Review Summary: Do you ever wonder how you got to here?
Not every album needs to be a homerun hitter to engrave itself in your memory forever.
Go isn’t Motion City Soundtrack’s best album – that honor belongs to either
Commit This to Memory or
My Dinosaur Life. However, I can sing every word to every song from
Go even though I barely remember anything about the two aforementioned cornerstones of the band’s discography – aside from the idea that they are, allegedly at least, objectively better. I used to care a lot about that sort of thing, but now I’m not sure it actually matters. In eight years, you’re far more likely to recall how an album made you feel than you are a specific guitar riff or drum fill. It’s all about how it resonates with you, and the memories that you build around the music without even thinking.
Go is an album that makes me deliriously happy. It takes me back to the beginning of summer 2012, a time which I’d revisit constantly if I could. I was finally out on my own, renting an apartment in Philadelphia and experiencing life in the big city after growing up thinking that a lit Friday night was going to Applebee’s and then catching a 9pm movie. My professional career was coming together, as I escaped my high school grocery store summer job and landed a teaching gig that also afforded me the opportunity to mentor adjudicated youth. My wife – who I’d been stubbornly chasing after for six years – finally agreed to go out with me. Everything was looking up.
While already on my way to my local record store to buy The Tallest Man on Earth’s
There’s No Leaving Now, I was convinced by a certain Adam Knott review to also shell out for
Go on a whim. They came out on the same Tuesday which, for you young kids, used to be the day of the week that music was released. I probably didn’t bother with
Go right away (because The Tallest Man on Earth demands attention), but when I did afford it a moment, it filled me with more warmth that the June sun that was somehow giving me sunburn through my car windshield as I was stuck in Center City traffic. I remember sitting on Broad St. waiting for an accident to clear, then trying to navigate the side streets of neighborhoods where I received more than just a few inquisitive glances as I sped down the alleys scream-singing “YOU-OU, BETTER BELIEVE IT’S TRUE, YOU KNOW I DO I DOOO.” I was young and in love and on top of the world. Apologies eight years late to the fine folks of West Allegheny Ave. in Temple.
To this day, I can’t hear the opening distortion and drums to ‘Circuits and Wires’ and not picture the spur-of-the-moment trip to Wildwood that we took. I remember scrambling to find a hotel room, marveling at the rush I got from running away with someone for an entire weekend. It’s not exactly something I was used to or, for that matter, had ever done before. The bouncy rhythm to ‘Son of a Gun’ must have played at least 3-4 times during all the moments we spent in the car driving between ice cream parlors, mini golf, seafood restaurants, and the boardwalk. I can almost see the twinkle in her eye, feel the sweat in the palm of her hand that I was holding, and breathe the salty air blowing through the window. Still, one song in particular will always keep me anchored to
Go – and that’s ‘Timelines.’ The song, which builds to the simple-but-impactful line “It's not a matter of time, it's just a matter of timing / Do you ever wonder how you got to here?”, resonated with me then and it continues to now. My most enduring memory with the song isn’t a youthful jolt of energy, but rather a moment of quiet contemplation. Driving home, my then-girlfriend-now-wife asleep in the passenger seat at 1am, I heard the song quietly serenading in the background – in fact, barely audible above the whooshing of trucks passing by in the adjacent lane. I must have gone back and listened to the song five times in a row as I approached the toll bridge back into Philly – I just couldn’t believe how well it seemed to align with everything happening in my life. After six years of unrequited love and suppressed intentions, it was just a matter of time; and timing. I couldn’t fathom that I’d finally arrived in the moment of my dreams. It’s a feeling I still can’t shake – this
will they/won’t they drama that you typically only see on sitcoms happened to me in real life, and I still feel like the luckiest man alive that things broke in my favor. Call me sappy, or a fool, but I do believe in true love.
Go, somehow, got tangled up in these moments.
It’s this rush of memories that makes
Go my favorite Motion City Soundtrack record, even if it’s quite clearly not their
actual best. I’m sure everyone has an album like this – one that has imprinted itself upon a particularly influential moment. In my case, I probably actively listened to
Go for only a week or two before moving on to the next big release. That’s the nature of music, especially in the modern streaming era, and especially when you’re a critic or active connoisseur. We don’t tend to realize the impact that an album is going to have on us until we’re much further down the timeline. If that relationship had gone sour rather than blossoming into a marriage, I’m sure these memories would be bittersweet at best, and maybe I’d even hate this album. Appreciation of music is a product of circumstance, and
Go just happened to soundtrack the most important and love-drunk few weeks of my life. It definitely means far more to me now than it did then, but that’s also the point. Music is an infusion of energy in the moment, and the reflective nostalgia of the future. Embrace your surroundings. Listen to new music, and let it embed itself in the key moments of your life. Art is meant to be affecting – but it’s only as good as you allow it to become.
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