Music of the Day, 9 October 2024

shake the freeze from your insides

Wow, I’ve gone much longer than I predicted almost a month ago. To be fair, it hasn’t taken much discipline: the radio station in my mind has its own … er, mind, so my expectations of it are rarely met.

Today’s MotD popped up primarily in the form of the song’s jangly guitar riff, which I can’t get enough of. I know Nada Surf is considered alternative rock, but I’m not sure that adjective applies to this song. What do you think?

Moon Mirror is only the second album from Nada Surf that I own, so I can’t say I’m deeply familiar with their sound. To me, “X Is You” sounds a little heavier and rocks harder than most tracks that immediately come to mind. The opening music—Ira Elliott’s insistent, shuffling drums, Louie Lino’s propulsive keyboard chords, and Daniel Lorca’s weighty bass—is a great scaffold for Matthew Caws’ vocals and the aforementioned guitar.

The lyrics are lighter than those of “In Front of Me Now,” but for me they’re equally affecting, just in a different way. When I first saw the title of “X Is You,” I flashed back to junior-high algebra class and the mysteries of solving for x.¹ Spoiler: that allusion is absent from the song, but I can’t shake it. I also recall “riding [my] first bike”. At a time when most kids were transitioning from the ape-hanger handlebars on their first bike to the half-circle drop handlebars on their 10-speeds, I was riding a tarted-up² incarnation of my mom’s ancient, heavy bike,³ which her dad had fixed up and given to me.

Between those memories, the upbeat encouragement to shake the trouble from our eyes, and Caws’ unexpected but fun inflection on “there are no mistakes,” “X Is You” takes me to a happy place I didn’t know existed in my mind these days. I’d listened to it several times this morning, then got pulled away by work before I could start composing this missive.

I’m sure my tally is close to 20 repetitions today and my smile hasn’t faded. I know I’m unusual in that regard, but I hope that listening to “X Is You” gets you to at least “halfway great”.

1. which was probably the first time I had difficulty with a course, but my teacher’s empathy helped offset that

2. I had grips with streamers coming out of them, and chose a purple metal-flake paint for the beast

3. I could have been embarrassed by the hand-me-down, but I adored that bike because no one else could get one like it (it probably also significantly increased my leg strength)