Moving along, let's hustle.
How goes it, kids? It's been another round of nasty weather in Minnesota and coupled with finally getting a prescription to get me over this funky business I am going to abstain from prattling on and on. Instead, I'll just do a short bit that falls nicely in line with the current trend in posts, that of the nature of discovery and exposure to music. While I've written a great deal about wonderful surprises and personal treasures, today's post flips the idea on its head. This is not about discovery but rather the ubiquity of a song and how I stubbornly refused to let it take hold for years. This particular song had to practically beat me over the head in order for me to pay attention, only for me to be completely oblivious. When I caught on, though, I was in love for sure.
The song I'm referring to is the wonderful and fun 'Heartbeats' by Swedish electronic duo The Knife. This brother-sister team of popsters had been making music in their homeland and having success across the sea, meanwhile America paid little attention. It was only when the single from the 2003 album Deep Cuts was covered by Jose Gonzalez and licensed by Sony for a commercial did anyone in the U.S. sit up and take notice. This acoustic cover was a thing of beauty, a simple, stripped down recording of just Gonzalez and his guitar, softly crooning the song. The commercial was very popular, due simply to the use of the song, putting the cover into rotation on the radio. In cultural relevance to my own life, the local station Cities 97 had it in their regular playlists, with me being none the wiser. At some point my better half had heard the song and fallen in love with it, downloading it from iTunes and adding it to one of her numerous "Sunday Morning Cleaning" mixes. Still, I remained oblivious. One of my favorite sitcoms ever, the medical and musical Scrubs, even featured the song in an episode of their sixth season, before the show's quality took a nose dive (which seemed to coincide with the infamous and much contented Writer's Guild Strike, but we don't need to re-examine our painful memories of that season of TV). At this point the song had no doubt popped up in my life no less than three times which I must have heard it - I'm sure I saw the original commercial, I watch tons of TV, my better half's iPod certainly sees more action than mine and I've watched Scrubs so much I can call out the punch lines before they happen and spot character inconsistencies like any obnoxious fan. So what gives? Why couldn't this song take hold?
Simple.
It wasn't the right version.
Rather, it wasn't the original version. You see, as fantastic as the acoustic cover can be, it's not necessarily my preferred version of the song. I certainly appreciate mellow music - look no further than the post three days ago about Joey Cape and his subdued solo work. I can dig a laid back track for bumming around my condo or having contemplative thoughts. But in this particualr instance it took something more vibrant to connect. When out for drinks with a close friend, he made passing reference to the original song. Being a clueless oaf, I admitted to never having heard it, which necessitated his rectifying that problem immediately via YouTube. Maybe it was the cocktails, maybe it was his suggestion or maybe it was the subconscious nostalgia of hearing-it-yet-never-having-
I have no idea how I could be so oblivious to this amazing song for so long. Maybe I wasn't in the right headspace. Maybe I had my ears closed. How many of us have learned to just tune out the hip music constantly oozing from our TV sets and commercials? Still, one would think the warm charm of Jose Gonzalez' version would warrant my attention, yet I never really noticed it. My better half and I had a funny moment wherein we had to clarify via Wikipedia which version came first and we were both surprised that The Knife wrote it and not the other way around. It's funny how expectations and inattention can shape your world. I'm glad I woke up to this amazing song. I hope you find something like it, or just enjoy it on any level approaching mine.
How goes it, kids? It's been another round of nasty weather in Minnesota and coupled with finally getting a prescription to get me over this funky business I am going to abstain from prattling on and on. Instead, I'll just do a short bit that falls nicely in line with the current trend in posts, that of the nature of discovery and exposure to music. While I've written a great deal about wonderful surprises and personal treasures, today's post flips the idea on its head. This is not about discovery but rather the ubiquity of a song and how I stubbornly refused to let it take hold for years. This particular song had to practically beat me over the head in order for me to pay attention, only for me to be completely oblivious. When I caught on, though, I was in love for sure.
Simple.
Rather, it wasn't the original version. You see, as fantastic as the acoustic cover can be, it's not necessarily my preferred version of the song. I certainly appreciate mellow music - look no further than the post three days ago about Joey Cape and his subdued solo work. I can dig a laid back track for bumming around my condo or having contemplative thoughts. But in this particualr instance it took something more vibrant to connect. When out for drinks with a close friend, he made passing reference to the original song. Being a clueless oaf, I admitted to never having heard it, which necessitated his rectifying that problem immediately via YouTube. Maybe it was the cocktails, maybe it was his suggestion or maybe it was the subconscious nostalgia of hearing-it-yet-never-having-
