It's been a bitch of a week, and it's only Wednesday. Largely due to some recent horrible events that matter hugely to the demographic the organization I work for caters to, the atmosphere in the office has had a pronounced edge. I'm also personally a bit on edge, as recent feedback from certain quarters has suggested that I need to step up my efforts and assert myself within the office environment a bit more. On top of that, I'm consuming my weight in coffee with alarming regularity just to combat the fatigue that narturally comes with having an insatiable newborn in the house. I feel like I'm sprinting all the time -- sprinting to stay on top of breaking developments, sprinting to anticipate oncoming curve-balls, sprinting to stay on people's good sides, sprinting home from work to help my wife out with the monkey-wrangling and sprinting back to work to start the process all over. Like I said --- I'm on edge.
I left the office this evening with a furrowed-brow, even despite the kind words of an ever-encouraging colleague who exited the building with me. Emptied into the swarming ant heap of Times Square, I couldn't quite be arsed to call up a specific band or album on my iPod, so I simply selected the "shuffle" mode, hoping for something like the bracingly cathartic blast of "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" by Prong or a vitriolic anthem like "Wasted Life" by the Stiff Little Fingers. The first track to come on, however, was none other than "Shout" by Tears for Fears.
Despite my volatile fandom for that which mercilessly rocks, I must confess to having a soft spot for great pop. While Tears for Fears started off as arguably just another haircut-heavy synth pop act (though if you can't recognize the pop genius of the histrionic singles from The Hurting, you and I have nothing to talk about), by the time of their sophomore album, Songs from the Big Chair, the band had morphed into a full-on mainstream pop act, albeit one oddly preoccupied with Dr. Arthur Janov's controvertial primal scream therapy. While I'd never warmed to that album's needlessly fluffy first single, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," I've always loved "Shout," their piously po-faced follow up single, rife with a layperson's breakdown of Janov's doctrine and Roland Orzabal's (and, really, what sort of name is that for a pop star?) strenuously emoted verse-delivery. I was once abjectly subsumed with humilation after being caught earnestly air-guitaring (well, actually, I was holding a broom stick and using it as a de facto bass, if you must know) to the song in the early 90's while gallery-sitting in what I thought was an empty gallery in Soho, but that's another post for another day. Dingbatty pop fodder or not, "Shout" is a great song, dammit! At the time of "Shout"'s release, the biggest issues on my plate were upping my appalling SAT scores, finding a summer job that didn't involve dish-washing and getting a girl on the other side of the room in French class to look my way. While I was ultimately unsuccessful on all three fronts, "Shout" acted as the perfect angsty tonic to soothe my youthfully tormented mind. Twenty-someodd years later, the circumstances have changed, but the effect is still largely the same.
Though I'd initially been in the mood for some harder, angrier fare, "Shout" completely fit the bill for me this evening, driving me down Broadway with a purposeful stride. By the time the song reached its hoarily windswept crescendo, buoyed by Roland's emphasis-laden guitar solo, my edge had turned to celebratory angst, as I revelled in the obvious truth that yes -- other people have bad days too, even British pop stars from the 80's with silly names and dubious hairstyles. I wasn't alone with my edge; the pressure gets to everyone.
I walked in my front door about fifteen minutes -- and two more airrings of "Shout" --- later to be greeted by the open arms, irrepresible smile and jubilant "hi, Daddy!" of my two year old daughter, effortlessly obliterating all evidence of my teeth-gritting edge in a diminutive supernova of unconditional love; truly a different kind of chatharsis, and one well worth shouting about.
Tomorrow, it starts all over again.
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