Let me just say that, since the Decemberists didn’t put out a record this year, there’ll be no ranking. And since there is no ranking, there is no need to go higher than 5. Here are my top 5 records of 2007, in no particular order:

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Gogol Bordello – Super Taranta
Rilo Kiley – Under the Blacklight
Voxtrot – Voxtrot
Travis – The Boy with No Name

There were plenty of other good ones (play some here), but I had each of these on heavy rotation on my IPod for weeks. To please my list-making self, I also wrote a quick one for Esquire’s December issue, listing 20 great tracks that people should have heard in 2007. This is one playlist I’m proud of. Enjoy.

1. Voxtrot – Firecracker
2. Gogol Bordello – Wonderlust king
3. The Decemberists – Culling of the fold
4. Rilo Kiley – Silver lining
5. Bright Eyes – If the brakeman turns my way
6. The National – Mistaken for strangers
7. Travis – My eyes
8. Band Of Horses – No one’s gonna love you
9. The New Pornographers – Challengers
10. Hallelujah the Hills – Hallelujah the hills
11. The Avett Brothers – Die die die
12. Of Montreal – Heimdalsgate like a Promethean curse
13. The Good, The Bad & The Queen – History song
14. The Broken West – On the bubble
15. The Arcade Fire – Intervention
16. Okkervil River – Our life is not a movie or maybe
17. brakesbrakesbrakes – If I should die tonight
18. Modest Mouse – Dashboard
19. The Shins – Turn on me
20. Bloc Party – Hunting for witches

The noFX concert was held in an absolutely disastrous open air sit-down venue. A punk rock show. In an open-air amphitheater. I’m always happy to see big bands in Bucharest, but if the promoters think the name of the band is enough for a memorable experience, they’re mistaken. Lame, unforgivable and pathetic.

I’m waiting for my Decemberists to take the stage in Vienna in two weeks. That’s going to be a real show. Great band, great crowd and most likely, an appropriate venue. See you there. I’ve got three extra tickets

I’ve been tortured by concert speakers before, but the warm butter way in which the violin layered itself over the bass sent chills down my spine. People all around me were waving their arms in the air and jumping, their feet touching the pavement for just enough bounce to leap again. This muggy Bucharest May night was the perfect backdrop for Gogol Bordello to rip into “Immigrant punk“, their wonderful track about alienation.

Music has often been a solitary experience for me, a personal exile I craved to share with others, but rarely could. On that night, bobbing, bumping and bruising with my friends, it was no longer just mine. As the band sang “Immigrant punk,” I remember grabbing Tibi and Jo, who had suspended themselves on the guardrail, by the shoulders and kissing them on the head. (Luiza was next, and Lavi must have received similar treatment at some point during the show.)

On stage, Eugene Hutz sang:

Of course we immigrants wanna sing all night long
Don’t you know the singing saves the troubled soul?

Yes, Gogol Bordello is a fun band and their Bucharest gig was an awesome concert. But this post isn’t (just) about them.

A couple of weeks back I was rushing home from the neighborhood supermarket hauling a vacuum cleaner. I had just had an air conditioning unit installed and I had debris all over my rug. The men who installed it had a horrid fight with my super (too pretentious a designation for the Romanian equivalent but I’ll go with it) and the two parties even traded threats like “Go hang yourself,” “I’ll head-butt you in the mouth,” or “I’ll slap you with the back of my hand and you’ll go to sleep for five minutes.”

Social hysteria aside, as I started sucking up the dust I realized that the AC unit, along with the new fridge and stove that I had bought a few days before, was more than just a shiny addition to my Bucharest apartment. It was one of those pathetic cries for permanence that some people—me for instance—answer by buying domestic appliances.

I say this because everything is still about being ‘here’ as opposed to ‘there.’ Everything is still about no longer being a visitor. Everything is still about re-claiming the idea of home. Everything is still about being in control of a new, yet familiar, reality.

One of the saddest things I have come to realize is that all of the above are my responsibility and I have to do all this (largely) by myself.

You see, I blush when people mention the United States because I perk up no matter how disconnected from the conversation I might have been. And it’s not because I’m one of those “America is the land of honey and milk” preachers; it’s because for a long time America was home. So when people want to talk about the reality I’m familiar with, I start buzzing. “Yes, please please please please. Let’s talk about America. What can I tell you? Is there anything you want to know? Can I tell you something even though you might not care?”

I told Lavi I’m still largely a visitor being shown around the streets on Bucharest. Sure, I know those streets like my back pockets, but they are not my streets (yet). They are their streets and I follow their lead. And what’s most irritating is that I can’t show them MY streets, can’t have them drink in my bars, sleep in my bed, use my toothpaste (or even my toothbrush), or go to my concerts.

I will soon own these streets myself and I will become one of them. But they will never become one of me because they never experienced my reality with me. I know it’s childish (and corny) to think I’m losing something of my American experience by not being able to convey it to others, but I feel this deeply.

The childish kisses I gave my friends Friday were both an acceptance of this natural process of loss and a small thank you note for the work they do as guides.

There is a Bright Eyes song (music talks about a lot of things) that says:

All your friends and sedatives mean well, but make it worse
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out

I think I know what that means, or at least I know what it means to me. I “leveled out” as Eugene Hutz and Gogol Bordello crashed on the heads of a couple of thousand screaming Romanians at Arenele Romane.

I might not be “home” yet, but I don’t feel like a transient gypsy anymore.

Somehow, on a muggy night, at an outdoor rock show in Bucharest, I have traded transience for permanence.

And such.

Can you see us? Sure you can–we’re on the bottom left of the screen, where the yellow shirt becomes illuminated about 11 seconds in. Yes, I’m the one wearing yellow.

I was never one to appreciate music for production value, innovation, legacy and all the other attributes of “great legends.” I am of a more simple mind. If it moves me, I will embrace it and love it. If it doesn’t, it’ll fail.

That said, nothing has really ever moved me as much as Colin Meloy and The Decemberists. This post serves multiple functions: it’s an appreciation of the band, it’s a call for people to come to Vienna and see them live in September and it’s my own private form of exorcism.

My brother in arms
I’d rather I’d lose my limbs
Than let you come to harm
(The soldiering life)

The spring of 2005 was beautiful. I had my own little apartment in Columbia, Mo., which I had decorated with all sorts of second hand and vintage furniture picked out from Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I used to wake up to the sounds of National Public Radio, stroll along the living room barefoot, and yawn in terror at the hours I’d have to devote to reporting and editing. The projects I worked on that spring, including my master’s project, won’t be matched for a quite while. I really wasn’t doing much but being a journalist and loving it. I still do that occasionally, but there was something special about those days.

I fell on the playing field
The work of an errant heel
The din of the crowd and the loud commotion
Went deafening silence and stopped emotion
(The sporting life)

My master’s project required that I write a short weekly journal detailing how my work was going. As I always do when I’m assigned to write something that is not for publication, I made it highly personal. My journals then were a struggle to define my work and the vision I had for my journalism. As corny as some of them sound, it was some of the most honest writing I have ever done. There was so much passion in every journal entry that I wonder how (and when) can I bring it all back. I wrote:

What is journalism? This question has been racing through my brain for a couple of weeks and it popped up every five seconds during a recent Missourian brainstorm meeting on the Islam story. As we went around the table, we were not only talking about various angles, ideas and approaches to the story – we were sharing and debating our definitions of journalism, our ways of telling stories.

Let me back up a little.

I have been searching for a personal definition of journalism for close to six years now. What is the goal and purpose of MY journalism? Yes, there is the mission of the profession as a whole, but whether we are conscious or not, we all have a way of interpreting and applying it. My journalism has slowly, but surely, pushed me in the direction of explanation, telling the story of the story, tackling ideas not events, having people stand in for phenomena.

All I heard was a shout
of your brother calling me out
and you ran like a fool to my side
and the shot it hit hard
and your frame went limp in my arms
and a lull of love was your dying cry
(O Valencia)

How easy it all seems when the only question that plagues your day is: “What is journalism?” Did I find an answer? Not a final one, but I did find a working definition:

What is journalism? Journalism is the ability and the opportunity to share stories of the world and the people in it with those around you.

It’s not perfect yet, but I can live with it for now. The key word is sharing. As a journalist, one has the opportunity to immerse in a phenomenon or someone’s life. He probably influenced it just as much as it influences him. And he brings back a story that hopefully explains the world a little better. (…)

Here’s an image. Journalism can be a tennis ball: fast, easy to handle, easy to look at and easy to discard. But what if journalism was a gigantic Earth shaped sphere? It would be slow, complicated, hard to handle but hard to forget about and ignore. And then a good story gives it the needed push and once it’s in motion, one can’t take their eyes off it. Every few rolls something else catches your eye and you make note of it going “wow.” The imagery changes, the speed varies and the experience is profound.

And we’ll remember this when we are old and ancient
Though the specifics might be vague
And I’ll say your camisole was a sprightly light magenta
When in fact it was a nappy bluish grey
(July, July)

So what does all this have to do with The Decemberists you ask. Everything. First of all, it was in the spring of 2005 that I heard a song that broke my heart. It was called “We both go down together” and it was about two lovers committing suicide by jumping of “the cliffs of Dover.” The song was by was off their recently released “Picaresque,” which was the best record I’ve heard that year. Second of all, the Decemberists did with music what I wanted to do with journalism–they told intensely personal stories. On Picaresque they had the feel of medieval Gothic ballads set to slow strumming guitars, violins, mandolins and what have you. They were songs of death, fear, tragedy, but played in an oddly upbeat, yet appropriate way.

Here on these cliffs of Dover
So high you can’t see over
And while your head is spinning
Hold tight, it’s just beginning
(We both go down together)

I’m not ashamed to admit I discovered the Decemberists late (they started in 2001 and had produced plenty of music before “Picaresque”). I’m not ashamed because I embraced them so completely that I felt I never skipped a beat of their existence. Almost everything you read about the Decemberists will talk about Colin Meloy and his lyrics. The man loves big words, loves tragic stories, and loves performing them.

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise
Seraphim and seaweed swim where stick-limbed Myla lies
(Song for Myla Golberg)

I saw them the first time in Washington, DC and I loved it. The Decemberists are a soft band, they don’t “rock” in the traditional way. But the way the throw themselves into their more up tempo material is riveting and addictive. I left buzzing, wanting more–more stories, more songs, more of this experience. Here is the thing with a good story, or rather with how I react to one. My knees go weak, my heart starts racing and my mind starts screaming and running in circles. It engulfs, enthuses me and brings out unrelenting joy. I have a hard time explaining that I can divorce content from execution and intent. Tell me a sob story in which children die from cancer and I will sit there teary eyed and joyous. Because it was beautiful, because it did real life justice, because it taught me something valuable and it made me feel more connected to the world. Take the lyrics I treasure most from the Decemberists (see below). To me, the words of “Engine driver” speak to the need of telling the stories of your life and the lives of others–as a way of exorcising pain and pleasure, but also as a way to give something to the world.

And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I’ve written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
(Engine driver)

There is one more aspect to telling stories. Good stories can make you feel differently depending on the context. I married most bands to the context I discovered them in. I have a hard time separating The Arcade Fire from the small venue I first saw them in. Something Corporate will always conjure the smell of screaming teenagers smelling like vanilla. Guster will always be a road-trip soundtrack. When I brought the Decemberists to Romania in the summer of 2006, “We both go together” played and mean different things. So did “Engine driver.” And it is here that I first heard “O Valencia” and their latest album, “The Crane Wife.”

So be kind to your mother, though she may seem an awful bother,
and the next time she tries to feed you collard greens,
Remember what she does when you’re asleep.
(A cautionary song)

Before I left America, I went to two Decemberists shows back to back in Boston (no. 3 and 4). The first one was good, but my friend wasn’t fully into it, so we sat to the side, taking in the songs and the joyous crowd (both shows were sold out). But the second night I went up front to scream and sing my heart out. That night I kept thinking about leaving, thinking about the times I had in the US, the stories I heard and told, and the stories I will hear and tell in Romania. I was sad and overjoyed at the same time. It’s this time of one’s life when the Decemberists work best. They are an outlet for sadness and a tremendous source of joy.

I stepped out of the Avalon into the last snow of the season with tears in my eyes. As I slowly walked towards the subway, I couldn’t help repeating the mantra of one of the band’s closers, “Sons and daughters.” Somewhere, in an evil world, an unkind life, a bad day, the dark clouds will part. And as tragedy fades, joy eventually sets in. The Decemberists know that. It’s their story and it’s my story. And if you think about it a little, it’s your story, too.

See you in Vienna.

When we arrive, sons & daughters
We’ll make our homes on the water
We’ll build our walls of aluminum
We’ll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
(Sons and Daughters)

PS: Here is a Decemberists “best of,” fitting perfectly on an 80 minute CD. If assembling that sounds like too much work, stream the band at Hype-Machine or on their website.

1. The Decemberists – The crane wife 3 (4:20)
2. The Decemberists – The soldiering life (3:48)
3. The Decemberists – The sporting life (4:40)
4. The Decemberists – O Valencia (3:45)
5. The Decemberists – July, July (2:53)
6. The Decemberists – Summersong (3:27)
7. The Decemberists – Oceanside (3:29)
8. The Decemberists – Los Angeles, I’m yours (4:16)
9. The Decemberists – The engine driver (4:17)
10. The Decemberists – We both go down together (3:06)
11. The Decemberists – The chimbley sweep (2:53)
12. The Decemberists – Here I dreamt I was an architect (4:29)
13. The Decemberists – Red right ankle (3:29)
14. The Decemberists – A cautionary song (3:08)
15. The Decemberists – Sixteen military wives (4:54)
16. The Decemberists – Eli, the barrow boy (3:13)
17. The Decemberists – Song for Myla Goldberg (3:33)
18. The Decemberists – The mariner’s revenge song (8:47)
19. The Decemberists – Sons and daughters (5:13)

My tendency to plan, structure and organize stuff has been mocked by many. It lost me numerous romantic opportunities (how does one plan a one-night stand?!). While it got me jobs and assignments, it also probably made a lot of workmates insane. Someone once told me that I’m unable to live the moment because I’m busy thinking about what will follow. Hey, that’s just how it goes. You can’t control the moment, but you can have tons of fun controlling your ideas of the future (even though you can’t control the actual future).

The planner and organizer in me has just completed a gigantic project. For the past three months I have been cleaning, organizing, sorting and tagging my collection of digital music. I started with some 40 CDs of MP3s files, most of which benefited from little to no tags (the file names had been clean though). Today, my IPod claims to have some 7,367 songs and other audio files on it. All have ID tags for most if not any of the following fields: title, artist, album, year, genre.

I won’t go into detail–suffice to say this: if I had only a couple of songs from band X then I did not try to find the exact album name or year; I just put the band’s name in the album field (I am not that anal). But album’s are well tagged. I used the trusted and awesome Mp3tag.

The main reason I did this is because Ipod’s are miserable at reading file names. They need proper tags unless you want your screen to say you are listening to “No Artist-No Title.” Uploading about 40 gigabytes of music onto my machine took more than 4 hours.

Boy is this baby ready to rock.

Curious what tracks correspond to a certain number? According to WinAmp, my trusted music player, here are some highlights:

17. 3 Doors Down – I feel you
69. ab4 – So away
666. Beirut – The long island sound
1000. Bright Eyes – Classic cars
3003. Hallelujah the Hills – To all my scientist colleagues I bid you farewell
4573. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the aeroplane over the sea
5000. Papa Roach – Broken home
7367. Zwan – Settle down

Leaving America will probably trigger all types of regrets and bouts of nostalgia, but I’m determined to stay positive at least until I take my window seat on the plane out of Boston (There is a song by The Frames that says: “Too many sad words make for sad sad songs”).

I wanted to find a way–even if unremarkable and inconsequential–to chronicle this parting. This is why the next few posts will be devoted to my 43 months in America (coincidentally 43 is a popular number on the Internets). Come back soon for a photo-chronicle, a list of 43 albums I’ve enjoyed in my time here and 43 things I know I will miss about being here.

Below you’ll find the latest of my quarterly “American months” playlists. Because there will be no 44th American month, this one is called 43 American months. The links will take you to a band’s MySpace page.

1. The Broken West – On the bubble
2. Dear Leader – This is not our war
3. Bloc Party – Hunting for witches
4. MC Lars – Hipster girl
5. Bright Eyes – Four winds
6. I’m From Barcelona – Rec & play
7. Hallelujah The Hills – Hallelujah the hills
8. The Shins – Phantom limb
9. The Frames – Sad songs
10. Dear Leader – Father Baker
11. The Good, The Bad & The Queen – Kingdom of doom
12. Youth Group – Sorry
13. The Broken West – Down in the valley
14. The Arcade Fire – Keep the car running
15. Peter Bjorn and John – Young folks
16. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Emily Jean Stock
17. Lily Allen – Everything’s just wonderful
18. Youth Group – Forever young
19. M. Ward – To go home
20. Apples In Stereo – Can you feel it?
21. The Greencards – When I was in love with you
22. The Snowleopards – Stuck in the middle
23. The Arcade Fire – The well and the lighthouse

The article, published November 25 was promoting a show the band was going to play the following week in Columbia, Mo.

The last quote in the article was from front-man and lyricist Win Butler, who was describing the live experience.

It is just so unpredictable. If you come thinking you’ll get one thing, then there will be people with their arms folded. Come with an open mind, and you’ll get an experience.

I was intrigued. The promise of an experience, combined with Butler’s idea of an ideal band (Marlon Brando on drums, Cap’n Crunch on the congos, Peter Frampton on guitar, early Salt-N-Pepa doing a dance scene with The Fly Girls, and Roy Orbison as the vocalist) sold me on the show.

That’s how I decided go see a band called The Arcade Fire play MoJo’s in Columbia, Missouri on November 30, 2004.

Today (March 6, 2007), the band released their second album, “Neon Bible,” a wonderful and grandiose piece of music. I will not talk about that record (others have done a much better job) but I will use this opportunity for a little reflection.

In November 2004, The Arcade Fire sold out MoJo’s, which fits about 300 people. Today they sell out huge concert halls and stadiums within minutes. The buzz about them had started in 2004, but if you were not paying attention to music festivals such as CMJ, they weren’t anywhere near the radio, MTV or Rolling Stone. They were so small, in fact, that they were interviewed for that story I read in Vox Magazine. Today they grace four pages in the New York Times Magazine or the New Yorker.

I paid $8 to get into that show and I left sweaty and elated. The opening bands had dragged on too long and I was getting tired. But when the Arcade Fire came on to unleash a torrent of energy on a convoluted array of instruments from violins to motorcycle helmets, I was hooked. Instruments were being tossed in the air, band members were drumming on each other’s heads or the ceiling, and the crowd was ecstatic. Today, you hear people referring to an Arcade Fire concert experience as “cathartic.” I know where that’s coming from. (I couldn’t find pictures of that show, but here’s some from another gig on that fall 2004 tour)

I’m still debating whether I should go try to go see them at Glastonbury this summer. I love their music just as much as I did after I gave “Funeral” its first spin. But I know that the intimacy of that night in Missouri is unique–so unique that I don’t want to layer other memories on top of it.

Update (a little later in the day): If you’re curious how the Arcade Fire sounded live back in 2004, check out this recording from their Boston show.

PS: Remembering your musical past is fun–I recently reviewed a book that does just that (yes, it’s about how indie rock saved John Sellers’ life).

Snow, sleet and rain tore through the city earlier, turning it into the perfect humid wonderland for all couples graciously saving the economy tonight. But I’m not bitter—slush can be quite inspiring.

As I trudged home through puddles up to my ankles, my mind was busy playing the chorus of Dear Leader’s Father Baker:

Don’t you know the lake is frozen
There you are you forgot your coat again
We’re spinning in your car on an icy road in Buffalo

I remember talking to Davy Rothbart of FOUND Magazine once about how the littlest of information in a lost note is enough for you to imagine someone’s life. It’s the same with this song—there is so much intimacy in the second verse. Not only did he or she forget their coat, but they are know for being careless, known for walking straight through slush and shrugging it off. After all, they are the wild child spinning their car on an icy road in Buffalo.

I was yelling these lyrics out last Friday night at their show, foolishly hoping that my coarse voice, which always breaks midway through any chorus, will get me there—coat or no coat. And then, when my feet were planted in this magical land where responsibilities are a fireside joke, I would mumble the opening of the song to remind myself that I had made it:

You stole the car with your parents asleep
Stupid kids do stupid things
Joy riding and aching to be
On our way to heartbreak street

This story is about cars, heartbreak, and—as always—embarrassment.

Before I actually started hanging out with real women, there was Laura. Laura was my first girlfriend, albeit an imaginary one (and no Mirela back in second grade does not count because despite my unrelenting desire, we did little else but hold hands during a school trip to the glass-making factory).

I “met” Laura when I was about 12 or 13 and let me tell you that meeting an imaginary girlfriend is hard. They don’t just pop up at school, or at work, or giggling with friends at the neighborhood dive bar. No, you meet imaginary girlfriends in all sorts of sleazy corners of your own imagination. It was a dark night when I met Laura—as dark as an asshole, as Celine would say—and my dad was driving our family back home from a visit to some relatives in a town about one hour away.

There is a hill right outside this town and I decided it made perfect sense that Laura, who was also 12 or 13, would be standing out there at night (what?!), hitching a ride back to her hometown, which of course was the same as mine.

Of course my dad picked her up and we sat in the backseat happy to have found each other. I have no idea what this Laura looked like, but I can guarantee you that she was the hottest imaginary 12 or 13 year-old living in Transylvania in the early 1990s. She must have told me pretty stories in that hour’s drive because here I am remembering our trip, more than a decade later.

Yes, we saw each other for a while after that, too. We had to fit it around our school schedule, so most of our encounters happened at night. In my bed. She was usually a pillow draped in a banana-green pillow case and we often made out furiously for about 2 minutes or so. I told her what a good kisser she was and she naturally said that it was me that made her a good kisser. I told her she was twice as awesome as ice cream, and she bit my nose and told me I was twice as smart as her entire family combined.

I vaguely remember that we did not consummate our torrid affair, probably because we thought of each other as being too pure for carnal endeavors. That, or I had come to my senses and decided that it’s one thing to kiss your pillow, and a whole other to hump it in the name of love.

We eventually broke up and I promise you that we have not seen each other since. There were three other imaginary girlfriends before I turned 16, but those were invented to impress others. Laura had been just for me.

When I eventually met a flesh and blood Laura years later (it was snowing, but it was not at night on top of a hill with my dad driving), it’s possible a great deal of my affection for her was prompted by her name alone.

It’s one particular moment in this period of my life that I remembered tonight as I was deftly trying to avoid a puddle only to step into another one (I am famously clumsy). I was talking on the phone at the same time and the friend at the other end was chiding me for not acknowledging the “coffee cup” Facebook gift she sent me as a joke earlier in the day. But I did acknowledge it, I protested.

I even sent a reply, I told her.

I didn’t get it, she said.

Maybe I sent it to somebody else then, I replied.

And that’s when it all came back.

I occasionally send really long e-mails that say nothing but are heavy on words (like this post for example). Well, in a Freudian slip back in 2002 I typed in the wrong e-mail address for the flesh and blood Laura, sending the message to a Hotmail account, instead of a Yahoo one.

I don’t have that e-mail anymore, but what I do have is a reply from this other Laura that received my message. I was living in Romania at the time so my e-mail was written in Romanian (it also probably included lyrics from Marilyn Manson). But the reply, written in all CAPS, was in English. This Laura had the same last name as the intended recipient so it probably means that she left Romania when she was young. Thus, even though she seemed to have deciphered the message, she wasn’t proficient enough to reply in Romanian.

Here is that e-mail in its entirety–I have converted it lower case to spare you the shouting:

I recieved your letter, and can read most of it and understand it. Yet, can you please send me another letter telling me exactly who you are? Please….i’m very sure who you are but let me know. And let me know what you/we should do about this important situation. This summer i will have some time off school, i want to do some traveling.

Can you please write back so we can arrange something?

This has been one of the most touching letters i’ve ever read…it was beautiful and makes my soul cry.

I’m sorry…

I don’t know what else to say, except for, we have a lot of talking to do. And if possible could you possibly write back in english. It would be easier for me to understand.

Laura

I never made anyone’s soul cry before or after. I also never replied to the mysterious Laura as I felt I had done enough damage with my „touching letter.” I don’t know if her travels were fruitful, nor do I know whether she found a solution to „this important situation.”

Still, I decided to dedicate this post to her. I hope that (whoever and wherever she is), she is happy today. I like to imagine her having a happy Valentine’s Day next to a guy who hums lyrics from Bon Savants’ „Between the moon and the ocean” into her ear.

Uh-oh, Uh-oh
You kiss like a Russian
Uh-oh, Uh-oh
We sank so low between the moon and the ocean
Uh-oh, Uh-oh

The hit? The star-crossed lovers tale of “O, Valencia” of course. (look for the video here)

Can I please take credit for blasting this song way back in October? Thank you.