5pm_weds | sixty-three

Everywhere
Bran Van 3000
Glee
1997

I must admit that by the time I got home today, I was a bit panicked. And overwhelmingly tired. I ate a huge bowl of chicken cacciatore, popped Nurse Jackie into the DVD player and then fell asleep on the couch--curled into my pillows and with my blanket pulled up to my chin. When I woke up an hour later, I groggily tried to recall the music I listened to this past week. That little sense of panic crept back in when I realized that nothing really stood out; that I would have to post a song that I liked, but wouldn't necessarily remember a few months from now OR that I would post a song just for the sake of posting a song, and that isn't what this is all about.

With half a steaming cup of coffee churning in my stomach, I pulled out my hard drive and started that slow scroll through thousands of folders. I'm surprised that Bran Van 3000, of all things, is what made me pause. It made me think of a really gloomy ped day marked by torrential downpours (an April day, in fact). I was in grade 8. Andrea and I were over at Erin's house. Andrea had come to Centennial at the beginning of that school year and formed a quick bond with Erin. This, of course, irritated me, haha. Andrea wanted, needed, to get a copy of the just-released Bran Van 3000 album, Glee. I get this--when you need something immediately because it fills some kind of inexplicable need. So, after much wheedling, Andrea convinced Erin and I to walk to Future Shop in the pouring rain to get a copy of the CD. They were sold out. We happened to meet one of Erin's cousins in the parking lot and he offered to drive us to the HMV at the Bruno mall. Clearly he picked up on the urgency of this mission.

CD in hand, we kicked our shoes off, put the disc into Erin's dad's stereo and plunked down around the kitchen table to listen. The opening track "Gimmie Sheldon" sounded nothing like "Drinking in LA", the song we with which we were familiar. It was frenetic, a mishmash of random samples and song and spoken word (incidentally it's a pretty good epigraph for the rest of the album). Andrea frowned. "Couch Surfer" had a silly quality that was easier to like (what, with that kazoo!) and was followed by "Drinking in LA". Five or six tracks in, and Andrea declared that she didn't really like the album. I swallowed my annoyance (We had spent all day getting this stupid CD! The bottoms of my jeans were still wet! My feet were cold to the very bone!).

I know I eventually heard "Everywhere" at some point when I was still in high school--I'm pretty sure Andrea eventually came to love the album and we listened to it in its entirety a number of times--but, I was most affected by the song later on, in my second year at Champlain (probably because I associated it with high school). This song makes my throat itch. "Everywhere" is such an apt title because, when I listen to it, the music feels like it is this thing that surrounds me; that swirls around my head. There's a lullaby quality to it. The combination of those beats and the acoustic guitar before the drums come in is lovely. Every single time I listen to this song, I am overwhelmed when that cartwheeling violin enters at around 2:30. When I heard it again today, I knew it was the song I wanted to share with you.

"Don't you know that you're gonna break through?"