19. Lovesong - Amiel

Your usual love songs have never been terribly interesting to me.

The schmaltzy, boring lyrics and flat vocals all over the radio are just dull. They’re chemically treated to exist without any context, floating away from any significance.

They’re the antithesis of this entire series actually – songs bereft of meaning, with the additional quality of being sonically boring.

But real love songs, those songs inextricably tied into moments of love and affection, sewn into the relationships you have – and used to have – are immensely powerful.

They’re the memory of their perfume, or recalled eye colour, or a million other little nostalgia triggers.

They’re reminders of pain, pleasure, sadness and joy.

They can be songs shared during a powerful moment, or tunes humming along in the background of a great conversation. They can be objectively great pieces of music, or they can be limp examples of bland pop-by-numbers.

Of course, they can be meaningless tunes that happened to be playing at moments of great import.

And, they don’t need to be about ‘love’ or togetherness at all.

There are a few songs out there like that for me, but the nature of my romantic history (sparse and boring) means that I don’t have any songs that recall painful breakups or great severances.

Though not seared into my memory by that sort of pain, they’ve still become entwined with my experiences, with my life, in such a way as to become part of the memory itself.

It becomes an endless loop then, of song triggering memory triggering song, ad infinitum.

Which takes the track and inflates it with far more meaning than it originally had, the weight of years and recollections layering over the top of what was a simple enough ditty.

Take ‘Lovesong’ by Amiel.

It’s about breaking up, about picking up the pieces after another dead-end relationship hit the wall. About taking that wasted energy and compressing it into something useful (‘another effing lovesong’).

It’s a nice song, strumming guitar electronically enhanced with one of those twisty shakers over the top. There’s a synth playing in the background, sticking its head in occasionally to pipe up between choruses. Some strings come in at the end, and headphones capture some of the studio trickery they used.

 I like the bitterness of the lyrics, the irritation in cashing in time for just another lovesong, another in a seemingly long list.

And her vocals are really sweet, well, bittersweet if listening to the original cut. Amiel’s voice doesn’t have the greatest range, there are a few flat spots and can sound a bit thin in the high notes.

But it fits this track of resignation and pointed farewells nicely.

It’s a nice song, a less-disposable-than-others piece of pop music about breaking up and starting again.

A nice song which, for some reason, is one of those love songs floating in the back of my mind.

There were a few weeks in 2003, when it was released, where it got a fair bit of play. Occasionally it’d pop up on the big commercial channels, and I’m sure I heard it on Triple J a few times too.

2003 was a testing year for us. Two years out of school, I was finding out the truth about uni and my TGNW was dealing with some pretty heavy issues at work.

We didn’t have any real plans, beyond spending time together when we could. Though challenging, a lack of real responsibility, plenty of free time and someone to spend it with makes for a fun time.

Which, depending on my uni schedule, would mean me coming to visit her at work for lunch.

I’d get the bus down to Dandenong and sit on a bench, waiting for her to come out of her workplace. I’d sit there, in the sun, headphones in, listening to whatever music Apple’s shuffle found.

And even though I’m sure it didn’t, it feels like this song got a lot of play at the time.

Sitting in the sun, waiting for someone while listening to nice music is a wonderful way to spend a small part of your life.

(Especially back when I didn’t have a mobile phone – remember those days?)

Then we’d walk off and find somewhere for lunch – charcoal chicken and chips often – and sit down and talk.

About our days, about her work, about my uni, about our families, our friends and our plans for the weekend.

We’ve been together for nearly 20 years now, so it’s fascinating to me how those conversations would have gone, back when we didn’t know everything about each other.

In hindsight, we were kids, working out what the hell we were going to do and making plans – some came to fruition, many didn’t.

We were learning about each other and ourselves, over $7.50 combos of chicken, chips and a coke.

If lunch hadn’t taken too long, we’d go back to our bench and sit until she had to return to work.

Very occasionally we’d sit there and share the headphones, listening to songs that we liked / had heard / had discovered.

And it feels like for a few weeks there, for a few listens, this was the song we’d play.

Which is why this song – this nice, throwaway, meaningless song about breaking up – forms part of my memory of that time.

Of two kids.

Listening to music, sitting in the sun.

And waiting.