Fa Ce-La!!!
I just discovered that Galaxie 500 has been added to the Rhapsody Music Service. Hoo-Ray!!! Upon listensing to Blue Thunder, however, I recollected -- perhaps rediscovered? -- one more root of the strange grab-bag of neuroses that is my personality. I remember that Galaxie 500 created a music video for the song. Or, maybe whatever label owned the rights to the album put together the video; I seem to recall that the band was no more by the time I saw the video. In either case, Galaxie 500 always struck me -- as I am sure they strike many people -- as sad, a bit melancholy. Somehow this melancholy was always more towards the pensive and wistful end of the sadness spectrum. Sort-of a wistfulness that always presupposes a faith in the possibility of it's object.1 Perhaps it is only me for whom this sadness is redemptive and hopeful, perhaps this is the tattered remnants of my inner cheerleader sublimating me towards this sort-of optimism. Who knows?
What I was reminded of today is that the video for the song, Blue Thunder, includes a roller coaster. This is why, I think, amusement parks make me sad; and why roller coasters make me pensive, rather than googly-eyed with fear and excitement. When I think of amusement parks, I hear the song in my head; and when I think about visits to the amusement park my memories intermix with scenes from the music video. The song, the roller coaster, the melancholy . . . the waiting in line, the getting knocked side-to-side against a metal box, the taking of a path that only ever returns to where it began. The Fun!!!!!
Yeah, well, before I get all extra-super-mopey child-inside-the-man drunken-hobo-inside-the-child and what-not I should point out that there is a problem with the previous two paragraphs. At the amusement park I attended "back in the day", I vaguely recollect there being a roller coaster named "The Galaxy". This begins to sound suspicious, especially in light of the fact I have always hated amusement parks, since even before I knew which end of a Galaxie 500 is up. Ever since, when I was six, I went to Disney Land/World/Whatever and - I swear I am not making this up -- Minnie Mouse spurned my advances, I have disliked amusement parks. I was six. It was a difficult age.
So maybe I have it backwards, maybe I was channeling my natural wistfulness towards amusement park rides - like, "The Galaxy" - and imputing this into the Galaxie 500 video - if, that is, such a music video ever existed. I mean, I remember the video, but, as I mentioned before, my recollection of the video looks suspiciously like my memories of the amusement park. So maybe the association of the Galaxy roller coaster and the band caused me to invent a music video for the song.
I suppose that it is even possible that I have never been to an amusement park and am inferring the entire pensive roller coaster experience from the pensive roller coaster video. Not that I am able, at this point, to either confirm or deny the existence of roller coasters or music videos, or anything else for that matter.
It's all so very confusing and sepia-toned inside my head.
1 Hope and Desperation: Fraternal Twins born of Experience
What I was reminded of today is that the video for the song, Blue Thunder, includes a roller coaster. This is why, I think, amusement parks make me sad; and why roller coasters make me pensive, rather than googly-eyed with fear and excitement. When I think of amusement parks, I hear the song in my head; and when I think about visits to the amusement park my memories intermix with scenes from the music video. The song, the roller coaster, the melancholy . . . the waiting in line, the getting knocked side-to-side against a metal box, the taking of a path that only ever returns to where it began. The Fun!!!!!
Yeah, well, before I get all extra-super-mopey child-inside-the-man drunken-hobo-inside-the-child and what-not I should point out that there is a problem with the previous two paragraphs. At the amusement park I attended "back in the day", I vaguely recollect there being a roller coaster named "The Galaxy". This begins to sound suspicious, especially in light of the fact I have always hated amusement parks, since even before I knew which end of a Galaxie 500 is up. Ever since, when I was six, I went to Disney Land/World/Whatever and - I swear I am not making this up -- Minnie Mouse spurned my advances, I have disliked amusement parks. I was six. It was a difficult age.
So maybe I have it backwards, maybe I was channeling my natural wistfulness towards amusement park rides - like, "The Galaxy" - and imputing this into the Galaxie 500 video - if, that is, such a music video ever existed. I mean, I remember the video, but, as I mentioned before, my recollection of the video looks suspiciously like my memories of the amusement park. So maybe the association of the Galaxy roller coaster and the band caused me to invent a music video for the song.
I suppose that it is even possible that I have never been to an amusement park and am inferring the entire pensive roller coaster experience from the pensive roller coaster video. Not that I am able, at this point, to either confirm or deny the existence of roller coasters or music videos, or anything else for that matter.
It's all so very confusing and sepia-toned inside my head.
1 Hope and Desperation: Fraternal Twins born of Experience