True / Spandau Ballet (1983)
"True" is an essential soundtrack item for being nine years old in the summer of 1983, where it constantly played on the radio at Charlotte Swim and Racket Club. I knew nothing about the song except its melody and ubiquity; I was still a year away from tuning into Z-100 on my own, all day, every day.
I was in high school before I rediscovered "True" on the jukebox at The Honey Bee diner in Glen Burnie, where my best friend Eileen and I would eat fries, drink coffee, and chainsmoke Camel Lights (still legal to smoke indoors and underage in 1990-91). Playing "True" was the first order of business every time we went there. I don't recall anything else from that jukebox, but "True" was an early experience of the hold musical nostalgia has over me.
The lyrics of "True" evoke a school dance -- "Head over heels when toe to toe;" "With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue / dissolve the nerves that have just begun / listening to Marvin all night long." My close friend from college, Jon, is a few years older than me, and the difference between being nine and being thirteen when a pop song gets famous may as well be the Columbia River Gorge. The preppy girls at Jon's junior high school dance (I picture them in mint green Izod shirts) only wanted to slow-dance to "True." Jon was allowed to DJ the dance, and he did not indulge them. (I also suspect he was not asked back as DJ.)
Another line references Humbert Humbert's childhood love, Annabel Leigh (herself an allusion to Poe): "Take your seaside arms and write the next line." Nostalgia upon nostalgia. Here's a little piece from the songwriters themselves if you'd like to know more. I listened to the audiobook of Lolita thirteen times in a row during my work commutes in 2011-2012, and the first time I heard "True" afterwards, I googled to confirm that the adjective "seaside" was influenced by Nabokov. I love that kind of synchronicity.
I was in high school before I rediscovered "True" on the jukebox at The Honey Bee diner in Glen Burnie, where my best friend Eileen and I would eat fries, drink coffee, and chainsmoke Camel Lights (still legal to smoke indoors and underage in 1990-91). Playing "True" was the first order of business every time we went there. I don't recall anything else from that jukebox, but "True" was an early experience of the hold musical nostalgia has over me.
The lyrics of "True" evoke a school dance -- "Head over heels when toe to toe;" "With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue / dissolve the nerves that have just begun / listening to Marvin all night long." My close friend from college, Jon, is a few years older than me, and the difference between being nine and being thirteen when a pop song gets famous may as well be the Columbia River Gorge. The preppy girls at Jon's junior high school dance (I picture them in mint green Izod shirts) only wanted to slow-dance to "True." Jon was allowed to DJ the dance, and he did not indulge them. (I also suspect he was not asked back as DJ.)
Another line references Humbert Humbert's childhood love, Annabel Leigh (herself an allusion to Poe): "Take your seaside arms and write the next line." Nostalgia upon nostalgia. Here's a little piece from the songwriters themselves if you'd like to know more. I listened to the audiobook of Lolita thirteen times in a row during my work commutes in 2011-2012, and the first time I heard "True" afterwards, I googled to confirm that the adjective "seaside" was influenced by Nabokov. I love that kind of synchronicity.
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