Dear Diary:I’ve been obsessed with the Dirty Projectors’ song “Remade Horizon” since it came out in 2009. It’s one of the few songs I keep permanently downloaded on my phone, so I don’t need Wi-Fi when I want to hear it.
When the mood strikes — and it often does — I press play, and there it is: a strange, beautiful bit of art pop with a wild passage at the end where two women’s voices trade off notes so quickly it sounds like one instrument.
Some years after first hearing the song, I moved from Dallas to the Lower East Side. Not long after that, I was at my favorite neighborhood bar, talking with my favorite bartender, Kayla, when her two roommates walked in. They joined us, and I ended up chatting with one of them, Haley, who took the stool next to mine. I asked the usual New York question: “So, what brought you here?”
“Oh,” she said, “I moved to Brooklyn to sing with a band.”
“Would I have heard of them?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “They’re called Dirty Projectors.”
I didn’t say anything, just pulled out my phone, opened my music library and turned the screen toward her so she could see the title: “Remade Horizon.”
“Are you on this track?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, as if it were nothing.
It turned out that the voice I had been hearing for more than a decade leaping through that final passage belonged to the woman now sitting next to me.
We became friends, and I still have “Remade Horizons” on my phone. Now, when it comes on during a crowded subway ride, New York feels exactly like the place I wanted it to be when I moved here.
— Steve Crozier
I'm sorry -- and I say this not out of New York City chauvinism -- but that is like the coolest story I have ever heard.
P.S.: Here's the song in question.
Heh.
truly, as lawrence berra might easily have said, "you never know when something surprising might happen"
ReplyDeleteI listened a few times to the recording. Not much of a song underneath the fun production.
ReplyDeleteCaptain Al
The song doesn't do it for me particularly either, but it's still a very sweet story.
ReplyDeleteUpon urging by younger generation, have diligently tried to like the Dirty Projectors. Captain Al spot on. Too clever and self-satisfied by half. Story is great - true fandom.
ReplyDeleteSweet story. Much nicer than the ones where people meet their hero and he's an a-hole. Some nice effects in this number, but I doubt that I would give it another spin- too deliberately eccentric.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I gave it another spin. The second half is much better than the first. I forgot that kids these days have been mainlining Kate Bush a/k/a She Who Can Do No Wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat's too cool a remembrance
ReplyDeleteI have friends who years ago played on most minor of parts on a record. Sometimes the record was good, oft times..That was always something they could hang their hat on. - rob 😉