Songs Steve never let me play #3
One of the many things that I don’t like about airports is that they don’t understand early morning.
You know what I mean. You get up at half past yesterday for your pre-dawn flight. You feel like crying. But you’re too tired. Your eyes are so bleary you can’t quite work out if you’re actually up or just experiencing a soft-focus flashback of that time you had to get up at half past yesterday for a pre-dawn flight.
Then, you get to the airport and just when you most need to dowse your mind in cotton wool you’re thrust into a fluorescent nightmare where people rush about at 5.30am in a headache-inducing strip-lit version of Tuesday afternoon (famously voted ‘most mediocre time of the week’ four years running).
Thing is, if you’re up before six am, you’re weird. Not necessarily a full-on all-the-time weirdo, but it’s certainly weird that you’re up before six. Something weird has happened to necessitate you being up at such a weird time.
Maybe your tap exploded. Perhaps a sozzled hoodie threw urine on to your face. Perchance you need to travel several thousand miles quickly and therefore need to clear umpteen security checks to ensure that you don’t want to blow up the steel tube into which you’ve paid to be strapped.
Don’t try to sugar-coat it. It’s weird. It’s weird, you’re weird, everyone you see who isn’t asleep is weird, even the sky is weird.
What really grinds my gears is that airports steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that it’s weird – utterly, utterly mental – to be up and about already. Everyone’s dressed, everyone’s being professional, everything’s open, you can even get a pint. And JLS, Leona, Mariah, Beyonce are playing in the shops.
What should be playing in the shops is Boards of Canada.
I’ve always loved the Boards. I love how they evoke reassuring but distant memories of electronic kids’ TV themes from the early 80s, while simultaneously unsettling the pants off you with their creepy atmospherics.
Remember those Public Information Films from back in the day? They were truly terrifying, but utterly compelling. Boards of Canada (from Scotland, country discrepancy fans) capture the spirit of those films in modern electronica form.
Of course, much Boards stuff is instrumental and – naturally – weird. Weird like 4am is weird. And, having landed my dream job of occasionally playing a record on a minority interest Sunday afternoon DAB digital radio show as the least popular member of a posse many on the internet wanted to see at least dismantled (if not dismembered), I guess I knew that Steve wouldn’t want them on the show.
But the beauty of my new cyber-existence is that you could be reading this at any time. Like 4am – when this song works perfectly. Listen to it now, now, at 4am. Although don’t. I don’t think you should listen to it at all, ‘cos if you’re on the internets at 4am, you’re definitely not right. It could push you over the edge. Go to bed. Weirdo.
Quick Dan update: A lot of you haven’t been asking how the DJ thing went at the weekend. High point – crowd singalong. Low point – miscuing the Bullseye theme tune, which would have torn the place down (in a good, hip-hop way). Was forgiven. In your stupid face, unpopularity!
Do you like the Boards of Canada music? Do you have anything to say about this article? Would you like to broadly rewrite the article, but with your name alongside it? Perhaps you’d just like to copy random words from this article and smash them into a reply? Perhaps you’d just like to randomly hit your keyboard while making screechy animal noises and post what happens? Just do it – like I care! Remember you cannot follow me throughout the football season (or any other time) on twitter, and if you want to join me on facebook, try and pick a time when I’m drunk and just blindly accepting friend requests.
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I got to an airport too early once. My wife’s cousin had a crack of dawn flight from Stansted (or was it Luton?) and we chose to get there 2 hours before check-in (ignoring the new recommended anti-terror 3 hour delay). But when we arrived, there was no-one there at all. No staff. Just a security guy that moped about the place. Nowhere was open, not even Starbucks. It was hell. Well, hell for about 10 minutes, then I drove home leaving the poor lass to suffer before her flight to Spain.
This makes me feel uneasy, scared, but I can’t stop. I know it will only send me spiraling further and further into a chasm of waking up multiple times during the night and blanking out various times during the day. I don’t understand a human could’ve made this record. But still brilliant.
Jon, I apologise. I must be basing my experiences on my closeted metropolitan London life – Heathrow and Gatwick are early morning garish striplight nightmares. I think I’d prefer them to be closed.
NBrow, I wouldn’t want this to send you over the edge. It is both unsettling and strangely comforting at the same time. There’s another really good unofficial video for ‘In a beautiful place out in the country’ here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVWcptE6UAI – (won’t let me embed it) using ancient film footage of religious types at a camp. Fits the mood really well.
Dan, that semi-cultish clip sums up my feelings for this song, like some sort of comfort inducing drug that I’m too anxious to give myself over to completely, what a journey. Yet another record that I’ll have to order and presumably wait three months for.
Waiting eagerly for Songs Steve never let me play #4 (or SSNLMP4) for the next tune that’ll make me want to stand over a sink just in case, but in a good way.
Dan, I absolutely agree. Airports (and planes too) would be much closer to bearable with music like this playing in the background. Also like the visuals.
For the record, I always liked you on the Steve Show, particularly your charming giggle…
Why thank you berengei. I remember that giggle – ‘hee hee’ I believe it went. Hmmm, not so good written down to be fair.
Seems we’ve got a momemtum building. That’s three people in favour of the nascent ‘leftfield ambient music to be played in public spaces during the very early morning’ campaign. I reckon if we can get another, ooh, 28 million on board then we can take this to the government.