The Long Lost Mixtape - Episode 6: The Pain is in the Details

When was the last time you had a delicious thought? A thought you couldn't stop thinking about? Something that you could just sit and think about all day? A thought so interesting and provoking that you'd be willing turn off your phone, disconnect from the world, and just sit and think.

I couldn't think of one.

A silly mental exercise but it got me thinking - am I bored with my own thoughts? Maybe.

Or maybe I just haven't noticed the world around me. The details make up the fiber of life. They are the fleshy tissue that holds this bag of bones together. The details turn a living into a life, and make a life worth living. That last sentence was a poor excuse for poetry, but today's song is not.

The song is "Sometime Around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event. It is the second single from this American Indie darling's debut self titled LP. Give the song a listen before you read any further.

I've been trying to find other words to describe it but I'm stuck with what hopefully is not yet cliche; this song is as haunting as it is beautiful. According to sources (wikipedia),"The song is about a night when lead singer Mikel Jollet met a former girlfriend while out at a bar, during which he discovered that he still loved her. The entire band was present during this event. The lyrics to the song were written in isolation by Jollet over the course of the next three days."

So the song is a thinly vailed hypothetical. As if Mikel is still so heartbroken that he can't bring himself to admit that he himself is the subject. So hides behind the pronoun "you",  asking the listener to stand in his place and take his torture. 

Beginning with a wave of strings, the curtains part and the lights dim, leaving us with a simple Guitar and pairing playing simple complimenting melodies. All the while the drums tick away in the background constantly reminding us of the constant background of this song: the loss of time.

The song has a unique structure.

It doesn't follow a normal structure that so many popular songs follow. I.E.:

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Chorus

Interlude

Chorus 

Instead, it follows a loose pattern of couplets and tercets which follow a basic melody which repeats through the 5:04 runtime. These stanzas are focused less on placement in single looping melody and more about purpose in the story. Each loop begins with a couplet focused on story with the remainder of the loop dedicated to detail. If you remove that detail, the skeleton of the song looks like this:

And it starts

Sometime around midnight

As you stand
Under the bar lights

But you know
That she's watching

And so there's a change
In your emotions

Then she leaves

With someone you don't know

Then you walk

Under the streetlight

You just have to see her

You know that she'll break you in two

Short right? It's a simple story about heartbreak and a lost love. So why is the song powerful and unique? The couplets above are well written, sure. The music is great, true. But the Pain is in the Details. And the Pain is where the song hits home.

So, let's forget the basic story (the blue stanzas) and focus on the details (in orange), and see what juicy ideas we can glean from it.

And it starts

Sometime around midnight

Or at least that's when 

You lose yourself

For a minute or two

Ordinarily, midnight is a precise and unexceptional event that signals a new calendar date. The world at large is asleep and unappreciative of the shift. And with subtle placement, a normally quiet and exact setting is shrouded in a haze of uncertainty. The new sun has not yet risen to signify a new day. "Your story" as Mikel would say, begins in the liminal space before or after a major shift. And we can't be quite sure on which side we stand.

As you stand

Under the bar lights

And the band plays some song

About forgetting yourself for a while

A meta comment. The band lets us know they are still here, walking us through the points in the story and painting in the details for our understanding.

And the piano's this melancholy soundcheck

To her smile

Soundcheck is play-through or rehearsal in preparation for a performance. A signal that something is about to happen.

And that white dress she's wearing

You haven't seen her

For a while

It seems like a raw flow of consciousness. He sees her smile. He notices her dress. He remembers how long it has been.

But when I heard it for the first time it played out a little differently. Instead, I heard "You haven't seen IT for a while." Instead, the object is the dress, not the woman. The white dress is a fairly obvious stand-in for a wedding dress. Perhaps from daydreams. Perhaps from actual plans for a wedding. This is the triggering thought that sets the story in motion.

But you know

That she's watching

She's laughing, She's turning

She's holding her tonic like a cross

Her actions are carefully choreographed. She has come prepared, armored in the white dress she knows he will remember. She laughs, she turns, all the while watching him, waiting to see how he will react. And to offset her offensive battle strategy, she holds her tonic like a cross to shield her from evil and or to camouflage her as 'distracted'.

Also, just a tonic. No mention of any alcohol is mentioned. Meaning, unlike her buzzed opponent, she is going into this war-dance completely focused and sober. One of many hints that this is much more than a random run-in with your ex a a bar.

The room's suddenly spinning

She walks up and asks how you are

While she is fully prepared for the encounter, he is not. He is buzzed, defensless and therefore out of step. So, even before she says a word, he is caught of guard.

So you can smell her perfume

You can see her lying naked in your arms

No more mention is given the conversation. He isn't concerned with listening or hearing (the sense most associated with communication) anymore. He is overcome by his sense of smell (an intimate sense often associated with memory) and sight (associated with interacting and orienting yourself with the world around you). In other words, Mikel is so taken a back, that he is leaning on his other senses to understand what is happening. All that said without actually saying anything.

This is the turning point.

And so there's a change

In your emotions

And all these memories come rushing

Like feral waves to your mind

One definition of 'Feral' from the Merriam Webster dictionary is; "Having escaped from domestication and become wild". In a way he has been set free from his relationship. But returning mentally to the relationship, he becomes even more wild.

Of the curl of your bodies

Like two perfect circles intwined

To perfect circles. Two rings. Wedding rings. Once again, that memory returns. He is free of the relationship, but not of the memories. And as a wild animal, his thoughts and feelings have devolved to become primitive and lustful.

And you feel hopeless and homeless

And lost in the haze of the wine

Hopeless and homeless and Lost. The grouping of these two words is genius. The problem with heartache is that your source of healing is now the source of pain. I think that is why so many who get dumped mention confusion as one of the stronger emotions they feel. The solution has become the problem. The broken hearted are left without a way to fix that which is broken.

Then she leaves

With someone you don't know

But she makes sure you saw her

She looks right at you and bolts

Her final move. Like a poisonous serpent, she surprised him, she stunned him and now she serves the killing blow; a single, striking glance before departing with someone, leaving him alone again. Her play was so perfect that he hasn't even made a single move.

As she walks out

Your blood boiling

Your stomach in ropes

Symptoms of a poisonous snake bite include: difficulty breathing, nausea, numbness, vomiting, blurred vision, and confusion. All these symptoms he'd probably be feeling after a hard night of drinking anyway. But this list also reads off like chapters in a book entitled 'The 6 Stages of a Broken Heart'. He has been poisoned both physically and emotionally.

Oh and your friends say what is it?

You look like you've seen a Ghost

In a way, he has. The Ghost of everything that was good in his life. We make so many plans in our lives and have so many daydreams. But once forgotten, we rarely have to face them again.

Then you walk

Under the streetlight

And you're too drunk to notice

That everyone's staring at you

Poisoned, he has escaped outside like a wounded animal. The adrenaline begins to flow.

You just don't care what you like 

The world is falling

Around you

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

One symptom I failed to mention earlier is salivation. Well, I'm no doctor, but I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation physiologically why you salivate after being poisoned. But poetically it makes perfect sense. Despite all the other painful symptoms, the final symptom is a thirst for more. An addiction. Love turned sour became venom. Venom when left to fester became a drug.

Now, he is out chasing ghosts out on the avenue. Driven by a need to go back, the need to revisit the happy memories. But like any drug it will leave you worse than before, just as the last line of the song leaves us.

You just have to see her

You know that she'll break you in two

End. No explanation. No Resolution. No friendly cartoon pig with a playful stutter saying "That's all folks!" Just a final guitar note ringing in our ears. The song ends just like the relationship must have; without closure. And we are left alone, feeling a little of what Mikel must have felt.

While the song is depressing, it is filled with great literary flavor. I hope that by reading through, you not only have some interesting things to think about but are a little more comfortable exploring delicious thoughts for yourself. Take time to enjoy thinking thoughts.

Thanks for reading, Good luck out there.

(For more songs by this band, I recommend their song "Girls in their summer dresses", found HERE)