"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together". As a lyric for both music and life, I feel like Simon and Garfunkel
couldn't have captured the potency of youth, love, or adventure in a
more passionate or emphatic way. Cameron Crowe's use of it in Almost Famous
embedded the song in my own history, and ever since it's appeared time
and again, reinventing the meaning into adulthood. Starting with the
movie, its ideas and artistry wove through my teenage years and it
remains a foundational reminder of the things I truly love (though not
exclusively) today. Music is both a theme and character of the movie,
interacting with the protagonist, charging his actions, and
characterising relationships. Off-screen, the soundtrack has a similar
effect, to the extent that I know the words to each track and have
memories that are attached to those years. Each time I watch it, single
notes of music seemingly add to the dialogue, even where there is none
and these interactions are of powerful significance. On a personal level
the film seems to tell my parents' story too. The early seventies is
when they met, with my mother hitchhiking with a friend in the Irish
country, only to be picked up by two young Australians in their tiny
rental car. Their romance took them to Glasgow, where they lived
together, and Mum describes their weekends visiting different parts of
Scotland, with Simon and Garfunkel one of their albums of choice. Every
time I hear 'America', I imagine them driving, my mum sitting with her
toes against the dashboard and the window down. Decades on, in our era
of air-conditioning, 'America' carries on the journey of young lovers
again. When I think of how I met my man in a similarly random series of
events to my parents, the song is still a core reference. Even as things
have been creatively lacklustre the music and the movie have returned
again. Simon had never heard the soundtrack so last month we began
listening to it each night. Now there's another layer of memories
furnishing the home we make within ourselves, decorated with music, and
with us for life. And here, in our physical home.
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