Prompt: Free theme
When I was a high school kid in Buffalo, I often searched for ways to convince, or to remind, myself that I had not become just another flake in the Rust Belt. Whether it was pretending to understand the emotional complexity of Almodóvar films or “liking” calamari, I wanted to be the guy who didn’t fit in a Podunk city. I refused to be a nowhere-going sophomore in a going-nowhere town.
On Christmas Day when I was fifteen, my mother gave me a CD. I’d resisted her previous attempts to get me to listen to new music; she just bought whatever was recommended for young adults in Time anyways, and I doubted that recommendations from Time were going to free me from the boilerplate bonds of Buffalo. This CD was different, though. It was called “Gimme Fiction,” from a band named Spoon, and had a single image of a red-hooded figure on the front cover.
Taking my confusion at the imagery and name of the album as mystery and taking mystery as something not ordinary and knowing ordinary was Buffalo, I decided to listen to Spoon. I got what I wanted: veiled references to cross-dressers, pared-down beats, tales about midnight walks and seeing “someone doing something not right.” I imbued each of Spoon’s lyrics with what I came to realize was future meaning; someday, things that I did would merit the cryptic references splashed across all of their songs.
My favorite track was the last one. It was called “Merchants of Soul” and had an upbeat drum background and a simple progression of piano strokes. The lyrics, though, were what, I guess…sang, to me. Someday, I knew, one of these merchants would take my soul, too, leaving me “mixed up and lonely on the danger side.” And that, let me tell you, would not in any way be boilerplate.
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