It's late September, and very definitely fall-like. The high tomorrow is not supposed to get beyond the mid-60s, which qualifies as "chilly" around here. As hinted below, that means it's time for my music-listening habits to change. Out goes the angry and/or languid, replaced by "Maggie May" (and all of Every Picture Tells a Story), Nick Drake's Bryter Layter, and above all this song:
I'm a firm believer that great music isn't simply aesthetic, but ties into your life and your memory in ways sometimes difficult to specify (good books do this as well). This song can only remind me of the first semester of my freshman year in college. My dorm was situated next to the 120 acres of forest the university kept, and no small number of evenings involved walking our way through it. You had to hop the train tracks, but if you did, there was a footbridge across from the train trestle, an excellent place to talk, or just sit and watch the river go by. Inevitably you would do this until you got too cold, at which point you'd make the climb back to campus, and feel overrun by the cars driving by, and the crowds of people going out.* Rob Sheffield picks up on the ambivalence of the singer very well:
When I was in my teens, I totally identified with the old guy who narrates the song. And then when I was in my late 20s, I realized I'd turned into Terry-and-Julie, and I missed being the old guy, on some level. But then in my mid-30s, I felt like I'd turned back into the old guy, and I was like, shit, well, that's fine, I had my Terry-and-Julie window of time, and it was grand, and I'm glad I appreciated it while I had it, and now I'll just stare out the window and look at the train station, etc. And now I'm in Terry-and-Julie mode again. It's weird, there's no way to predict these things.
It's never entirely clear who the song is about; it just meets you wherever you are.
The memory is real, but there's something false about it, too, the way it abstracts from everything else that was happening at the time. I'm far enough away from that now that I can recognize nostalgia creeping in, but still close enough to remember how it distorts my experience. But the song: I felt about it then like I do now.
(For those so inclined, a live version of "Waterloo Sunset" with "Village Green Preservation Society" here.)
* For reference, my freshman dorm held about 1200 people, so 'crowds' is not an exaggeration.
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