It’s September baby
And it’s more than half way through! How did Christmas creep up to be only 3 months away?
A big huge thank-you to everyone who’s supported, played and listened to ‘Trains, Dinosaurs, and Hotel Corridors’ (who gives a fuck about an Oxford Comma, Vampire Weekend? me - I do) and ‘Did You Think Of Me?’ this past month. It’s been a wriggly worm of ups and sideways and downs, but mostly ups - so thank-you.
I’ve been sitting here today fiddling with another song - only to revert to thinking the OG version was OK, so I’ll upload it as soon as I’ve taken a cover pic. It’s called ‘25 Years in 35 Minutes’ - which interchangeably uses the concept of an album as sex. If you can find someone that lasts in bed for 35minutes, good on you! AND if you can find an album that gives you an orgasm, good on them!
It’s a song about throwing away long-term friendship for personal gain, in this circumstance, for an album. Across the 11 songs that I recorded in 2024, this is kind of a recurring theme. It’s still something I can’t make sense of.. none of it. I feel like I’m perpetually missing the part of the plot line that will make it make sense - but hopefully i’ll stop writing about eventually!
For the people, I think this could be a story about when you have that good friend you have your own language with, but there’s kind of ‘a vibe’. But because they have been in your life for so long, or because you’ve got a tight friendship group, you value protecting the friendship above and beyond any potential relationship. So you let the little things slide, you look the other way. You don’t question things too much, and you don’t explain too much either.
In most circumstances it’s doomed from the start. There comes a time where you get ‘the ultimatum’, the subsequent navigation of ‘wtaf now’.. and then the fall out as the balance has been disrupted. Things are no longer what they were, and no one ever really thinks properly about what they could be… because no one wants change, or compromise, so you’ve got lots of people invested in dialling back your slow car crash.
It’s a song which is dripping in nostalgia. It reminds me of all the 90s highschool movies. Those moments driving your shitty un-airconditioned car with stiff wind up windows and that strange air-freshener scent to the beach after school… the feeling like the days stretched out longer than they should. It smells like creaming soda, frangipani, and impulse vanilla body spray. It’s colour is turquoise, and it’s an 8.. maybe a 6.. vibe-wise.
I think sometimes things are more important to us than we realise, and for no good reason - not for any logical reason. They just are a part of you. Those conversations, those long drives, that feeling of having so much life, so many options, so much time ahead of you - for those days on the beach, for those road trips and late night conversations.
To get back to them, we lie like we haven’t changed. Like we don’t enjoy going to bed early now, that we don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on admin, that we like the feeling of waking up with a clear head, or when you find somewhere which actually makes a good salad. We lie to protect ourselves. From the gravitas of growing up, of being human. That way we can be 20 forever, right?
Perpetually on the road.
It’s hard to learn that lesson - that someone is important to you, that your memories are important to you, but that you’ve both grown up and lived lives - in the process of watching them try to set fire to your life for reasons you’ll never know, a few lines of lyrics, and the retention of the (IMHO LAME) persona that they DGAF.
Very hard. But not in the good way ;).
I hope you like it.
Fuck you.
Love you,
Vx
