5pm_weds | thirty-nine (Reply)

Shake It Out
Florence + the Machine
Ceremonials
2011

I subscribe fully to the idea of the personal theme song. I think that this is something I probably picked up from season 1 of Ally McBeal. During her first session, Ally's wacky therapist (Tracey Ullman) has Ally pick a theme song as part of her "therapy" ("It's In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song)" by Betty Everett). The thing about theme songs is that they not only help you in a moment of crisis, but they stay with you. Mine are as much a part of me as, say, the embarrassingly long hairs on my arms. My theme songs tend to fit the same theme--they often focus on overcoming personal "demons" and are usually uplifting in tone.

Maybe it is because I am behind on my blog reading or it's that I haven't picked up an issue of Rolling Stone or NME in ages, but I had no idea that F+TM had a new album coming out. Getting this album made me both excited and nervous--there won't be another Lungs; and there won't be the feeling or the exact circumstances I was in when I listened to that album for the first time or saw it performed live. I think we read something in Biggs' (GASP!) class about how we can never have the exact same experience when re-reading a book or seeing a work of art because so many variables have changed. We have changed. I didn't get much out of that class, but I did like that article. I wish I had kept it.

Anyway, all that to say that I haven't quite decided what I think of Ceremonials yet. I've been listening to it incessantly since I downloaded it last week. "Shake It Out" is not my favourite track ("Never Let Me Go" and "Spectrum" kind of kill me every time), but it definitely has all of the markings of a perfect theme song. It is the song that has affected me the most.

I've been feeling more "normal" lately. Less anxious and less afraid...like I have been doing things that people my age are apt to do (and not stress out about; i.e. go to a pot luck dinner, meet co-workers for drinks, leave the house on a Saturday night, etc.). While I may enjoy myself once I'm out there, I still get that little niggling feeling beforehand--the urge to stay in, settle in on the couch (because I am quite tired, really), that sense of trepidation. I only went out on Saturday at 9 p.m.--which left plenty of time to flip flop back and forth between whether I actually wanted to go or not. I had been listening to Ceremonials all day--I wanted to recapture the experience I used to have when I bought CDs. That excited moment when I would rip off the plastic and put the disc in my stereo. The days of listening to the same CD over and over again. Focusing on one album instead of bouncing around from album to album and song to song in a frenzy without really making a lasting connection. This song fills me with that overwhelming feeling brought on by the best theme songs. It simultaneously makes my heart heavy and my throat tight, but also lifts me up. The line that I want to have burned into my skin is: "It's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off". I heard that and thought, "No fucking kidding. Yes." A good theme song is like a nudge. This song--the way the music builds, the words, the range of Florence's voice--pushes me forward, makes me feel like I am breathing more deeply.