Saying 'Thank You' to Stephen Thompson

Lately, the NPR song of the day has been put together by some of the non-Stephen-Thompson music editors. This usually means that...

• The songs are unoriginal (some of them are even played on the RADIO!)
• The songs simply aren't that interesting

This has disappointed me much. However, I was happy to see that Thompson was back on today's SotD, and I was not disappointed at all by his pick.

Saying 'Thank You' in a Love Song

• Song: "The Day the Volume Won"
• Artist: Micah P. Hinson
• CD: The Baby & The Satellite EP
• Genre: Folk-Pop

By the time he turned 20, Micah P. Hinson had already stared down drug problems, jail time, homelessness and financial ruin, so he comes by his dour world-weariness honestly. His difficult background also goes a long way toward explaining the depth of the appreciation he conveys on his warm and wonderful "The Day the Volume Won." In just under two and a half minutes, Hinson, now 25, bears the weight of his feelings as if it were the weight of the world.

"Despite all that I have done / you rescued me from me," Hinson sings with equal parts loving gratitude and grim resignation. The clarity of his expression, and the belief in his own salvation, radiates so purely that it momentarily becomes unclear whether he’s singing to a loved one or a benevolent God. Regardless, for a song Hinson wrote at the tail end of his teens, "The Day the Volume Won" suggests an acute understanding of a lifetime's worth of failure, disappointment and stubborn hope.

NOTE: Not only is the song available for streaming from the article, but so is some bonus audio from an album that is not yet released (July 25 release date). Check it out.

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