Real solitude comes from a stable heart that does not get carried away by the pull of the crowd, nor by the sorrows about the past, worries about the future, or excitement or stress about the present. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish my self from myself and rob me of my soul. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The more we attempt to connect, the more disconnected we become. Attend a gathering and at any time half the participants will be ignoring their physical friends, thumbing through their feeds, searching for a social chimera. Tethered to neither the physical nor etheric planes, we float randomly in existential space. Our souls, surrounded by a vacuum, suffer disintegration. Salvation lies in Solitude.

In Sofa City Sweetheart’s ‘Annie Stays Home,’ the subject seeks refuge from the madness, an attempt to connect with herself: perhaps through a shared bond with a loved one; perhaps by ordering a pizza and pondering the truths revealed in a book, a movie, or music; or maybe by simply closing her eyes and staring at the existential wall.

Annie stay home
No one needs to know
Why you stay at home
While they paint the town

Lyrically simple, ‘Annie Stays Home’ is simply beautiful. Harmonies float over chambered strings as light touches of guitar and drums highlight a delicately powerful lead voice. Wait for the coda that wanders into the studio, a refugee from a lost session that finds a sympathetic home.

Sofa City Sweetheart is Juan Antonio Lopez of West Covina, California. ‘Annie Stays Home’ is from his twelve-song album Super​(​b) Exitos, my late-summer favorite for Album of the Year. The release is an album in the truest and greatest sense, a throwback to the days when an album was not a collection of random tracks but an experience: the purchase, the tearing away of the plastic, the placing of the needle on the outer groove. Super​(​b) Exitos may even have qualified as a concept album, a designation reserved for collections that conveyed a common theme and that demanded to be enjoyed as a whole, first track to last, in a single sitting.

‘Annie Stays Home’ is the second Song of the Day from Super​(​b) Exitos. We previously featured the initial single, ‘Stop the Thinking.’ It’s worth another listen. And don’t be fooled by the old Hidden Track Trick.

You can support Sofa City Sweetheart (Juan Antonio Lopez) by visiting his Bandcamp page and downloading Super(b) Exitos. Be sure to visit sofacitysweetheart.com, and follow Sofa City Sweetheart on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.