Today’s song is a perfect example of why it’s important to
have young people in your life. As I’ve said, I’m not a debut album kind of
guy, so why do I know Franz Ferdinand’s first album? Because my daughter Kajsa passed it along to
me when, in 2004, she was hanging about the art scene in Baltimore, trying to
get a gallery going and doing prints for band posters, and that sort of thing.
In that world, FF’s first was one of the albums to make a splash. Indeed it did
get "album of the year" attention from critics and the industry. It was hot.
And that’s important, with rock or post-punk pop, or whatever they want to call this thing. Fact of the matter is, it sounds to me like my own youth, which is to say the early 80s when the New Wave of hairbands assaulted MTV with catchy beats and hard-edged hooks. It was not so far a cry from power-pop, which is more or less what The Kinks invented, along with The Who, somewhere around 1964 or so. Which is a way of saying, I suppose, that looking back 10 years (already!) to this album is not so different from looking back 30 to the pinnacle of New Wave, nor so different from looking back 50 years to the British Invasion. All well and good, but . . . what’s happening right now? No clue, me. Mainly because any informants I might have are all over twenty-five. Tsk tsk. And I can still remember when the change happened, but that might be best pursued in another post.
And that’s important, with rock or post-punk pop, or whatever they want to call this thing. Fact of the matter is, it sounds to me like my own youth, which is to say the early 80s when the New Wave of hairbands assaulted MTV with catchy beats and hard-edged hooks. It was not so far a cry from power-pop, which is more or less what The Kinks invented, along with The Who, somewhere around 1964 or so. Which is a way of saying, I suppose, that looking back 10 years (already!) to this album is not so different from looking back 30 to the pinnacle of New Wave, nor so different from looking back 50 years to the British Invasion. All well and good, but . . . what’s happening right now? No clue, me. Mainly because any informants I might have are all over twenty-five. Tsk tsk. And I can still remember when the change happened, but that might be best pursued in another post.
For now, we’ve got this infectious little number up and
running. “The Dark of the Matinee,” a single that you imagine would just take
over the radio. And why not, it’s all about those kind of hook-ups that happen
in your teen, maybe even pre-teen, years, when you’re first trying out “style”
as a concept, as an identity, and, like as not, are still wearing a school uniform
(the “blazer” and the “ties”). The girls I went to school with were in uniform up
through 8th grade, y’know. Leaves an impression that this song sustains.
But it’s not just that. When I heard this song I was almost
45 fucking years old. And I still got it, or, more to the point, it still got
me. It cranks with that chorus: “Find me and follow me / Through corridors,
refectories / And files you must follow, leave / This academic factory / You
will find me / In the matinee / The dark of the matinee / It’s better in the
matinee / The dark of the matinee / Is mine, yes it’s mine.” Coming after The Smiths’ post that could seem
a little creepy too—which is why it’s good this is about a teen guy in a blazer
inviting some girl he likes to sample the dark of the matinee, otherwise we
might wonder who’s hanging ’round the theaters.
The song, besides featuring a nice, upbeat pop explosion for
tired old gaffers like me, also gives expression to the eternal search for the
simpatico that we might encounter at any age (well, one can hope) with the
litany of “the boys I hate and the girls I hate” (change it to singers,
filmmakers, actors, and, yeah), and clothes and even words, as our young
would-be lover approaches the world with his shield up and dagger drawn, only
to be unmanned, or rather man-handled when his girl smiles, “mention[s]
something that [she] like[s].” Oh if she likes me she’ll tell me what she
likes! And then the kicker, “and how you’d have a happy life if you did the
things you like.” Wouldn’t we all? But
that line lets me know these guys know the wherewithal of the folks who don’t
get to choose what to be and rarely, if ever, get to do the things they like. Sleeping with common people and that.
And one thing we can all agree we dislike is “this academic
factory.” Ditch it for the dark of the matinee, any day. I’m doing so today, in
fact, as Kajsa and I are off to see a matinee of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal on stage in NYC featuring the
rather intriguing Rebecca Hall. I hope it will be something that we like. And,
sure, the song is really about the dark of movie matinees but I’m almost
beginning to forget their allure.
The song also has a funny little snippet of that sort of
Walter Middy daydreaming teens (and only teens, of course) are so prone to, as
the singer imagines himself on the Terry Wogan show on BBC 2, being interviewed
with deference. “Oh it’s easy now” and the way he draws out that “now” while
the song surges back into its hook behind him is just so bloody good.
But, to follow up that debut LP bit. I know FF's first album
and like the second too. Still have yet to hear FF’s third and fourth. See how
it is? If you get in too early, you get out sooner.
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