5pm_weds | Entries tagged with mia.

Tanz der Moleküle
MIA.
Zirkus
2006

When I first heard this song I hated it.

I was "backpacking" (I use the term loosely because I had a suitcase on wheels) around Europe with my friend Andrea in the fall of 2006. A few weeks of our two month trip were dedicated to visiting the small, quaint and sometimes forgettable towns of Germany.

When we would splurge on a hotel room (or when the town we were staying in didn't actually HAVE a hostel) we would keep the TV tuned to MTV Germany. MIA.'s "Tanz der Moleküle" video was in heavy rotation. Let me tell you, the video is a stellar piece of cinematography: the lead singer Mieze Katz wears a floaty, multicoloured dress and stands in a white room. Bright, gumball-like balls bounce around her, fall from the ceiling, are juggled and roll by lazily. She has felt purple stars stuck to the side of her head and looks coyly at the camera. At one point she sings to an orange ball. I, of course, mocked both video and song mercilessly.

But then something happened.

Andrea and I would catch ourselves uhuhuhuhuh-ing under our breath. We'd turn the volume up on the TV when the video came on. We'd talk about how pretty Mieze's eye-makeup is in the video. In Frankfurt, I bought the album.

This song is not a lyrical gem (see below). It is more about how the words sound rather than what they mean. If someone only had the patience to listen to a snippet of this song I would make it the beginning and the end. I love how the song starts with those little blips of the xylophone and how all the other instruments join in as if they are waking up. I love how the song builds and builds and those horns join in at the end.

I love thinking about the moment the song came on in a club in Rostock and Andrea and I jumped up and down and actually squealed (I, uh, may have clapped my hands a little). I'm not sure if the room was spinning because I was drunk, or if I actually was spinning around in circles, but this song evokes that dizzy, happy feeling--not caring, or worrying, or thinking about anything other than how much you love this song in this moment in this place and how, if you close your eyes tight enough, you can spin yourself into bliss.

As an aside: the video actually makes sense. The song is called Dance of the Molecules.

Uhuhuhuhuhu, mein Herz tanzt.
Uhuhu und jedes Molekül bewegt sich

(Uhuhuhuhuhu, my heart dances
Uhuhu and every molecule sways itself)