The Greatest Love Song Ever Written
Recently there was a great tragedy in my life. It messed me up completely and I haven’t been interested in writing for months.
I’ll probably talk about it sometime.
The tragedy led me to think about love.
When I was 21 I went to college for an ill-fated swing at journalism school.
I met Laura there.
Horns
She was leaving high school. She was…well, I’ll never have the words to describe her, at least in English: the language devolves into an abject, brutish, artless creature when tasked with portraying Laura as I saw her. Words like “whimsical” and “precious” and “entrancing” but nod dumbly at the stunning, charming singularity that was her soul.
(Maybe Mandarin can do it.)
But English can describe the addictions counsellor I was seeing at the time (my first one HEART EMOJI). Her name was Suzanne. She was a tall blonde woman with a hawkish nose and one time I saw her from a passing car while she was walking her dog and I was like hey! That’s my counsellor!
(But not out loud.)
Anyway, I was telling her about Laura. It was not long after we started dating. I mentioned something about love in a “down the road” sort of context. There must have been something in my tone that tipped her off because suddenly she smiled slyly and said, “Peter, I think you’re in love now.”
HORNS
Preposterous. The audacity! I instantly swatted the notion from my mind like an irksome fly.
Love.
pfft
We hadn’t been seeing each other long enough. Hell, I didn’t even know if I believed in love (it was probably just something Hollywood made up to sell movies).
Nah.
“Don’t be so foolish,” I said quickly, “we haven’t been going out long enough for that.”
The problem was that as I spoke something happened to my face. Something that started the second Suzanne said I was in love.
Horns
It was the advent of the most stupid, greasy, dumb, bemused, joyful and utterly relentless smile I’d ever had. It used every muscle on my face. I felt it from its first stir, through every thrilling moment as it blossomed and stretched out slowly across my skull like a cat upon waking. The corners of my mouth strained luxuriously to the limit of tolerance. I tried to stop it — I really did — but with strange wonder realized I couldn’t.
And I’m serious, I couldn’t. Couldn’t physically stop that smile. I watched it bloom and there was nothing I could do about it. It was possessed by a will of its own.
Then the smile was there and that was it.
It was a crazy feeling.
Starlings, by Elbow.
That’s the greatest love song ever written.
The song opens softly, a soothing xylophone roll that made me think, “okay, those are the starlings, that’s what I’m hearing.” Then light layers, first some careful percussion…gentle, now…then Guy’s balmy harmonies…just drifting along…a touch of piano…ah, some stars… so lovely…
Horns
Then this annoying, stupid horn blast comes out of nowhere. It frightened the shit out of me the first time I heard it. Left me irritated. A single note from what must be five or six buffalo-sized horns, a one note blare. Then they do it again a few seconds later!
“Why would anyone choose to ruin a song like that?”
Seven years with Laura, then it ended. And for eight years after that I didn’t touch another girl.
I found Elbow during this time. Starlings was the first song I heard by them. It’s off their Dark Side of the Moon, their OK Computer, their Illmatic. A monumental testimony to love, friendship, and the purity of the artistic endeavour called The Seldom Seen Kid.
I talk about mental health from lived experience, so I’ll give you some advice if you feel such credentials lend merit to my words: if you are alone and heartbroken do not listen to Elbow.
Hell no.
They’re the most romantic band in the world. They are many other things, yes, but…
…just do yourself a favour and listen to them when you’re in love.
It’s far less suicidal that way.
When I listen to Starlings I go back there. Through time. To that sweet girl. We’re walking home in a mist-wrapped world at three in the morning, holding hands and drunk on this thing we share…
…stupid smiles.
And I play Starlings for her, eight years before its release. I must have, because when I hear it I know we listened to it together somehow.
I can feel it.
I learned why the horns were there later in the song.
You see, Starlings is a song that moves hypnotically toward a single moment. With patience — the defining virtue of Elbow’s song writing — it waltzes slowly to a crescendo, a soft yet exhilarating summit that is reached just as Guy clutches his heart with wonder and is sent spinning and diving like a cloud of starlings and asks, in a bemused and starstruck whisper…
…darling is this love?
HORNS
“Oh, I see. That’s why they’re there.
“To show everyone how I felt.”
Eight years before its release — in a tiny room in a building that used to be a barracks for American soldiers — Suzanne the addictions counsellor saw me, too spinning and diving like a cloud of starlings and posed the same question. Then…
…horns.
My heart exploded with them. A wild, colourful, brazen fanfare that burst forth in my soul, my stomach, my mind.
My smile.
Joy that expanded like the big bang and knew not words nor time nor equal. Leaving Suzanne’s office and going down the steps only to be smote again by this glorious rapture of giddiness and thrills and wonder and sex and happiness I’m a cloud of them I’m everywhere enough to paint the firmament gold and I’m spinning and I’m diving and…
Laura.
Darling, is this love?
Yes.
It was.
Horns
