Some time around September 2000, my school organised a trip to Dublin to support the basketball team in a championship final. Students were packed onto buses, all ready to wave flags, chant chants and to support our team. I can't recall the outcome of the game itself but what I do remember is what I brought home from the music store that day...
I had brought some reading material with me on that bus ride - one of my first copies of Empire Magazine (forgive their ugly website). Empire is a pretty big monthly movie mag and it was with great fervour each month that I looked forward to the interviews, reviews and movie trivia geekiness. If you know me, you know that I love movies and Empire is the reason why. I read this magazine cover to cover every month, and until recently, I had a treasure trove of old editions in my wardrobe at home. One month, a question I emailed for a Pierce Brosnan Q&A was printed and he answered it! Anyway, I digress...
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| Great sub-headings, eh? |
In that month's issue (cover above), there was a movie review for a new, strange musical featuring Björk - Dancer in the Dark. It had won the coveted Palm d'Or at the Cannes film festival, and Empire saw fit to give the soundtrack 4 stars. Lamenting the short length of the soundtrack, the author commented "there’s always that repeat button". That was enough for me - if some guy in England was listening to this soundtrack on repeat, I would too.
After the basketball game, we visited a shopping centre for a quick visit - McDonalds! HMV! Clothes! All the things that were missing in our little country town in the middle of Ireland. I made a beeline straight for the music store, checked in the soundtracks section and found it - the Dancer in the Dark
soundtrack! (Side note: I also picked up the O Brother soundtrack, which Empire had given 5 bright red stars that month.)
On the bus home that day, I listened to Björk sing about her life as a blind single mother raising a child who was also going blind. Uplifting, right? Not quite... BUT my favourite song on the album is New World, which
is an uplifting, cinematic, M83-esque masterpiece. Repeat button? Yes please.
This morning, some fifteen years later, as I lay on a hammock beside this tiny Panamanian beach which is my temporary home, fingers of sunlight flickering through the green canopy of the trees as waves lapped the shore, that song suddenly came back to me. The memory of the school excursion, of Empire, of pressing repeat.
And now you can listen to it too, preferably at sunrise...
