A few nights ago, when I was in the midst of my iTunes-and-iPod drama, I got just about to the point where you want to start banging your head against the wall. After having to restore my iPod numerous times and having difficulties actually transferring music to it, I was only able to end up with five songs on my usually lovely 160 GB. Luckily, one of those five songs was A Flock of Seagulls' "Space Age Love Song."
I could be wrong, but I suspect for many people who lived through the '80's "Space Age Love Song" has long ago passed into hokey overplayed high school dance territory, but if that's the case, it desperately needs to be rescued; to live life without having the option of falling backwards onto your bed, closing your eyes, and letting all your frustrations disappear as you slip into its still-flawless synth soundscape would be to be missing out on a lot.
I'm not sure how, but the British group somehow managed to make a song that allows you to swoon along with it, get swept along in a very real here-and-in-the-moment way, and simultaneously feel nostalgia, whether or not you've ever experienced any sort of love to be nostalgic about. Maybe it's those aforementioned synths and their accompanying guitars and drums, sweeping you up in the middle of themselves in a way that, like the best cosmic songs, gets you caught up in the beauty of everything, past and present. Or maybe it's those lyrics, simple as they may be--in fact, it's easy to barely notice any more than that key "For a little while/I was falling in love" line. That's enough to get the point across, though--with music this beautiful, you can't help but enjoy the moment (and almost a feeling of hope), even as the lyrics force you to think in the past tense; listen to a little more, and that sense of something gone, missing, and yet unforgettably gloriously amazing, only gets stronger.
At its best, this is what '80's songs, what synths, what music does to you: takes you as high as you can go, makes you smile and makes you cry, gives you that feeling that everything, at its best and at its worst, just might have a meaning--and sure, in the end that meaning may be nothing more than a pseudo-pretentious New Age-y sense of connection and life that's easy to laugh at, but for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, you're too busy watching the sky above to care.
(Buy an A Flock Of Seagulls greatest hits album here [physical] or here [digital].)
Next up: maybe a song from an American singer working on a third album.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I LOVE "Space Age Love Song"! Somehow, this gem passed me by and was overshadowed by "I Ran" -- which was "ran" into the ground thanks to Radio and MTV. I actually prefer "Space" to "Ran" for the same nostalgic reasons you mention.
Hope your iTunes/ipod trouble is in the past now. :)
Luv, you need to listen to Flock of Seagulls' "Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)" before pleding your allegiance to "Space Age Love Song"...
A Flock of Seagulls was the shiz when i was a teenager. I always wanted a big proto-mullet like Mike Score but all I could manage was a Jew-fro. There was no hope. I soon tried Duran Duran highlights using Sun-In. More successful.
Thanks! :) It has. And I thought that might have been the case for "I Ran"!
D'luv, that's good...but this is better ;)
See, you should have been grateful even for what you could manage to do--I think just about our whole high school class got excited on the days when the one white kid in class who was able to afro up his hair actually did it. Although I imagine it was some sort of ironic thing...
I'm glad you brought this up. It's a track I've sadly overlooked in my collection, but I will remedy that situation today.
Glad to do so :D
Post a Comment