister Darkness 403

Slid Off Sideways and Was Gone Forever 381

Some Celestial Voice 344

Some Way Around These Stars 133

Somebody Feels Better By Your Words 449

Someone Else to Catch This Drift 27

Someone Who Looks Just Like Koo Stark 111

Something That She Said 454

Song I Can't Play You, A 382

Songs for the Rain 179

Souls and Doorbells 377

Souls in Our Bodies and the Souls in Our Walls, The 186

Stand With Moses 170

Stare Hard Enough at the Picture and You'll Get It 119

Start Our Lives Here 435

Stations of the Fall, The 335

Stay Up for the Rest of Your Life 268

Steadfast in Pursuit 345

Still Enough, Long Enough (two letters to unspecified addresses) 287

Still Learning How to Lay Down My Life 301

Stipulated Axes, The 507

Stone and Instants 453

Stormlamp Against the Night, A 93

Strange How the Ears Ring 420

Stream of Lilac and Razors, A 219

Stronger Than Fairy Tales 113

Subtle Difference Between Suicide Notes and Love Letters, The 225

Succulent Light From the Little Fires in His Eyes, The 334

Such Work to Stay Conscious 261

Suck These Noises From My Head 48

Suddenly Something Goes Click in Your Heart 237

Sun Came Tumbling Down Into Our Arms, The 492

Sunlight in Empty Car Parks 198

Switch 415

Take These Days Away 104

Talking to the Dictaphone, He Said "I Am Not Alone" 207

Telephone and Rubber Band 24

Ten Wishes After Six 504

Ten Wishes for Six and Seven 445

That Horizon Where She Lives 320

There Are No Frontiers 295

There Isn't That Much Ocean Between Boston and Taipei 314

There Was a Banquet of Believers When We Walked Into the Room 156

These Chances to Turn Things Around 508

These Fights 484

They Don't Make a Scotch Tape to Patch Up This Hole 142

They Sat and Watched Him Writ(h)e 28

Things Are More Beautiful When They're Obscure 174

Things We Find in the Snow 409

Things You Learn First, The 204

This Day and Age Is Impoverished in Love 227

This Hideous Grind 180

This Year's Words 361

Though the System Stays in Place 494

Three Hours in the Air 347

Throw the Pieces Up to the Sky 66

Tiffany Twisted 441

Till They Ring Inside My Head 85

Time and Space and Hurt and Tears Are Not Enough 208

Time to Overthrow the State 168

Times When I Was Enchanted 169

Tiny People Whirl Around in the Rain Their God Sent Down 81

Tomorrow Is Another Day 399

Tomorrow's Light Will Mourn Our Freedom 340

Tonight We'll Draw Blood 288

Tools to Be Believed With, The 455

Trajectory of a Common Crowd 316

Translators Aren't Sure They Understand This Language, The 65

Travels From Heart to Head 276

Turn Off Your Radio 236

Turn On the Faraway Lights 482

Two Hours Back 127

Two Pages or Less 14

Two Paths You Can Go By 391

Uh, Opaque Laserdiscs? 8

Unconfused and Wanting to Gaze 407

Unlikely/Beautiful 181

Until the Darkness Sparkles 443

Untold Hours 474

Valentine's Day 368

Velvet Ribbon, Blood 256

Waiting (Impatiently) for Earthquakes 353

Waiting for a Lull to Sort Out What I've Seen 103

Waiting for Somebody 393

Waiting for the Kiss of Life 355

Waiting to Say Welcome Home 478

Wake Me Up When We Hit 1995 45

Wake of Your Smile, The 328

Warnings and Promises 503

Way We Communicate, The 53

We Are Epic 309

We Can Always Use Some More Electrical Equipment 488

We Can Buy Back What We've Sold 485

We Can Cross Our Borders 502

We Can Decline 495

We Can Walk to the Curb from Here 20

We Feel Sorry for the Wall 188

We Have Come From the Night 234

We Have Nearly Lost Our Language in Foreign Lands 262

We Might Have Lived in Legends 331

We Need Radio Shack 283

We Never Complete the Rounds 249

We Never Talk About the Past Anymore 148

We Who Are All In Love With You 486

We Will Never Meet Again 317

We Will Not Enter Into the Metaphysics of the Toucan 232

We're Not Safe Yet 404

Weight of the Sounds in the Room, The 101

Well, I Must Destroy Myself. I Have Twenty Dollars. 55

Westbound and Alone 337

What a Drama Just to Find the Door 265

What Holds the World Together 315

What Isn't Dead Gives You Its Wishes 150

What It Sounds Like 417

What the Heart Creates 269

What We Call Beautiful Is Just Something On Sale 136

What We Miss 386

What You Touch Without Love You Corrode 223

What You Will Write a Book About 92

When She Breathes It Will Be Her Own Air 284

When the Power Runs Out We'll Just Hum 35

When We Open Our Mouths to Hate 380

When You Can't Stay Here 360

When You Want Something So Badly You Learn What You're About 98

Where Last Year's Light Is Shining 77

Where the Close-Up Camera Pans 199

While You Just Stayed in Your Room 460

Wildlife by Satellite 498

Wiser 195

With One Eye on the Time 263

With the Blessed Speed of Objects 29

With You Under My Arm Like a Football 60

Within Half an Hour, You Were at My Door 280

Without a Care in This Whole World 42

Without Arriving There 75

Without Seasoned Confidence 413

World Is Cruel and the Moon Remote, The 157

Worms and Angels 46

Year Goes By and You Don't Act Any Older, A 480

You Are Not of the Great Dead Sea of Bodies 252

You Can't Start a Sentence Like That 307

You Could Change Your Reputation 321

You Don't Know What Michael Hart's Been Scheming 401

You Never Get Away Clean 222

You Pushed Your Greatest Chance Away 281

You Stroke My Head and I'll Watch for Trucks 266

You'd Have to Be an Acrobat to Touch Her 140

You'd Think You Couldn't Breathe Without That Sound 138

Young Hearts Are Pure 447

Your Best Defense, My Conditional Police 372

Your Heart Will Do the Rest 509

Your Side of the Ocean 330

Your Subscription to Love's Young Dream 388

Your Words Are Lost on the Dead 257

Zeno's Microscope 120

Site contents published by glenn mcdonald under a Creative Commons BY/NC/ND License except where otherwise noted.