metric reflection

Flashback Friday: Head On

As I prepare for a move across town, I’ve been digging up old crap I tossed aside years ago. An old graphing calculator. My Turkish language keyboard. Various swag from high school clubs. And an old recorded off the radio mix tape from 8th grade or so. Just the sight of it brings a tear to my eyes; all decked out in random 80s shapes and colors:

I don’t have a tape player anymore, so I have no idea who’s on it, when I recorded it, or anything else. Here’s what I do know: I used to sit in my poorly built, heavy as hell, hideously painted desk/bunkbed all night doing homework. As I labored over algebra or Wuthering Heights, my only real escape was the tiny single deck radio in the bookcase in front of me. I couldn’t crank the volume above about 1 and a half (probably about 10 degrees on the dial) without hearing complaints from the parentals about the distraction my music was posing. So I huddled my upper body close to the stereo (this was pre-earbuds or iPods) to hear the Furious Five at 9 on KROQ – the program that provided the majority of my early education in rock music. It was on this countdown that I first heard The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Pixies, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, to name a few.

And the time I first heard this monument to jubilation. This is the song you listened to when you had a really terrible day, because it alluded to a better future. And it was the soundtrack to your personal victories, the moments when you were on top of the pre-teen world. The girl smiled at you. You got an A on a math test. It didn’t rain as you walked home, but it did rain when you actually got there – meaning no chores. It was so electric; an instant charge coursing through and awakening your muscles. You can do anything, pull the stars from the sky.

Digging up the tape, I suddenly had flashbacks to this song, and this song only. For whatever reason, I never actually picked up any Jesus and Mary Chain. I knew plenty about them from the radio, but it wasn’t until a download from a few weeks ago that I was actually able to listen to them. And that sense of crisp electric jubilation still drives the song. It’s lacking the fresh urgency of youth, but still empowering.