Music Review // Grizzly Coast "Two Balloons"

 

I'm not sure why but I've always had this kind of obsession with lost balloons.  Just that idea of the mylar balloon with "Happy Birthday" on it slipping out of someone's hands, floating across city lines and getting stuck in a tree and I see it.  Maybe it's because it's shiny and metallic in nature, but I've always had that fascination with where the balloon came from and how it ended up stuck in that tree or on the side of the road.   This song by Grizzly Coast actually captures a lot of that within the lyrics.

Through dreamy pop rock, Grizzly Coast takes us to that place that should come at a certain point in life for people but doesn't always.  The lines "Oh how'd I get the life / I wanted / I thought I would always be / So miserable".  In a lot of ways I feel like people who lived through grunge never got to this point with the music, so as much as this might be "alternative" or a post grunge of sorts within the sound it also has that feeling within the lyrics, as it's no longer about teenage angst and rather now it's about being happy and finding your place in life.

As someone who listens to music to review and has been listening to the new Grizzly Coast album "Staying Power" a bit (It's really good) I do like the lines "You don't care for my prizes / Or read the reviews".   I'm not saying that Grizzly Coast is this hugely known musician, but you have to wonder if you're someone like Taylor Swift if someone is marrying you because of your name or because of who you actually are.  So having the line like that is like saying that the person genuinely likes you for you and that's a good thing.

The last lines of the song sing "I will not leave you / You couldn't pay me to / We are two lost balloons".   Sometimes when I see those balloons stuck in trees, they aren't alone.  Sometimes there are two or more of them.  And I think, well, they might be stuck up there, but at least they're not alone.  At the balloons have each other.  This whole song is about that journey the baloons took.  About how they were lost, but that they ended up finding each other and, ultimately, they are not alone.  It's rather poetic and beautiful.