Monday Music: Under the Milky Way

[jlh]

By starting with two songs that can bear a lot of analysis, I may have set up the wrong impression for these posts. Sometimes, I'm just going to say, "it sounds really cool." Other times, like today, I'll say something that doesn't have much to do with the song itself, and so with "Under the Milky Way" by The Church.

But let's start with the song. Most of my friends know that I'm a soft touch for acoustic guitar rock; something about a strong melody on top of jangling chords and a good beat gets to me every time. It has a great hook that makes you want to sing along, a lovely harmony in the chorus, and the general atmosphere fits the dreamlike lyrics perfectly.

"Under the Milky Way" was released when I was a freshman in college, a period when I was listening to a lot of what's now called "alternative" music, but then called "college" music because it was played on college music stations. Boston being such a college town, it had a commercial station in that format—WFNX—which was so popular that often when we moved into our dorm rooms we would first set up the stereo where it would get the strongest signal from up on the north shore in Lynn. In the 80s, a lot of what was alternative in the US was on the top of the charts elsewhere, especially the UK—The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, even U2 until Unforgettable Fire. So despite "Under the Milky Way" being more of an alternative hit in the US, everyone I knew was familiar with it.

At the time I was busily taking all my core courses, you know, the stuff that's supposed to make you a well-rounded scholar or whatever, and the class that had been devised for us humanities types who didn't really want to take a real science class with all the insane pre-med people and wreck our average was The Astronomical Perspective. It was a fantastic class, a year long, blending history of science with the hard numerical stuff, so we were learning about how scientific progress happens within the culture at the same time we were triangulating stars from the roof of the Science Center.

On one of the nights we were out observing, this country girl was more interested in the Boston city lights than the stars above, which by my Maine standards weren't all that great. And then a fellow student said, "I don't understand that song, 'Under the Milky Way'. How can we be under it if we're in it?" I turned and asked if he grew up in a city—he said he did, in New York—and I said he should get out more, because of course you can see the Milky Way. Only something visible to the naked eye would have a name like the Milky Way; otherwise our galaxy would be called Andromeda or something.

So now this pretty little pop song, with its jangling guitars and EBow solo and cryptic lyrics and lovely, lovely harmonies reminds me of being a little pipsqueak freshman, standing on a rooftop in Cambridge, looking down at the city lights and up at the stars.

The Church: Under the Milky Way
Buy the song at iTunes
Buy the CD at Amazon

Comments

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Halley's comet always makes me think of Mark Twain. I saw it from home, of course, as I was still in high school; Dad had a small telescope he'd bought when Sky Lab was falling, and I remember some night when I was a kid when you could see all the planets at once, and so all the neighbors were at our house using the telescope off the porch.