He's done it again/The Joshua Effect.

Now regular readers/real life friend-types, you will all know by now that I love, adore and fangirl-worship Ohio-born whiskey-loving singer-songwriter Joshua Radin. I recently booked tickets to see him live in London; I got up at 8am and ran all the way to campus just to be sure I'd get a computer that worked, so I sat refreshing the BUY TICKETS page while the cleaners all bustled around me with their Henry Hoovers and disinfectant spray (we students are a mucky bunch when we're studious)... I got my tickets, printed off every possible booking confirmation page I could find, and made my little sister a special little printout, because this will be her fifteenth birthday present from me.
   This will be the fourth time I've seen him live. I've been with my (then-)boyfriend to see him in Brighton under the pier; with my Dad to see him at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London; with my Mum to see him at KOKO Camden last September - not even a year ago! - so basically I have shared my love for him, and the properly incredible experience that is seeing him live, with a lot of people I care about. My sister is going to have the best time, and also she'll be out 'n' about in London on a school night! How scandalous.

I can't find you; my luck is down and I'm feelin' blue.

Joshua has this amazing quality about him, in that he is able to write down and sing exactly what I am feeling at THIS (and every other) precise moment in my life, and he doesn't even know it. He's helped me through the bad times, and cheered me on throughout the good. His albums are a soundtrack to several different eras of my life, and I just discovered the latest one.

I know I'll never find another like you, where I'm going.

   'We Were Here' taught me what I love most in music. 'Simple Times' got me through school, and a wildly inappropriate crush. The 'Unclear Sky' EP sang me to sleep for years. 'I Missed You' is a single that I always listen to when I'm travelling home. 'Underwater' kept me going throughout my first year at university.
   And now, 'Wax Wings', the first album Joshua Radin has produced himself, is seeing me out of my second year and guiding me into the next phase of my life. This album has moments so perfectly captured in song, it's just incomprehensible. I happened to be sitting on my bed yesterday, reeling from a sudden revelation and wondering what it meant, what I should do next; not really thinking, I hit 'play' on my iPhone and heard 'Like They Used To', and suddenly it all made sense. I knew what I was feeling, I knew what to do (more importantly what I genuinely wanted to do), and I almost cried with relief and happy realisation.
   I'm also delighted that one of my old favourites from the 'Unclear Sky' EP has resurfaced; 'Lovely Tonight' is, to me, a story of two people who connect and share something special one night, then wonder if it's real afterwards. As a hopeless romantic with a wealth of bad experience and false promises, this song gives me hope. So thank you, Joshua. You've done it again.

See you (again) on the 4th of June.

Recognize your grace.