I was soaring down the 33 on my way home from the dry cleaners, blasting Sam’s Town by The Killers. A self-help album intensely beloved by me. When we were suffering in high school my sister and I had the album burnt to a CD, or maybe it was an original disc, in our family’s early aughts Jetta sedan with crank down windows and a Best Buy media player. The last line of When You Were Young, “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but more than you’ll ever know.” Haunting. Then, I thought it was a wistful line about bad boys. Now, I see it’s a much darker warning about predators, everywhere, looming amongst the moony-eyed, the soft, the fanciful. I come up with a good impression of Brandon Flowers, he’s sort of doing an Ian-Curtis-meets-Freddy-Mercury-meets-(of-course-)Bowie thing but American, which somehow shakes down to something Grace Jones adjacent. There’s nowhere else you can howl out the songs of your wretched suburban experience but in your Jetta wagon, with a sunroof, the lefthand backseat passenger electric window button broken, exiting town, where, at the cleaners, the system was down, and for the first time in your life you had exact cash. In the back of the car is a vintage beige plaid polyester skirt suit, which, I don’t know, there has to be, at some point, some reason for. To look depressed and coquettish, and bear legs.
Thanks for this. I too think often of that song and am so happy for this reminder... "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus but he talks like a gentleman." My heart is racing just thinking about belting out this song on the open road. I think I might have to take a night time ride to get it out of my system :)
Thanks for this. I too think often of that song and am so happy for this reminder... "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus but he talks like a gentleman." My heart is racing just thinking about belting out this song on the open road. I think I might have to take a night time ride to get it out of my system :)