This was a magnificent slow-dance song once upon a time, a perfect emotional conduit for suburban white children who think high school dating is the biggest problem facing the world at any given moment, which I mean lovingly, because I used to be one of those people. In fact, so perfect is this song that I'm going to give this video the "One More Try" treatment.
0:24: "Catch the last weekend / of the last week" is part of a nice lyrical theme throughout the song, which is repetition of key words from one line to the next. I'm not sure why, but it makes me feel...not any particular way. It just makes me feel.
0:50: Never in the history of humanity has one boy followed a girl--without her saying anything--off a beach, up a sand dune, into whatever that building is, and sat down to watch her open a box that probably has Jumanji inside. You know these kids are special because a normal boy would still be chucking rocks at seagulls down by the water.
0:55: Yes, that is the young Olivia Wilde on that card. Fun fact about the young Olivia Wilde: She was the female lead in Skin--the "His father is the district attorney!" show, which starts with her throwing Chris Evans into a pool. One of the best things I ever wrote was a 10-year retrospective on the 2003 MLB playoffs for Getting Blanked, which used Skin as a framing device, and in service of which article I watched the entire pilot episode of that selfsame failed Fox prime time soap, which was every bit as bad as you'd imagine. I'd link it here, but that piece perished forever when The Score shut down its blog empire last year, an event from which I haven't yet completely recovered.
0:57: Fake out. This song starts pretty slowly for how short it is.
1:02: "Crash the best one / of the best ones" there's that repetition again.
1:19: Finally, we get to the chorus, but we're still working up to the big climax. George Michael can start the song balls-out and keep it up for five minutes, but Chris Carrabba is not George Michael. Though Chris Carrabba does look like the midpoint between John Stamos and Jeff Gordon.
1:30: OH MY GOD JUST GET THERE ALREADY.
1:34: Chris Carrabba bounces around like his legs are made of bouncy balls filled with rocket fuel in this video. You know he's lip-synching because there's no way he could actually sing and/or play the guitar while doing jumping jacks.
1:37: Okay, so this is the part that makes the song. Or rather it's the introduction of the part that will make the song the next time it comes around. The key to the chorus is not just that it goes up the octave, which is musical shorthand for "I'm not fucking around anymore," but that you get that sublime emo screamy harmony part on top of the main melody, which adds an air of faint desperation because it's turned way down in the mix. I can hit the melody, but have not so far, in thousands of attempts while showering or driving, been successful in getting all the way up to the harmony part.
1:44: Black shirt, black pants, orange tie, Moe-from-Calvin and Hobbes haircut--that's classicTurn-of-the-Century Emo dress.
1:56: ...and we take it all the way back down to a mezzo-piano, so we can all get together for a moment that we all just collectively wrote a few stanzas of clumsily constructed poetry, folded up the paper, and slipped it through the vents in Ashley Feinberg's locker, in the hopes that maybe she'll realize you want to be more than just lab partners?
2:08: It's snowing now, for some reason.
2:15: Okay, this is where we get down to it for real. We get the persistent eighth notes on the strings and gradually build up, step by step, to the big finish. Y'all know how I love good crescendo, and this is a good crescendo.
2:22: Also, and I feel like this gets overlooked, "You have stolen my heart" is just such a sweet, uncomplicated and elegant expression of love. I think I'm starting to get a little choked up.
2:25: Here it comes...
2:32: "HEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA..."
2:34: (big drums)
2:35: For some reason, "I watch you spin around in your highest heels" always stuck with me. Also, notice the slide up to the high note and back down on "around," which can either feel like showing off or tossing out the last possible ounce of vocal strength because you feel so much you'll die and will no longer need your voice.
2:36: "...AAAAAAAAAAAA..."
2:37: "...AAAAAAAAAAAAA..."
2:38: "...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."
2:39: "You are the best one / of the best ones"
2:40: "...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."
2:41: "...AAAAAAART!"
2:49: YES. THAT'S THE STUFF.
2:59: BRING IT HOME, MY MAN.
Yeah, that's the top-notch emo power ballad shit.
