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On A Day Like This
Elbow
The Seldom Seen Kid
2008

Sitting in the doctor's waiting room this afternoon, listening to this song and turning this theme over in my mind, I realized that the last time I was actually "up in an airplane" was when I went to London for a week in 2008. 

Surprising.
I find.

I love that weird bit of time that exists between leaving Point A and arriving at Point B.  Where, when flying across time zones, time becomes this confusing thing--rushing forward or going backward.  I always thought night flights to Europe were fun--being served dinner, sleeping for a couple of hours and then trying to convince your body that it is morning as you are being served breakfast.  Window visors lifted just an inch let in the brightest sunshine you've ever seen.  It is a new day.  You are in a new place.   

There is something wholly satisfying about that sense of anticipation at the beginning of a trip, when you've found your seat in the airplane and you are getting yourself settled in with book, magazine, headphones; but you can't focus on anything because a twinge of excitement settles at the base of your spine before it tingles up your back, you can feel it in every vertebrae.  

This song isn't about departure, but rather near-arrival--that moment I mentioned above, when you are hovering above a green patchwork quilt, an hour away from landing and the sky is so blue and the sun is so bright.  This song sounds like that moment.  The way the music rises and falls and builds.  The lyrics, and the music itself, are genuinely joyful.  Uplifting without being over-sentimental.  Mainly, it is that string section that does me in every time--both it, and that pulsing beat, elevate this song into something pretty spectacular.