What comes up around midnight remains wherever they are meant to stay. We retain those we want to remember and we cherish those we know we live through. I cannot explain everything the song did the past few years (save your comments about the album), apart from quite an impressive move into a more atmospheric sound a la M83, or the likes.
Let me try if I can dissect the entire song lyrics and give better meaning to this song. Welcome to your midnight run of The Maccabees, everyone!
Outside of the window
I was sticking with you
We were only kids then
We’d get soaked right throughWe used to tell them
I was staying at yours
Sheltered in our own worlds
We’d watch the rain right through
Ever thought of those rainy summer nights when you do sleepovers to a friend’s place, or your’s? Often you end up until lunch-time or even extending your stay up to another day. You and your friend(s) build this world where all you have are your own terms and everything. Just watching movies, or board games, or just listen to music while doing backyard camping, stargazing. You get your breaks where your mum will call you for meals and you jump right back into your world.
Such memory.
Loving woman, loving man
Here for you doing the best we can
Hard to figure, hard to bare
Hard to think knowing how much you care
Then comes a bit of transition in your life. Where realisations hit a bit of ‘feels’ and all.
you know…
or
that part when you see or hang out with new people (often someone with special attention), and you feel like ‘I get this, I need to move on’. But such realisations don’t register as much as you get to know them, say, past your teenage years (or maybe earlier).
It’s the strangest thing through thick and thin
All this time kept the promise you made
If you’re telling, I’ll be told
I’ll come running and be there as soon as I can
And you just promise you will always be there for them. Whatever may happen. And life starts to move along, often you get to stay somewhere, telephone calls, texts, stuff you usually do finally came to a halt. Was never the same again, but you hold on to your promises, pinky swears, those unnecessary moments when you see some fairy lights glow to a perfect bokeh all over the room.
We grew up at midnight
We were only kids then
We grew up at midnight
We were only kids then, but that night we knew
Repeatedly you get this line. WE GREW UP AT MIDNIGHT. And WE WERE ONLY KIDS THEN. Sort of reminds you that anything foolish you tend to do back then was all because you were kids and you barely knew anything. Or you have no explanation on hand to whatever those were.
Until such time you realise.
Felix White explained in an NME interview once that the song works best as a finale for the “Given To The Wild” album. Often citing this as melancholic and nostalgic. I will always think that album deserves some recognition just about how it started and the way it gave you a proper closing. This, among other reasons, is to listen to the band’s narrative.
Danny Boyle used this song for his movie too.
This video, I just found on Youtube (and I’ll share anyway), gives you a glimpse how climactic the song could be when done properly. This is a scene from the movie Steve Jobs (2015).
The scene was more about Jobs and his daughter and how the entire part played around the thought of the song too.
So yeah, we used to be children, and we do not stay such that much. We can only grow in as much as we can live through memories we left behind. Whether that be about romantic relationships or friendships, we just have that feeling, often some kind of qualia.
Thanks for keeping up with our late night runs. Let me know your thoughts, leave your comments below.
Such a nice evening, you think?
Hope you have a great midnight, everyone!
Cheers!
