Hot off the heels of our first Jimmy Eat World exclusive covers livestream (which you can watch the archive of in case you missed it!) I’m taking a moment to reflect on one of my longest friendships – the one I’ve had with this band and their albums.
Today’s episode is “Appreciation”.
Official Transcript:
On the weekend I did my first Jimmy Eat World covers livestream show. At this point I’m not exactly a stranger to doing acoustic streams but, this idea of playing specific shows just dedicated to this band and this project is one that I hadn’t committed to yet.r
One of my fears when I was starting this project was that I was going to somehow get pigeon-held to being “that girl who does Jimmy Eat World covers”. It’s not the worst thing in the world but, I felt like I had more to offer than just that.
For better or for worse this led me to rethink this entire project and I branched out early, beginning to work my way through a lot of my other favourite songs and artists.
This ended up being an important exercise because it would become clear reasonably quickly that I couldn’t properly showcase myself as a person to the world while only leaning on this other band to help me through it.
There would be gaps.
If I were to think of Jimmy Eat World the band as a single person, I’d consider them one of my closest friends.
After all, they’d sing me to sleep when I’d grow tired of counting sheep; They’d watch the stars with me and hope to see one shooting past the milky way as the moon slid across the lake, back when you could still see the milky way from the edge of the dock up at the cottage; They’d push me through the last few kilometers on the treadmill as I prepared for sports tryouts; They’d unconsciously call me to the front of the stage at my first rock shows; They’d walk with me to the bus stop and make sure I got home safe from school.
And they’re not unlike my closest friends in that as much time as they’ve shared with me there’s a lot they don’t know about me – really how could they given how little I’ve been able or willing to share when opportunities presented themselves?
And as much as I can make certain sense of what they say I’ll never truly understand what prompted their own thoughts to begin with.
Those are the gaps.
When I recall all the critical periods of my life where I needed someone and found myself instead alone with a CD player, those gaps don’t seem so wide.
There were times when I was younger I’d get myself so worked up over things entirely out of my control that I’d throw myself into a panic; hyperventilating until I could calm down long enough to think clearly. For those times I had Bleed American.
There were times when I’d find myself completely at a loss of words and thought entirely; For those times I had Clarity.
There were times I found myself self destructing, feeling completely and hopelessly worthless. For those times I had Futures.
And there were times I’d find myself confident and hopeful, driven and determined. And for those times I had Chase This Light.
I never saw anything completely to fruition or I suppose you could say, Invented.
And things after that get a little messy and confusing.
And the periods in between are… quiet.
I revisit these albums a lot because I know that life isn’t linear. I fall in and out of the same patterns and feelings that sent me to the record store to buy these albums every now and again and every time I do it’s just like meeting up again with an old friend.
One that’s been jet setting across the globe meeting new people and experiencing new places and cultures but every few years they hit you with a memory of something that happened decades earlier to remind you that they’re still there – the person they were then, living that same moment in time with you, reimagined through older, we hope wiser, lenses.
And the gap that you felt while they spent the last 3 years away closes ever slightly; but it will open wider the next time that they leave and continue to widen for as long as they are gone, eventually becoming too far to see the edge of the other side.
I don’t believe that it’s the distance that makes us miss those we’re apart from but rather the time lost; the time spent forming new memories to replace the old ones.
Because just like on a record we only have so much internal space for these things.
It becomes more difficult the older we get and our hardware begins failing; This part of living regrettably is where we lose all choice.
The only thing we can do is try to spend that time keeping those gaps as close together as we can for as long as we can, but of course that isn’t always possible with life pulling us in all sorts of different directions.
Sometimes I worry that I spend too much time with the same records, the same bands, but thinking about this today in this way, I can’t see anything wrong with wanting to catch up with old friends and remind them that we’re still here to listen.
This is “Appreciation”.
If you missed our lyric breakdown of this track, you can read it here:
Crooked Forest 