When I listen to “Slow Song” by The Knocks with Dragonette I feel instant nostalgia.
Have you ever felt that? Maybe not, because I just made it up. Or, at least, I’ve made up my particular use for it. People have coined the term to explain the effect of technology on memory or how to live in the moment.
I mean something different. I’m trying to describe the sensation of encountering something new that makes you feel nostalgic for a certain time or place, even if that new thing does not connect to or embody that memory.
I suppose it is something like déjà vu, which eternally asks the question: Do you really have a fleeting memory of having experienced this moment before, or is it a random misfiring neuron in your temporal lobe?
Yet, my experience with “Sad Song” is different. It wasn’t a fleeting feeling the first time I listened – a passing recognition. It’s a persistent tugging on the strings of my memory. It’s a certain lack of gravity in my stomach. It’s my skin remembering being newer and softer. It’s sudden tears in the corner of my eyes.
A lot of music trades in nostalgia. Even when a song doesn’t use an outright sample of a prior song, sometimes it can evoke an older track just through a certain leap of melody or the timbre of an instrument.
At first I thought that was what I was getting from “Sad Song.” The bass has that certain woody sound to it. And, I’ve been a fan of Dragonette for years – I own every one of her songs. Maybe it was just her voice? No. It wasn’t that. This doesn’t sound like any particular period of music I’m connected to. Dragonette’s voice is smoother and more legato here than her typically prickly delivery.
It’s something about the combination of the lyrics and the video.
In the second verse, Dragonette wistfully croons, “Oh, I got ways of losing you baby. I’m faster than whatever you’re chasing.
Something about that line utterly breaks my heart. It feels like the flipside of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own.” It’s about pursuing something you want and thinking that the person you want – the person you love and need – is right beside you, only to turn to realize they’ve outpaced you and are disappearing into the horizon like a setting sun.
I’m gonna play you
Play you right until the tracks done
Play you however many times I want
I’ll play you like a slow songI’ll keep you spinning
Spinning circles till the groove’s gone
And fade it out just like a setting sun
I’ll play you like a slow song
She was always faster than whatever you’ve been chasing. You thought she was moving at your speed, but she was really running circles around you, circles and circles again until you weren’t sure if it was her spinning or you.
And then, one day, the groove is gone, and so is she. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was convenience. But it’s over now.
Was that the instant nostalgia? The feeling of that perfectly described fading connection between two friends or lovers? [Read more…] about Music Monday: “Slow Song” – The Knocks with Dragonette