After hearing Coldplay's new song Atlas for the Hunger Games I was moved to relisten
to their earlier stuff. I remember listening to Rush of Blood to the Head
a bagillion times when I was younger. My starkest memory whenever I hear it? Playing
Warcraft 3 in the last place I truly called home for months and months and
months of ninth grade. It was a strange ritual and a reminder of a time when I
listened to music because I liked
music and when the music I liked was somehow mine. Before the good people of the internet categorized and
selected and dissected ever bit of sound I ended up hearing. More than anything
Rush of Blood to the Head was pure to me. As time went on my
relationship to music changed over and over, but that's for another piece.
Somehow though, through it all, Coldplay remained unscathed. Until their ambiguously
titled sellout record Mylo Xyloto nothing could touch them.
I
started with Parachutes and once Don't Panic's carefree guitar started mesmerizing me, a dozen
memories bombarded through my sentimental cortex. I remembered watching Garden
State and listening to the subsequent soundtrack. Of course I fell in love with
the Shins like every other 15 year old who felt like Garden State was a sneak peek
into the grandiose mediocrity that awaited our post-adolescent lives. But Don't Panic was this secret song on that compilation for me. Back then I had never listened to Parachutes in full and
had no idea that it was the powerful opener of said record until years later.
To me it encapsulated so much of Garden State's theme and became a rallying
cry for the brutal high school years ahead of me.
We live in a beautiful world
Yea
we do, yea we do.
The
real kicker, though, and the reason I found myself compelled to write about
this sentimental bullshit was the second track; Shiver. Even as I type those words my synapses are popping and
trembling (and shivering #killself)
with nostalgia.
In
the summer following my senior year of High School I started an Ice Cream
distribution business. I would fill up a 40 gallon Styrofoam cooler with ice
cream and dry ice and walk up and down the beach selling ice cream. Till this
day it was the best job I ever had and I did it for 3 summers until I found a real job.
In
the beginning of those very beautiful years of naivety I fell in love. She was
a girl I had none for a long time and for whatever reason I found myself
driving up to the beach with her to make money nearly every day in the summer.
And for whatever reason this song came up 7 times out of 10 on my iPod Shuffle as we were jumping
on the 101 from her house and driving up. I haven't given any significant
thought to this person in years, just like I haven't given any real thought to
Coldplay in what feels like ever (Mylo Xyloto are you really only 2 years old?)
And I can't help but feel this sort of rekindling of this moment in history. In
my shitty Buick Century '95 in all its beige glory, driving up the 101 with a
cooler full of profit and a down ass bitch to share it with.
When
I would hear the refrain back then I naturally applied to my lady friend. But
nowadays when I hear it I think back to my foolish, brazen, lovesick mess of my
younger self. He is so full of half truths and beady eyed stupidity. And yet, I
wish I could speak to him again. I feel like there is a lot he could teach me.
I will always be waiting for you
I will always be
waiting for you.
