A Signal Through the Noise

Backseat of the car. Backseat of my parents’ car, my arm resting on the sill, shadows falling across my skin. A sunscreen covers the window leaving little dots of light spilling through. Warm and cosy, I was always safe back there.

Any kind of extended travel — cars, trains, planes — I was a kid armed with a bandolier of AA batteries to keep the Game Boy going. Escapism was easy then. Set me down with a Game Boy and four hours could merrily roll by. Easy, colorful escapism. Midnight blue casing, bright red or yellow cartridge popped in the back to propel a procession of pixels. 

Play it again, Sam

It no longer feels like the ideal time to play on a Game Boy. There’s emails, texts, reading, writing, bills, deadlines, and plenty of thinking. The backseat is a while ago. Life is a conveyor belt of anxieties and at times its own treacherous, epic RPG. There’s always things to ponder, if not to do. However, none of this wards off the desire to put on a tune.

Maybe it’s the travel bug that’s got me. Maybe I’ve done enough sitting around, waiting in terminals, realizing how necessary it is for a melody to worm its way into your brain, or a beat to tune your pulse. Music isn’t just the shortcut to all emotions. It’s the glue holding together a colossal swathe of my childhood and formative associations.

I’ll get the embarrassing stuff out of the way. I was born in 1991, so I’m old. I remember CDs. I remember my friends’ older brothers having tapes. My parents’ chauffeur duty wasn’t without rewards, but it meant listening to their music in the car, not mine. Yet it’s imprinted in me, and I’m grateful.

The 60s to 80s chart music I was exposed to feels antique compared with today’s highly synthetic sound. Yet there’s something sweet and communal about it. A sense of sing-along, clap-along warmth. The Luvin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe In Magic,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” To anyone who can’t feel the resplendent youthful glee of these tracks, I will pray for you.

There are others, songs I don’t know I’d connect so strongly with without those CDs in my parents’ car: The Four Tops’ “Going Loco Down in Acapulco,” Cher’s “The Shoop Shoop Song,” Phil Collins’ “Two Hearts,” Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” Don’t misunderstand me. The beat does things the melody cannot. In my view, melody has warmth. It can find that foothold in a way the beat can’t. But maybe it’s that warmth in such music that allows them passage across decades and generations. 

Cheerio for the 90s

Beyond my parents’ tastes, I have a terminal soft spot for 90s chart music. My god, that 90s radio sound. This is pure nostalgic pull, invasive, everywhere, and I like it. I’m talking sound, literally. Some of these songs lived as guitar riffs or lyric refrains in my head for years. It wasn’t until Shazam and lyric finders emerged that I could place many of the songs in the air.

When I think of the 90s, the word that comes to mind is sunny. Glowing, warm, bright, uplifting, which is surely not a balanced or accurate description of the decade. Yet if you listen to what filled the airwaves then, Yacht Rock, California Surf Rock, and Indie Pop, you’ll understand where that sense comes from. Sun-drenched guitars with iconic riffs, scaling across tracks brimming with attitude or carefreeness.

Look no further than …

Spacehog — “In the Meantime”
The Cardigans — “Losing My Favourite Game”
James — “She’s a Star”

I remember some sounds of the time that went hand in hand with movies, too.

He may be today’s meme machine, but Leonardo DiCaprio was a pop culture phenomenon of the 90s. I remember his ability to make teenage girls scream until their heads rolled off or combust into puddles of tears. My memory says this started with the roaring success of Romeo + Juliet. I’d put money down that chart hits like “Lovefool” by The Cardigans and “You and Me Song” by The Wannadies were driving factors.

I know they didn’t translate across the pond at the time, but here in England, prime 90s Oasis echoed The Beatles. “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” and “Supersonic” were sounds that felt like they came out of the very ground we walked on.

Internationally, one sound landed like a meteor, and judging by YouTube views alone, still makes its mark; the 1999 revival of Santana. Both “Smooth” and “Maria, Maria” are smoldering, vibrant gems pulsing with romantic longing, played to this very day.

Hmm, that 90s sound. In my mind’s eye I see moody dusk, open-top low-riders, crowds on stoops dancing. Much of this is Americana export, but hell, it is sunny.

I remember my arm on the sill of the backseat window. Shadows from rungs, cable wires, and buildings pass across my skin. I’m sitting in the car and there’s a bold, swaggering optimism woven into the airwaves. Not that I was part of it. I was a child. But it was out there. 

A loud, ascendant buoyancy was out there in that big old world, passing by through a backseat window. When I was young, that buoyancy was all around and everywhere and in the air, like a signal through the noise.