Alex Winston - Medicine (2012)

There are some videos on YouTube that, for whatever reason, I found in the distant past and have played over and over again and yet they've never really been widely discovered.

Such is the case for this amazing live version of Medicine by Alex Winston:

About 3,000 views but wow. What a performance. What a song. It's an echo from a time that wasn't even that long ago but feels like an eternity. I feel like in the early 2010s there was a phenomenal sense of optimism to alternative music and Medicine is a gorgeous paean to letting go, of living for the sake of living. The album version (from the eternally underrated King Con, one of the best albums of the 2010s btw, in case you wondered) is great but THIS. THIS live version. Nrgh. It's everything. I love the way her band just look like a bunch of random people who followed her into the record shop and just happen to be note-perfect. I love the energy of this performance. It's uninhibited and beautiful. It just bursts with positivity and hope, two things that - after the decade and a bit that followed - feel a bit bruised now. 

I sometimes watch this video and wonder how all of these people are doing. I hope they're okay. I hope they watch this and smile and not think "damn, things were so much better back then". I hope they have not settled for less now.