I’ve probably listened to this song 40 or 50 times over the past few days.
When I graduated college and started working in Manhattan, electroclash was pretty big, and I loved it because around that time David Bowie had really softened me up both for the post-punk/New Wave heirs to his sound specifically and theatricality and “posing” generally. I still love it and don’t go in for the backlash, because to me it was never about a scene, it was about sounds and ideas, but one criticism I did take to heart was from someone who said that the electroclash people missed the BIGNESS of early ’80s electronic pop music, particularly in terms of the vocals. I’d take that a step further and say that the big vocals wouldn’t work in electroclash because of the ironic distance that material took from the ’80s originals. Which is fine, but what you lacked is the cavernous, glistening, unabashed emotion of great ’80s pop music. There was no distance–these people were putting it all on the line all the time, investing this enormous sense of drama into pop songs that you really didn’t see with the quiet earnestness of ’70s acoustically driven pop music. It’s impossible for me to listen to songs like “Let Me Go” or “Smalltown Boy” or “West End Girls” or “Head Over Heels” without picturing some actual young human being someplace during that decade listening to these songs, feeling every note and every word, crying or swooning about what’s going on in their own lives and how it’s reflected in the music.
So anyway, that’s what I get from this song, too. Afternoon light and good memories that hit so hard they make you want to vomit, like the past is tangible and its intrusion is disorienting you. I wish the video didn’t stick quotes around the sentiment, but the beginning and end of the clip get it to a certain extent, I think. It almost doesn’t matter because you’ll see your own video in your head. It’s a good song.
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