What I listen to - 1

I don't usually write. I don't usually write about music. I don't like writing about music. I feel like it's way too subjective, guaranteed to be grounded in way too many personal and historical variables. But this is something I've wanted to write about for a long time, so.

The convenor of Bran Van 3000, James Di Salvio, attended my high school years and years and years before I did. He came back when I was in grade 8, screened a clip of a documentary about the band that I'm not sure was ever completed, and basically told us that we should try to follow our dreams.


A few years later and thanks to the then-countercorporate Napster, (and since then, HMV) I got my hands on their albums. A few songs in particular completely transfixed me. This is one of them - a mainstay on my playlists for about ten years now.



The bits that open the song- the guitar and the answering machine- grab my attention. The guitar feels meandering and inquisitive, and with "end of message" creates a sense of "...so what now?" When Sara Johnston (or Jayne Hill?) sings the first line, "Take me with you" I'm already along for the ride - I want to know what the song will be about, and "my soul is on" lets me know I won't be alone for it. I feel like someone is coming with me for some reason.
 
Then hands clap over guitar licks, synth and the drums kick in, and for a vocoder tells me to get back on my heart attack, and it doesn't make sense but it feels like it does. The first verses paint pictures - the motorbike, karaoke nights by the sea, the bomber jacket, hyperspace, leather-laced. The chorus takes me into the narrative completely - the water's crashing, the road is turning, and then the drum accents as they coo at me to hang on, to hold on, to take them with me.
 
Another few drum accents, and it dials back to being asked - can I stay with you - make it easy, for me? a harmonica fades in and out. It evokes movement, but the kind of movement where you're going from place to place but still not finding what you're looking for, or even knowing what exactly it is: you are the most selfish kind - nevermind what they need.
 
Sara and Jayne are now singing over each other, and sometimes the syllables overlap correctly and you can pick out a word or two, but the tones still evoke. The water's still crashing, the road keeps turning, on and on and on, and then the drum accents and guitar lines take me with them - hold on, they sing, and I will, even as the feedback starts squawking before it all bottoms out and James Di Salvio starts to rap a litany of Bruce Springsteen references over harmonica, alluding to a life he's only heard about in The Boss' songs, the spirit in the night, blinded by the light. A stock crowd cheers as drums punctuate, the pre-chorus fading back in to back him - take me with you, my soul is on, and it's a song about a shared life of escapist freedom.
 
The next verse -
to be exact, she was her own rock and roll video, Rolls Royce, low riding, speed climbing,
driving by the sea,
Making mad love on other people's private property
While being on the run from the local law for unpaid parking tickets
 - is delivered breathlessly, as if he's trying to keep up with his manic pixie Jersey girl- and of course it's parking tickets, you can't have her be on the run for something serious.

And then it's back to Sara and Jayne, asking if they can "stay with you, make it easy for me" and I don't know if they're singing as the girl herself or the guy asking if he can keep up with her, and Di Salvio's back, asking what kind of person you are - are you born to run? as a motorcycle speeds by stereophonic, increasingly disconnected questions as the bike gets faster and louder, and Liquid asks us how we feel out here as fireworks explode and sirens get closer and closer, the drums quicker and quicker, and now there's an accordion, he can't hold back -- and it builds and builds until a crash and the bubbles of something sinking take us to the end of the song. 

It spoke to me.