Ah yessss...
No, darlings, this is not a foray into Boston's underground panty-party scene. I am truly so sorry to disappoint you.
Maybe another time.
This blog, right here, this one you are reading is about a special song. A song with the capability of taking your mind and instantaneously putting it somewhere else. This song being "Victoria's Secret."
"Victoria's Secret" is from one of my favorite albums of 2008: Silent Movie by the sample-reliant- but brilliant at: arranging, adding, mixing and teetering, U.K. twosome that goes by Quiet Village.
Yes, this song, and the album, like the album's name suggests, is very cinematic in tone. The album reveals itself to be transcending. It like a musical scrapbook. The song at hand, Victoria's Secret is like a singing postcard from a shoreline in another era.
It is no shocker that a good chunk of the song's structure comes from a classic Chi-Lites ballad, 1972's "The Coldest Days of My Life" .
The original is a little darker in feel. The mourning tone of the "The Coldest...." enriches the experience of Quiet Village's creation 'V.S." by adding a more haunting element, while the rest of the composition evokes scenes that are more playfully clandestine behind the noise and the people and the sea spray. Both are about the languishing of love, but "Victoria's Secret" is more sadness in smiles than tears.
The song is the first on the album- a great place for something that is this enrapturing to be. It is a rescue delight during these cold, winter months.
We should get this playing through your speakers, so you can ride with me on this splendid musical mind-journey.
We are about to be whirled into one's reverie.
Into memories that at the time where operating under sub rosa.
This is our peek.
Our postcard coming to life.
The is the quenching of a thirst for something a bit more voyeuristic into a time we can never truly visit....but a state that we maybe have all been deeply submerged in.
Are you ready?
The reel starts......
You hear the incessant hum of the projector.
You see noise, shake and dust on the screen.
And then it is smoothed out.
You can see her face....
Victoria's, or I like to think it is.
She is in black and white.
Of course.
She is gorgeous, with wavy hair and big, expressive eyes- the kind you want to lock yourself into.
She lifts her long index finger to her mouth and presses the side of it to her full lips and laces her breath with a playful "hush."
She turns away from you, the viewer, coyly, because she is about to let you in on something.
She is about to reveal her....secret.
And the scene opens up...
Play
Cue beautiful, seductive beach side surf sounds.
Cue the first snivel of the strings-syncopating with exhales, dripping with wistfulness.
Cue sunshine and salty mist.
Cue soft laughter.
Soft kisses.
Playfulness abound in the sand.
Cue love in the air.
Wait-
Cue.... the lovers.
Lovers swimming in their undefiled affair.
Cue the seagulls keening;
the tiny taps of their feet;
the burst of white plumage as they shake the moisture from their wings.
Cue the feather-light taps of the drums.
It almost sounds like a light knocking on wood.
Cue passions unfolding beneath carousing in the sun.
Cue stealing kisses....
Stealing affection.
Stealing hearts.
Cue faces burrowing into necks... into chests...into mouths.
Cue innocence twirling in straight-up seduction.
Cue the sleepy base.
Cue the sticky, syrupy slow and smooth rhythm coating lines of an almost inaudible collage of summer sounds.
Cue moments unhurried by the world.
Cue being swept away...
This song is sadness and joy swirling together in a whisper atop the cone of life.
It is how I imagine the first half of Chekhov's love story The Lady with The Dog's lead characters, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna, early seascape adventures playing out.
Cue the haunting vocals...
You see the hearts colliding, intertwining.
The joy emitting from the Colgate smiles because in this time and place they are amongst many who don't know.
They are safe.
The vocals come in to haunt again.
You see it change.
You see it all for how it really is.
You see hearts breaking, crumbling to the floor and mixing in the cracked shells and seaglass.
You feel the emotion ebbing away as the two become shadowed by reality....
The vocals and strings together coat each remaining bar with a sense of longing for this moment to never end.
And then it slows down-almost completely.
You are left with just the sound of the seagulls and the echo of what was.
The end.
Lucky for us, we can play it all day.
