thirty. [THEME: discovered on a soundtrack]

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

Bring Me the Disco King [Loner Mix; ft Maynard James Keenan & John Frusciante]
Artist: David Bowie
Album: Underworld OST
Year: 2003
♥: Strangely, this, more than any post so far, has made me intensely aware of how seasonal my musical tastes are. There were so many fabulous soundtracks I couldn't even look at -- simply because they were the wrong time of year, part of a different me (one living in snow, or new leaves). On the heels of the end of that Waiting Room of a summer, it's time for something quintessentially fall -- and not only fall, but Fall 2003.
I return to that time in my life more than any other. It's when I fell in love with the things that make me me -- I guess, really, it was the first time I started figuring out who I really was. The start of Liberal Arts (which, for all the stress and insanity, were two of the best years of my life), the start of a new life, and everything centering on something I had never felt before -- a kind of freedom, an intensity, an ecstasy that I haven't yet seen matched. But. Vagueness relating to something very specific aside ---


I picked up this soundtrack right before I started at cegep, before I saw the movie, before anything really started. I used to love buying soundtracks, especially to horror movies -- they tended to have at least a few new rock/metal/goth/whatever artists that I'd then start loving. I love that about soundtracks -- that they're mixes, ultimately. For all the ridiculousness of "Underworld" as a movie --- the soundtrack, as a separate entity, is incredible. The flow goes between jarring and mellifluous, but it always works, and the songs themselves -- god! There are 11 (out of 19) tracks which absolutely define that time in my life, which I can't listen to without my heart dropping out.

When I saw the album in HMV, almost exactly eight years ago, I snatched it up immediately and played it on repeat until October. I bought it, though, because Bowie's Reality was being released that September, and this remix [of the last song on what's projected to be his last album] was all that would whet my appetite for new material.

The first time I heard this song, I cried.

I was in the basement in Rigaud, preparing myself for the beginning of all these new steps in my life, and his voice hit my ears with those ethereal strings and synths in the background, and I couldn't function. It was so different from anything I'd heard him do (and it sounds NOTHING like the original version of the song; I'd almost suggest you never listen to the original, actually), and so beautifully intertwined in all the conflict, confusion, and vitality of my life at that moment ------

when the build to the first bridge/chorus starts, at 2:12,
i am back in John Abbott,
sitting in the library, the hallway, outside,
black makeup and this violently raging heart,
i am uncertain and broken and so fucking alive.

I often wonder what aspects of our past play significant unconscious roles in our present. "We could dance dance dance through the fire" --- I am inclined to think that's a big one, for me.
This song is a big chunk of my heart. Much as 2003 was a mess of heartbreak and heartstopping beauty, ultimately so perfect -- so is this.
Bring me the fucking disco king!

[also: i know this is the third time i've posted a bowie song, but what's stranger is that i haven't posted more than that up to now. i can't even start to say how definitively he underlies my musical sensibilities, haha]

Comments

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'm going to make a more specific comment later BUT how much do I love that both of our soundtrack songs outshine the original versions? THEME WITHIN A THEME.

And, like it's totally awesomer because I waited to read your post until I had posted mine SO.