“This is the day your life will surely change”

After a long week of working on final papers and dealing with bureaucratic crap involving the state of Illinois, the city of Burbank and Chase bank, I drove back from my Grandmother’s empty house, having just scrapped an orange pre-tow notice from my car window, having, prior to discovering that violation, waxed pointlessly nostalgic about how, 30 years ago, I walked the same streets on my way back from St. Albert’s school where my aunt’s dog, Fluffy, was waiting.

(Can you tell I started reading Proust?)

I get home, eat cereal and look over the last draft of my paper, stay up late doing so and watching, once I was done, a rerun of The Simpsons I’ve seen countless times. During one of the commercial breaks, I hear a familiar tune which I place as “This is the Day” by The The. I could be wrong, but I think it was a commercial for M and M’s. I was never a huge The The fan, but I like a lot of what they did, though clearly not enough to replace my lost copy of Mind Bomb. I was always a bit leery of admitting that I was even a casual fan, as Johnny Marr was their guitar player and his connection The Smiths always troubled me (even though I had a copy of Meat is Murder stashed all clandestine in the back of cassette collection).

Hearing that song, even in such an inglorious setting, made me all weepy (damn memory), but in a good way. I really had a lousy week, though I got to see family and finish school (for the next few weeks at least). Anyway, I need that song. And a few others, which I’ll list now:

“This is the Day” – The The (claro।)

“That’s Entertainment” – The Jam (claro claro.)

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” – Joy Division (a song I have spent money on countless times. I’ve bought the best of Joy Division twice already and I always lose the CD.)

“Killing Moon” – Echo and the Bunnymen (this is turning into a real Donnie Darko CD.)

“Fallen Angel” – King Crimson (Because Peyton used to play it at top volume when he was painting in the crappy dorm room adjacent to mine and it always awed me.)

“Ruby’s Arms” – Tom Waits (can you believe I don’t have this anymore? It’s the saddest song I’ve ever heard, a real heart wrencher.)

“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” – Leonard Cohen (an essential for those 2 AM, half drunk, poorly spent nights of folly gazing out the window, smoking and sipping the last swallow of pinot noir and feeling stupidly poetic, then writing, then waking and reading what you wrote and seeing how full of shit you are.)

“Up the Junction” – Squeeze (Somehow I lost my copy of the singles collection. This and “Cool for Cats” are important must haves.)

The first person to get me all those songs on a mix CD wins a prize।